The Secret Race is a definitive look at the world of professional cycling—and the doping issue surrounding this sport and its most iconic rider, Lance Armstrong—by former Olympic gold medalist Tyler Hamilton and New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle.
 
Over the course of two years, Coyle conducted more than two hundred hours of interviews with Hamilton and spoke candidly with numerous teammates, rivals, and friends. The result is an explosive book that takes us, for the first time, deep inside a shadowy, fascinating, and surreal world of unscrupulous doctors, anything-goes team directors, and athletes so relentlessly driven to succeed that they would do anything—and take any risk, physical, mental, or moral—to gain the edge they need to win.
 
Tyler Hamilton was once one of the world’s best-liked and top-ranked cyclists—a fierce competitor renowned among his peers for his uncanny endurance and epic tolerance for pain. In the 2003 Tour de France, he finished fourth despite breaking his collarbone in the early stages—and grinding eleven of his teeth down to the nerves along the way. He started his career with the U.S. Postal Service team in the 1990s and quickly rose to become Lance Armstrong’s most trusted lieutenant, and a member of his inner circle. For the first three of Armstrong’s record seven Tour de France victories, Hamilton was by Armstrong’s side, clearing his way. But just weeks after Hamilton reached his own personal pinnacle—winning the gold medal at the 2004 Olympics—his career came to a sudden, ignominious end: He was found guilty of doping and exiled from the sport.
 
From the exhilaration of his early, naïve days in the peloton, Hamilton chronicles his ascent to the uppermost reaches of this unforgiving sport. In the mid-1990s, the advent of a powerful new blood-boosting drug called EPO reshaped the world of cycling, and a relentless, win-at-any-cost ethos took root. Its psychological toll would drive many of the sport’s top performers to substance abuse, depression, even suicide. For the first time ever, Hamilton recounts his own battle with clinical depression, speaks frankly about the agonizing choices that go along with the decision to compete at a world-class level, and tells the story of his complicated relationship with Lance Armstrong.
 
A journey into the heart of a never-before-seen world, The Secret Race is a riveting, courageous act of witness from a man who is as determined to reveal the hard truth about his sport as he once was to win the Tour de France.

next lot of books arrived today

Book Description
Publication Date: 11 Oct 2012
Bradley Wiggins is Britain's most successful and best known cyclist. He emerged as a talented track cyclist and then moved onto the roads with increasing success, culminating in his stunning summer of 2012 when he became the first British cyclist to win the Tour and bring home the yellow jersey and then went on to win Olympic gold in the time trial.

Daniel Friebe celebrates Wiggo's record breaking summer, as Team Sky took on the Tour de France and brought home the yellow jersey. He looks at the build up to the 2012 Tour as well as the strategy that brought ultimate success.

'Allez Wiggo!' - the cry of the French fans lining the roads who fell in love with our mod genius on two wheels.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/book-extract-the-eagle-of-toledo

Just read...



Great book, fascinating insight into his racing life, great rider..

As a man and a human being, what a complete and utter tosspot..

.

Right thats it..
It is on the list  O0

Has anyone read "Road to Valour: Gino Bartali: Tour de France Legend and Italy's Secret World War Two Hero"?

It's an biography on Bartali focusing on the years during the war. It's absolutely amazing. I started this morning and have now read 180 pages more or less without a pause.

Yeah I read.  As a narrative of the war I enjoyed it.

But all his cycling accomplishments, Giro victories, classics achievements, Coppi rivalry (definitely this one)   were all pushed to the wayside.

I learned lots and was intrigued from a historical standpoint, but from a cycling standpoint- I felt it definitely lacked substance

On the team with Swart was a young American by the name of Lance Armstrong

I read it in French and found it rather mild. Perhaps they doped the translation too. ;D

Fignon was one of the great cycling characters but I'm afraid his writing is pretty awful. Perhaps I took the whole "professor" thing with him too literally.

What I enjoyed the most though, as I always have with retrospective autobiogs (as opposed to those ghostwritten for still-active riders), is the intimacy with which all the behind-the-scenes routines are described.