The Secret Cyclist: Real Life as a Rider in the Professional Peloton

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So an eyebrow of suspicion rises when reading TSP’s assertion that Cadel Evans has “always had a chip on his shoulder, but this time it’s much more than a chip, it’s a whole bag of Doritos!”

Driving and cycling safely is the responsibility of the motorist and cyclist. Bad driving and cycling can put people’s lives at risk, cause life changing injuries or have lasting effects on the mental health of those involved. He's ridden for World Tour teams for 10 years. He's achieved top 10 finishes in Grand Tours. He likes coffee. These are just a few details about the professional rider who wants you to know what the view looks like from the centre of the peloton. We ride whatever we're paid to, and part of the gig is singing praises ... It's part of cycling, but it's very rarely honest' – and that's always going to be the case when sponsorship is virtually the only thing that keeps the professional sport alive. The Secret Cyclist has some views on cycling's economic model, reflecting that 'I don't think there's another sport in the world that has a more blasé approach to long-term economic stability', because 'we still haven't figured out how to monetise it properly, how to share the revenues, how to promote growth.' Real life as a rider in the professional peloton, revealing the side of the sport that only an anonymous cyclist can tell.Besides the balding enigma that is Juanjo, many people flagged up Ivan Basso’s name – given that the Italian had withdrawn from the Giro just days before the start with a mysterious cyst on his bottom. (In hindsight, this was suspicious – just like Alessandro mysteriously hanging up his Sidi cycling shoes on the eve of his home Tour…). the contemporary nature of the book is evidenced by the two chapters concerning the 2018 giro and 2018 tour, but other topics covered include: getting started, the season, the team, equipment, contracts and agents, crashes, team sky and doping, to name but a few. in the latter chapter, the author professes to be racing drug-free (though, given his anonymity, unverifiably so) and though i didn't come across any hitherto unknown revelations, the author is not slow to make his opinions clear. Our Local Transport Plan and Oxford Transport Strategy include ambitious proposals on cycling. We are working closely with the city council as it prepares its new Local Plan to find opportunities for the city’s future development to help support more cycling, and safer cycling." Spokesman James Williams said: "Collisions on the road are one of the leading causes of death in the UK. Many of these incidents could easily be prevented by driving more safely. I suspect that this book would play a valuable role in the education of any aspiring pro, because (if it didn't put you off such a career) you would certainly be better prepared – but I doubt that is the target market. Fortunately, that same information gives the rest of us the best understanding yet about aspects of life as a professional cyclist that are not normally discussed. Verdict

There are also many little nuggets of information that would have helped to inform the debate surrounding recent events. Take the transfer from Sicily to the mainland in the 2018 Giro d'Italia, for example: most of the race entourage suffered a long trip in a boat that was then delayed, leading to a compromised recovery process, whereas some of Team Sky used a helicopter. Some claimed that it was just Sky using their big budget to gain an edge, and others that they were merely organised enough to make the necessary preparations. The truth seems to lie in the middle: apparently 'that helicopter was on the list of optional extras that the teams were offered by RCS before the start. It cost €5,000,' and Sky obviously had different priorities to other teams. Every public aspect of our lives is so tightly controlled that being truly honest is all but impossible in a newspaper interview, never mind a whole book. You try write a warts-and-all blog about your office. Question how the business is run, make sure you remember to call your boss a moron, and then tell me how it goes." this guy went through all the columns in March 2016, and came up with 6 possible riders who did all the races mentioned in 2013 columnsI can’t say who it is but when the news breaks you’ll know who I’m talking about. If it’s true, it’s a good thing that’s [sic] he’s been found out; it shows that the biological passport is doing its job.” Look at it another way – it doesn’t take a blood passport to make one entry in this sequence look rather suspicious: DNF, DNF, 20th, DNF, 10th, 1st, 30th, 67th.

Although not many of us were – because not many of us were actually reading the column, which hadn’t proved to be anywhere near as explosive or interesting as the concept first promised. So much of the book will be already familiar, even to the casual cyclist like myself. In particular, the Sky debacle and niggles about Sky's financial clout have been done to death in the cycling and everyday press over the last two years. This could be one of the best books on the circus that is WordTour cycling written from the inside. There are quite a few quality books out there written by cyclists who rode at the highest level of the sport, but this might be the only one written while the cyclist is still in the pro peloton. That lead me to this book, which arrived with no fanfare last month- in fact I came across it when browsing in a book shop next to work one lunch time. I normally am quite alert to new books (for example I'm looking forward to William Fotheringham's Beryl Burton offering) so to just happen upon it was a bit strange. It should also be clearly noted that this is not the Cycling Tips Secret Pro- it is generally recognised that he is an antipodean whereas it is more probable-than-not that the unnamed author here is European. But you would expect a book, based on an insider view of the world of pro-cycling to have more of a buzz about it- particularly when thinking about some of the more recent issues that most of us would dearly love to know what the pros really thought- eg Froome and Wiggins' TUE shenanigans, mechanical fraud, DSs and coaches with links to the bad old days etc

One of these Grand Tour winners stands accused by the “anonymous insider” that is The Secret Pro of being imminently outed as a doper. It might not be too difficult with a little digging to find out who The Secret Cyclist is, but that would truly defeat the entire purpose of this book. However, it seems that the nature of PEDs is changing, and 'perhaps my biggest concern about the young riders is how far they're willing to go to lose weight' – again with chemical assistance: 'misusing drugs to aid weight loss is the same as abusing them to increase power or stamina.' This was a mere amuse bouche for his big revelation: that a current Grand Tour winner was about to be taken down by the UCI for irregularities in his blood passport – and that most of the peloton knew about this. Keen to stir the pot, yours truly partook in some of the speculation by commenting that this has not been a good week for Bradley Wiggins – deprived of Tour de France leadership, subject to a Colombian conspiracy, and then discovering that he may not have been the first Briton to win a Grand Tour anyway, that his nemesis Chris Froome may have beaten him to it.

The writing style is quite simple and clear- either this is mostly the work of the cyclist himself or the ghost writer avoided the temptation to avoid any stylistic flourishes. It is basically "this is what happened, this is what I think about it" and to be fair this is probably a strength- this is basically gossip and it is the what happened and why that readers will be interested in, not a more up to date Krabbé or Jean Bobet masterclass in writing about cycling. When you read this, the way its worded, and the cadence of the sentences, you really get the feeling most of it was written in hotel rooms by a tired cyclist waiting for the day to end, so he can ride/race his bike the next day. It feels honest, and the words not massaged by a co-writer before going to print. You need to decide if it's still the same rider (after 7 years) and how many red herrings have been thrown in -but let's go ahead anyway As for his solutions, the Secret Cyclist is calling for the same thing city cyclists have been demanding for years: more cycle lanes on all roads of better quality. But we weren’t seeking the identity of a Grand-Tour-winning doper as much as musing over which rider in the peloton was the inspiration behind TSP.

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Or perhaps he can regale us of the one time at band camp when he and his team-mates attached a naked Simon Gerrans to a tree with cling film before combining the soigneurs’ massage oils and the mechanics’ spanners to devastating effect…