The Secret Race

I always loved Tyler Hamilton's competitive spirit and how he fought through pain to race. I was saddened in his “downfall” but I'm glad to see he is recovering well. If you ate a bike race watcher getting hit upside the head with this book will change your perspective immediately. If you are a bike racer, like myself, you have compassion followed by disgust on what these riders have done. I don't stand in judgement but it calls into question everything and my cycling heroes are now shoved off the pedestal I put them on. I hope the new generation is not led down the doping paths but I will forever be skeptical now.

The narrator's own story is not the most interesting but he's perfectly placed and well able to tell the story of cycling's early 2000s doping with colour. The best cycling book so far from the dozen I've read.