Q&A with Ianto Ware

Lisa Dempster talks with Ianto Ware about his new book, part love letter to cycling and part history of the Tour de France.


What inspired you to write about the Tour de France?

I was a chronic insomniac when I was a student, which is how I got into the Tour. I used to stay up late at night writing and watching cycling and the two sort of merged.

Then, after I finished my PhD, I started working as a research assistant. It was a fairly unpleasant experience. I found a lot of tenured academics were either inept or sociopathic. So I decided that world wasn’t for me and instead of writing refereed publications and funding proposals, I wrote a 30,000 word fanzine on the 2008 Tour de France. I can’t say that really helped my career any – and I no longer work in the university system – but people seemed to like it.

Last year John Hunter of Hunter Publishers asked if I’d consider turning that fanzine into a proper book. So I pretty much completely re-wrote it.

The middle-of-the-night screening aspect makes watching the Tour de France a unique experience for Australian fans. How do you think your viewing habits have shaped your interest in the Tour?

In my case, it had a huge impact. I remember watching the Tour in 2008: that winter was absolutely freezing, I was living alone, my girlfriend had just left me and I hated my job. I’d sit up late watching the Tour and it was like glimpsing this magical world where the sun was always shining and you could ride all day through beautiful countryside while people cheered you on. The insomnia probably helped. With a certain degree of sleep deprivation, I think you’re a bit more susceptible to things.

Although, you hear similar stories from the UK, particularly in the fifties and sixties, so maybe it’s not specific to the late nights. Old English cyclists talk about getting imported French magazines and seeing this exotic world where you could ride a bike for a living. They would dream about it while they rode to work in a factory in the dismal English weather.

Although Twenty-One Nights in July is about cycling, there is a lot in there about writing – journalism and even novels. Do you think cycling is the most literary sport?

All the Grand Tours were designed to sell newspapers. The Tour de France’s founder, Henri Desgrange, deliberately set it up to create copy for his paper. He wanted a three-week narrative that kept people buying each day’s edition, and he wrote the race up like it was a saga. Compare that to things like football or basketball. When television became popular, they did really well – they’re very visual sports. You can’t really watch road cycling. You stand on the side of the road and the peloton goes past you. Before television, you had to buy the next day’s paper to find out what happened. I think it explains why there’s so much great literature on cycling. People have been reading and writing about the sport since it first started, so it has a very strong literary tradition.

You are known for writing zines in particular. How was the experience of working with a publisher different to your previous experiences of self-publishing?

It was great! I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone edit my work so thoroughly and give so much feedback. Although I do feel bad for John [Hunter], because essentially I’ve taken the 30,000 word fanzine he originally liked, scrapped it entirely, doubled the word count, removed most of the humour and then told him to pay for all the publishing and distribution costs. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much support for any project I’ve done in the past and to be honest it feels like I’m cheating a little bit. I have this sense of guilt that I’ve tricked John into bearing the costs for my sprawling essay on the philosophical importance of cycling.

You write in your book, ‘… at the heart of cycling is a philosophical, rather than purely physical, experience’. What is it about the bike that makes it such a profound activity?

It’s a beautiful machine. Most machines today, and I’m thinking of the car in particular, work by replacing your energy with an engine, so you basically become parasitical. By contrast, the bike works by amplifying your energy. I can remember being a little kid riding around on a bike and it was like I could suddenly run at superhuman speed. It was amazing. Then as I got older and I’d go out riding, it was just such a revelation that I could use my own strength to go so far and so fast.

Also, the act of cycling, being so rhythmic, tends to produce a sort of hypnotic effect. At least, that’s how I experience it. I used to notice this when I was studying a lot. I’d be so caught up in thinking about editing and writing and deadlines that were months away, and then I’d go out and ride for four or five hours and forget everything other than the road, my cadence, and my heart and lungs. I find a good ride sort of psychologically all-consuming; you stop thinking about anything else.


Lisa Dempster is the Director of Melbourne Writers Festival, and a lover of all things bike.

Cover image for Twenty-One Nights in July

Twenty-One Nights in July

Ianto Ware

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