Il Lombardia Notebook

Because inspiration doesn’t wait for you to be at your desk.

All The Handmade Cyclist’s designs start life as a sketch in a notebook. A shape, a line, a story. Pen, pencil, or whatever was to hand. Thoughts, ideas, plans. A great notebook is a companion, a colleague and a confidante.

Our beautiful notebooks feel as good as they look, with a luxurious and durable soft-touch cover (don’t be surprised if you can’t stop stroking them) and with 96 pages there’s month's worth of doodling to be done. The ideal size to fit in a jacket pocket or bag, with an elastic closure to keep things tidy. A great gift for the cycling fan if your life, or a perfect treat for you.

The Monuments (Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix, The Tour of Flanders, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Tour of Lombardy) are five of the oldest, longest and toughest one-day cycle races in the world. Each has its own unique character, landmarks and legends. We’ve created new, wide-screen versions of our designs exclusively for our notebooks, for a beautiful wraparound cover.

Taking place at the very end of the season, Lombardy is the last great race of the year. It tours the hills that surround Lake Garda, and is famed as one of the most beautiful races anywhere in the world. Memories of finishing sprints bathed in the warm light of the early evening autumn sun, and of lethal descents made treacherous by the fallen leaves of its title.
At its climax the riders race up the mythic Ghisallo climb, whose hairpins take the riders ever-upwards to one of the most revered places in cycling - the Madonna di Ghisallo. The Madonna is a small chapel at the peak of the climb whose interior is a shrine to cycling. While the racers have no time to stop and offer up a prayer, the Madonna is the end of many a cyclist's pilgrimage.