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A century of Alpine postcards from the Isola Press archive, VINTAGE
ALPINE POSTCARDS celebrates Europe's great mountain range. These
dispatches from the Alps take us from men in bowler hats with stout
ropes nonchalantly crawling over crevasses, through the gilded age
of grand hotels and sleigh rides, to the modernist concrete
infrastructure of mountaintop restaurants and cable-car stations.
They frame the changing way we've experienced landscape and leisure
over more than a hundred years - from the intrepid to the banal,
sublime to ridculous and brutalist to kitsch. But postcards travel
through time as well as space, and they arrive with messages from
our former selves. Underlying the Alpenkitsch is a serious
examination of our relationship to nature and how we have used and
abused the beauties of the natural world. And, like sun-burnished
memories of holidays past, their sunlit scenes do not necessarily
correspond to reality. Postcard makers have always used artifice to
conjure fantastic spaces, worlds in which the sky is always blue,
the pine trees resplendent and there is always plenty of fresh
powder. Featuring great views, architecture, infrastructure
Alpinism, hiking and snow sports, VINTAGE ALPINE POSTCARDS is
perfect for skiers, hikers, cyclists and mountain lovers. These
skaters, skiers, sledgers and St Bernards will surprise and delight
mountain aficionados, transporting them to a high altitude holiday
wherever they are.
High above the pleasure palaces of the French Riviera is the Alpine
Extension of the Maginot Line. These little-known bunkers were
built in the 1930s to protect against Mussolini. But things didn't
quite turn out at the French expected . . . Now, they are marooned
and crumbling in some of the most beautiful, remote parts of the
Alps. They are disappearing into the landscapes they once
commanded, stray facts from a future passed, still waiting for an
onslaught that never came. Bunker Research is for adventurers,
architects, historians, mountain lovers and urban explorers. Follow
this disquieting journey, told in stunning photos and prose, up
peaks, along ridges and down valleys, searching for the hidden
history of modernism in the mountains. The second edition follows
the long-sold-out limited first printing, which won 'Best
Self-Published Book' at the British Book Design & Production
Awards 2016. If features 10 pages of new photos.
Founded in 1955, the Rough-Stuff Fellowship is the world's oldest
off-road cycling club. Its archive contains thousands of stunning
images, hand-drawn maps and documents - an unexpected treasure
trove of incredible value and beauty that is now being brought to a
wider public by Isola Press. The photos are evocative of a bygone
age and a bygone style - a time when you might set off on a bike
ride wearing a shirt and tie or a bobble hat, and no ride was
complete without a stop to brew up some tea and smoke a pipe. They
are also a record of intrepid adventures. RSF riders explored the
Lake District, the Cairngorms, the Alps and further afield, and
their exploits were beautifully documented by amateur and
professional photographers. In their own very British way, these
men and women were pioneers, pedalling and carrying their bikes
where angels feared to tread. Mountain bikes, gravel bikes,
adventure bikes all owe them a debt. This book celebrates their
style and their spirit. It is a stunning visual resource of cycling
heritage that will inspire new adventures.
The eight guides in the 'City Cycling Europe' series are each
devoted to a different city: London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen,
Antwerp/Ghent, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona and Milan. Each compact
volume features cycle-friendly neighbourhoods, itineraries, cycle
maps and places to visit where cyclists are always welcome. Aimed
primarily at those looking to take casual weekend breaks, there is
also information for hardcore racing enthusiasts and special routes
for those wishing to escape the traffic.
In the 1980s, Hackney was one of the most deprived parts of the UK,
its citizens ignored by Margaret Thatcher's new vision of Britain.
But at Dalston's Rio - London's oldest community cinema - the
Tape/Slide Newsreel Group was giving unemployed local youth a
voice. Set up in 1982, it taught photography and sound-recording
skills, and championed an alternative, left-wing perspective on
Hackney life. In 2016, thousands of slides were found in a filing
cabinet in the Rio's basement, a legacy of this ground-breaking
project. The book presents the best of the slides that were shown
in newsreels before the main feature at the Rio, alongside
recollections of the Tape/Slide Newsreel Group participants. This
important oral history places the photos in the cultural and
political context of Hackney in the 1980s, meaning that, unlike
some photobooks about East London, it is connected to the
communities it portrays and remains true to the original radicalism
behind the Tape/Slide Newsreel Group. There are introductory essays
by Andrew Woodyatt (of The Rio), about the cinema's activities in
the 1980s, and by Alan Denney (the photographer and local historian
who digitised all the slides) putting the archive into the context
of the contemporary movements in radical community photography,
plus forewords from Michael Rosen and Zawe Ashton. The archive is
presented chronologically and themes include: activism, parades and
protest marches; art, culture, music and festivals; social problems
and community action; street life and style; urban landscapes and
dereliction; work and everyday life; young and old.
Why do road cyclists go to the mountains? Many books tell you where
the mountains are, or how long and how high. None of them ask
'Why?' After all, cycling up a mountain is hard - so hard that, to
many non-cyclists, it can seem absurd. But, for some, climbing a
mountain gracefully (and beating your competitors up the slope)
represents the pinnacle of cycling achievement. The mountains are
where legends are forged and cycling's greats make their names. Why
are Europe's mountain ranges professional cycling's Wembley Stadium
or its Colosseum? Why do amateurs also make a pilgrimage to these
high, remote roads and what do we see and feel when we do? Why are
the roads there in the first place? Higher Calling explores the
central place of mountains in the folklore of road cycling.
Blending adventure and travel writing with the rich narrative of
pro racing, Max Leonard takes the reader from the battles that
created the Alpine roads to the shepherds tending their flocks on
the peaks, and to a Grand Tour climax on the 'highest road in
Europe'. And he tells stories of courage and sacrifice, war and
love, obsession and elephants along the way.
lanterne rouge (French | noun): The competitor who finishes last in
the Tour de France Froome, Wiggins, Merckx - we know the winners of
the Tour de France, but what about the men who finish last?
Lanterne Rouge tells the forgotten, often inspirational and
occasionally absurd stories of the last-placed rider. We learn of
stage winners and former yellow jerseys who tasted life at the
other end of the bunch; the breakaway leader who stopped for a
bottle of wine and then took a wrong turn; the doper whose drug
cocktail accidently slowed him down and the rider who was
recognised as the most combative despite finishing at the back.
Flipping the Tour de France on its head and examines what these
stories tell us about ourselves, the 99% who don't win the trophy,
Lantern Rouge forces us to re-examine the meaning of success,
failure and the very nature of sport. 'A lively account of largely
forgotten men... It's not easy to come up with an original angle on
Le Tour, but with this rear view Leonard has managed the feat in
style' Independent on Sunday
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