Book Review: The Secret Race - Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle

Just Let Them All Take Drugs And Leave Them To It

Wow, there a books that can really shake your understanding and beliefs in life. Some are very profound, the excellent Bounce book by Matthew Syed for example has changed how I raise my children and has made me assess my (lack of) limitations in life. The Secret Race has been so quite life changing but it has brought a whole new understanding to the soap opera that is cycling.

Tyler Hamilton was Lance's right hand man, for a period of time he roomed with him, he shared his aspirations and worries with him and he even doped with him. In this book Hamilton gives a first hand account of what it was like within the US Postal team and their organised doping. He also gives a full account of Armstrong and his personality, I never thought I would like him be I can't quite believe what a bullying nutcase he comes across as in the book.

My very wise wife has said to me in the past that they should 'just let them all take drugs and leave them to it'. Well it seems that they pretty much did. Hamilton says in his book that Armstrong was even caught for EPO in the Tour of Switzerland and the UCI swept it under the carpet - all for a $125,000 'donation' from Lance. Wow! It seems the authorities were so far behind the cyclists that they might have not bothered. Simple techniques like chugging down loads of water and simply pretending to not be in worked getting around drugs tests. Also they knew what time the testers were allowed to turn up so they would just try to take the drugs outside of those hours. One tester even phoned before he came to make sure they'd be in!

However, many keen cycling fans will have heard about the Festina affair in 1998 where a member of the team was caught carrying a load of drugs across the border during the tour. This meant a massive clamp down and all the cyclists and teams were running scared of the testers and being caught. Armstrong thought everyone else would still be getting their EPO one way or another and so organised his to be delivered. However they were wrong and in recent times (since Lance's retirement) the samples taken from riders at the time were tested with the new tests able to catch the cheats. Only 8% tested positive. 8%! That means only 8% of the field had a chance against Armstrong in his first tour win.

This really changed my perspective on the whole thing. I've always felt it was a fairly even playing field but it obviously wasn't that year. As time went on everyone else was doping, in fact most of them were using the same doctor! In fact I can remember one year when everyone was attacking Armstrong and it was a real close race - that must have been the year everyone was wired up to the eyeballs!

Having read David Millar's Racing Through The Dark and now this book, there is a stark contrast. Millar felt he was pushed in to drug taking, that he had no choice, that he felt bad. I feel Hamilton's view point is probably a lot more common. He portrays it as a cool club that he wanted to be in, that it gave him belief he could win or more that he didn't think he could win without it. He saw a marked change in competitors and felt he wanted and needed to follow them.The irony being that one tell-tale sign to him was one person's improvement over another athlete. It turns out that at that point that cyclist wasn't doping, he was just on good form but I guess this is why drug taking gave them the belief.

I think at the moment there is still a lot of drug taking about. The course for the Vuelta was so punishing but some cyclists seemed to compete day after day at the same level, cycling up the steepest of mountains like they were racing on the flat. There was a phrase used by Lance that someone was doping, he said a result or a performance was 'not normal'. The Vuelta this year was 'not normal', let's hope the tour this year is.

Oh and do buy the book, you will find it fascinating.

Guest Post: How Football Led To A Love Of Cycling

Cycling seems to have become so popular in recent years, I've suddenly got friends who appreciate slipstreaming and some even understand the need for Lycra. I sat next to Steve for years while watching Huddersfield Town limp through mediocrity in the 1990s, not once did we discuss cycling. Yet football has bizarrely led him in to cycling. I asked him to write a post about it.

I loved cycling when I was a kid. I remember the chrome Diamond Back BMX I got from Halfords in Huddersfield for my eighth birthday; admittedly this was a bit special (and a serious upgrade from a Raleigh Puffin, stabilisers optional) but it was Yorkshire in the 1980s: everyone had a bike of some description, it was something to do whilst waiting for the games to load on the ZX Spectrum. The further upgrade to a Muddy Fox mountain bike in the 1990s was a natural progression.

And we did some epic rides back then as well, relative to our age and size – all the way up the canal towpath to Tunnel End and back, the climb up to Castle Hill, and so on. My friend insists we also climbed Holme Moss one summer, though how my teenage self on a mountain bike ever managed to achieve this, I am mystified and have therefore lost it from my memory.

Inevitably, and like pretty much everyone I know around my age, hitting 17 changed everything; for me it was the holy triumvirate of College, Cars and Girls. Riding the Muddy Fox was in no way cool enough for a boy on the cusp of manhood, so the bike went further and further to the back of my parents’ storeroom – it literally didn’t turn a wheel until rescued by my nephew a couple of years ago.

Life moved on, and if I’m honest cycling never even entered my head for nearly 15 years (I’d occasionally watch the Tour de France highlights on the TV, but usually that would end with me getting very confused at why the guy winning wasn’t at the front). Instead I kept playing lots of football and very much got into running – culminating in running the 2007 London Marathon and destroying my knees in the process. I kept relatively fit thereafter, but I felt I was lacking something to really get into – another challenge like the marathon that would really engage me and get me motivated.

In 2011, Huddersfield Town came to my rescue. If I’m honest, as much as I love and religiously follow my football team, they’ve not exactly come up with the goods very often in my 28 years of devotion. However, to them I do owe my reintroduction to cycling: the ‘Pedal for Pounds’ charity bike ride was set up to raise money for the academy and the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, and involved us riding from Huddersfield to Brighton over the course of 3 ½ days in late April.

The ride to Brighton was difficult (in no small part due to borrowing my brother-in-laws hybrid, which shared a similar weight and aerodynamics as a Boris Bike) but truly glorious. Over 280 miles, I think it rained for about 2 minutes in total; the rest of the time the weather was fantastic and we had a whale of a time. We even got to ride through Central London on the day of the Royal Wedding – empty roads, street parties everywhere; the coup de grace was going straight over Tower Bridge (something I managed in agony on foot 4 years previously), posing for photos in the middle of the road along the way.

Oh, and Town won a thrilling game 3-2 with a last minute goal, everyone went mental and the week was complete in fine style.

After the Brighton run, I bought my own hybrid and made all the right noises about getting out on it through summer and getting into cycling a little more; I made up plenty of excuses instead and ended up doing very little indeed until the next Pedal for Pounds event was announced for May 2012 – a ride from Yeovil back to Huddersfield.

This had me immediately back in training, getting very excited and looking forward to another jolly boys week of sun, cycling and beer. In reality, there was a lot of cycling – the second day of the ride was the first time I managed over 100 miles in a single day; some beer of course but absolutely no sun. It. Was. Miserable. On the aforementioned second day between Bath and Solihull, the heavens opened all afternoon, making for some of the worst cycling conditions you could hope for. I was one of the earlier ones back to the hotel, at half seven (having left before nine that morning); some unfortunate folk just made it back for last orders, others were less lucky still and ended up crashing or giving it up as a bad job.

As I sat in the bath that night (with the shower on too for added hypothermia avoidance), I reflected on the day of hell that had been and realised something truly perverse: I’d loved it. The challenge of just keeping going was harder than anything I’d ever done in my life before, and the prospect of another 90-mile day to follow should have filled me with dread. Instead I woke up aching but good to go again, raring to stare down adversity and, as it turned out, some very soggy clothing.

The rest of the ride was bitterly cold but mercifully dry, and the reception upon returning to the Town ground was worth all the hours of toil and suffering. Though, if I’m honest, by that point if one man and his dog had greeted us I would have been just as proud.

Something clicked on that journey (as well as my knees): I adored the misery required for the achievement. It made me hungry to do more on the bike, to stop making lame excuses and just get out there. Subsequent research and interest has taught me that this is exactly what cycling is about – some of the pictures from the 2013 Milan-San Remo sum my 1000 words up perfectly: why would anyone want to punish themselves in such horrible conditions? Cyclists know.

By coincidence 2012 turned out to be British Cycling’s annus mirabilis – Wiggins, the Olympics and all that. I immersed myself in all of it, and before I know what’s happened I’m addicted – signing up to sportives and more charity rides, spending a small fortune on a road bike and all the gear, diving headlong into the culture I didn’t really know existed twelve months ago.

I imagine that to outsiders I look like I’ve caught the crest of a wave, coming back to cycling when it’s cool to ride a bike again. This may be true to a certain extent, but I know I can hold my head up and say I learned my love the hard way, and no-one can take the feelings of pain, anguish and sheer joy away from me now. I’m a proper cyclist now.

If you'd like to know more about Steve's latest adventure and maybe even sponsor him click here. You can also follow Steve's progress on twitter @stevejcarson. 

The New Steed

So the wheels are a bit narrower than the last lot.

The seat doesn't look quite as comfortable.

Although the handles certainly look like they'll help you through those bone shaking miles.

The Specialized Sirrus Sport certainly seems a lot quicker than my last bike.

My New pride and joy ready to rock and roll, new pannier racks fitted and ready. I picked it up today with the intention of giving it a blast today, I can't let the freezing temperatures put me off can I?

I bought it from www.bicyclechain.co.uk and can definitely recommend them. They gave me a good price, set it up for me and testing different bikes out on their test track was perfect for choosing the right bike.

The Escape Artist - Matt Seaton: Book Review

Reading the back of this book you would believe this book is about the terminal illness of the writer's wife and how that impacted his life. Well that's the impression I got. Yet it's so much more than that and in fact that is merely a side story to the main theme. Cycling. Amateur cycling and Seaton's obsession with it.

I've played football at amateur level since I was 18 and found Matt's account of the cycling equivalent fascinating. He addresses everything from the training schedules to the changing room etiquette - I'm assuming the 'not looking' policy is the same in all male changing rooms throughout the UK despite my wife's insistance to the contrary - not that he mentions this side of it. Seeing the dedication required to achieve at such a low level is quite an eye opener but what this book covers and excels at is that it covers questions you've always wanted to ask about cycling and raises, and answers a whole load more.

What you begin to realise is that his main enjoyment, hobby and reason for living is about to come to an end. While his mouth and brain have come to terms with that his heart hasn't. Forget his wife's illness or their IVF treatment, this is where the book really got me. Having given up football 15 years after starting I could totally relate to what Seaton was now facing. Family life called and it was only right he gave up cycling. While he slowly withdrew from cycling it dawned on him even more slowly how this would affect him.

So if you're suddenly finding age and life catching up on you and you're no longer doing what you want for just you 100% of the time then this book is for you. He doesn't tell you how to deal with it, he doesn't know himself but it does show you that many more men across the country are going through the same thing, whether they're in to tennis, cycling, football or rock climbing. If you want a full, rounded life then it will come to you too.

Bradley Wiggins: Tour de Force - Book Review

Daniel Coyle's similarly titled Lance Armstrong: Tour de Force was a fantastic read, one of my favourite (at the time) cycling books. This is by a different author, John Deering and so is not to be confused with the former. However it is a real pleasurable read. It cleverly mixes a day-by-day run down of Wiggo's Tour Success in 2012 with a look at the rider's history and build up to the tour in a similar way to Coyle.

As an avid Tour follower and equally keen reader of cycling books a lot of it was visiting familiar ground already covered elsewhere. If you watched all the 2012 tour and have read Sky's The Limit and Bradley Wiggins autobiography (released a couple of years ago) then you will learn little from this book. But that isn't the only reason to read is it? Deering beautifully pulls all this information together and presents it in an enjoyable way that is like reading the best bits of three books and adding them to your own personal memories. He adds first hand tales from the tour as well as information gleaned from difference sources such as tweets and web site reports. Most importantly for me, he explained where the nickname of Frome Dog for Chris Frome came from. I first heard it on ITV4 when David Millar was interviewed. I thought it was his 'street' name for Frome. Turns out it was quoting a tweet from Frome's girlfriend as she felt his interests were playing second fiddle to Wiggin's ambitions "if you want loyalty get yourself a Frome dog". So now you know too, I may have taken away your "aha" moment but there is still plenty in this book to keep you entertained and is well worth a read.