The Tour de France...to the bitter end

Having started in 1903 as a publicity stunt for an ailing French newspaper, the Tour de France is now the world's greatest sporting spectacle. Back then, cyclists raced alone through the night, sometimes at the risk of being beaten up. Today's riders pedal 3,500 km around the French countryside, cheered on by huge roadside crowds and accompanied by the mighty caravan of media, sponsors and support staff that keeps the wheels turning. But one thing hasn't changed: the Tour remains just as awe-inspiring a test of extreme mental and physical stamina as it has always been.

The Tour de France...to the bitter end is the best of over a century of Guardian and Observer Tour reporting, with pieces about all the cycling greats - everyone from Louison Bobet, Tom Simpson, Eddy Merckx, Lance Armstrong to 2012 favourite, Bradley Wiggins. The book covers areas such as press reporting of the race, doping, tactics to crashes. Geoffrey Nicholson, Chris Brasher, Richard Williams and William Fotheringham, who also wrote the introduction, are just some of the top writers included.

Also available from Guardian books.

December 14 1911: Roald Amundsen reaches the south pole

On 14 December 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team became the first people to reach the South Pole. The Guardian and Observer reported it - but not until three months later. Read the articles on the From the archive blog.

Blue plaque for Edward Whymper

Edward Whymper has become the first mountaineer to be commemorated with an English Heritage blue plaque. One hundred years after his death, the Teddington home of the first man to climb the Matterhorn now boasts one of the unique design icons. The plaque was unveiled by Mick Fowler, president of the Alpine Club - the great organisation of which Whymper was a prominent member. 

It was on July 14 1865, after eight attempts, that Whymper finally made it to the top of the mountain. However, on the descent four members of the party were dragged to their deaths, as reported in the Manchester Guardian on July 21 1865:

This provoked a scandal with claims that the rope had been cut and there was even talk of Queen Victoria suggesting that mountaineering should be outlawed. Whymper was haunted by the deaths and he later wrote in Scrambles Amongst the Alps "I see my comrades of the Matterhorn slipping in their backs, their arms outstretched, one after the other". But not everyone blamed him for the accident as shown by the following article which appeared in the paper a week later:

Read about Whymper's London here.

The death of John Hanning Speke

A new book reappraises 19th-century explorer John Hanning Speke's place in history. During his life, Speke's claim to have the found the Nile source was challenged and his achievements were diminished by fellow traveller Sir Richard Burton, who described him as a "deluded nonentity" - a view repeated by successive biographers. However, Tim Jeal reveals a very different man in Explorers of the Nile, someone who he believes should be in the pantheon of the world's greatest explorers. Read more about it in an Observer article and a piece by Jeal.

Speke's theory that Lake Victoria was the source of Nile was rejected by Burton, thus beginning a bitter public dispute between the two men. On September 15 1864, shortly before Speke and Burton were to debate the subject publicly, Speke was killed by his own gun while hunting. It remains uncertain whether it was an accident or suicide. It was a sad end to an eventful life, as shown in this Manchester Guardian news item from September 19 1864:

Not to be sold separately: The Observer Colour Magazine 1964-1995

Not to be sold separately: The Observer Colour Magazine 1964-1995, is a new exhibition at Kings Place that celebrates the influence of the paper's magazine on British newspaper publishing. Launched on September 6 1964, the magazine was to combine the best of the Observer's own editorial staff with freelancers, aiming to compete with the Sunday Times magazine (launched in 1962) and titles such as Life and Paris Match. Photojournalism featured heavily on the pages and an introduction to the exhibition states "At a time when most art galleries did not show photographs, the magazine played pivotal role." Subjects covered in the exhibition include everything from punk rock, the new universities being built in the 1960s to Gypsies, with work by the likes of Don McCullin, Jane Bown and Ian Berry.

As shown in Those Who Dared passim, the magazine also published numerous essays on mountaineering and the outdoors. As well as an interview with Tryggve Gran, the only Norwegian member of Captain Scott's South Pole team, there was the famous 1965 Al Avarez article about the climber, Peter Crew. A few years later Crew wrote a detailed account, with pictures by Leo Dickinson, about the first ascent of North Gaulton Castle, a sea stack found on Orkney's west mainland (September 6 1970).

It is another Dickinson picture that has been chosen for the exhibition - this time a stunning shot from the north face of the Eiger. The words are by Michael Deakin, producer of a Yorkshire TV programme about the climb (directed and filmed by Dickinson and Cliff Phillips). The article appeared on December 5 1970.

What makes Not to be sold separately a unique exhibition is that this is the first time many of the images have been seen since publication. Unlike the rest of the paper, the Observer Magazine hasn't been digitised, nor is there an index. Read more about the magazine archive here.

Douglas Mawson on Twitter

The diary entries of polar exlorer Sir Douglas Mawson can now be read on Twitter, one hundred years afer the Australian set out to explore Antarctica's King George V Land. The Tasmanian Department of Economic Development and Tourism, as part of Antarctic Centennial Year, is doing the tweeting. Given though that Mawson was a prolific diary writer it must a challenge to distill his words down to 140 characters. At this stage the expedition is still loading supplies in London.

The publishing of old diaries on Twitter is hardly a new idea as Captain Scott's appeared back in 2009. However, there is a Mawson link with communication technology as he was involved in establishing the first Antarctic wireless radio connection, linking Hobart via a radio relay station established at Wireless Hill on Macquarie Island.

Colin Kirkus

An excellent profile of the rock-climber Colin Kirkus recently appeared on the Footless Crow blog. It tells the story of how the clerk from a Liverpool insurance office "strode like a Colossus across the British climbing scene", putting up a series of hard routes during the late1920s and early-1930s, However, after a fatal accident on Ben Nevis in 1934 in which he was seriously injured and his climbing partner, Maurice Linnell, died, Kirkus never fully recovered - both physically or the urge to create new lines.

I always wanted to include a piece about Colin Kirkus in the Guardian Book of Mountains, particularly a review of his 1941 book, Let's Go Climbing! Alas, the paper didn't cover it. On a more sombre note, on April 2 1934 it carried a detailed report of the Ben Nevis accident and on April 20, an interview with him. (click on images to enlarge)