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.
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