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The Racer
- Life on the Road as a Pro Cyclist
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Sports
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By his 18th birthday David Millar was living and racing in France, sleeping in rented rooms, tipped to be the next English-speaking Tour winner. A year later he'd realised the dream and signed a professional contract. He perhaps lived the high life a little too enthusiastically - he broke his heel in a fall from a roof after too much drink and before long the pressure to succeed had tipped over into doping.
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Good book with really poor narrating
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On a fateful night in 2009, Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle met for dinner at a restaurant in Boulder, Colorado. The two had met five years before while Coyle was writing his best-selling book Lance Armstrong: Tour de Force. But this time, Tyler had something else on his mind. He finally wanted to come clean, about everything: the doping, the lying, his years as Lance Armstrong's teammate on U.S. Postal,, and his decade spent running from the truth. "I'm sorry," he told Coyle. "It just feels so good to be able to talk about this. I've been quiet for so many years."
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Great story even if you are not a bike racing fan
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In One-Way Ticket: Nine Lives and Two Wheels he describes a journey from driven teenage prodigy, travelling to races in the back of his dad's station wagon, to an obsessive determination to make it big in European racing - whatever the cost. He tells the story of his transformation from poacher to gamekeeper, detailing his painful decision to finally come clean about his own descent into doping - and to persuade others to do likewise - by providing more than enough shocking testimony to USADA (US Anti-Doping Agency) to explode the Armstrong myth.
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Engaging and revealing, but still questions
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In 2001, when the bible of the sport, Cycling Weekly, ran a poll to decide the greatest British cyclist, Chris Boardman's was the name that topped the list. It was Boardman's lone achievements in the '80s and '90s - Olympic track gold, the world hour record, repeatedly claiming the yellow jersey in the Tour de France - that lit the spark for modern British cycling. His endeavours both on and off the bike have made him the founding father of current golden generation - without him there would simply be no Hoy, Wiggins or Cavendish.
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Great story even if you are not a bike racing fan
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Ned Boulting has noticed something. It's to do with bikes. They're everywhere. And so are their riders. Some of these riders seem to be sporting sideburns and a few of them are winning things. Big things. Now Ned wants to know how on earth it came to this. And what, exactly is 'this'. In On the Road Bike, Ned Boulting asks how Britain became so obsessed with cycling. Ned’s search puts him in contact with some of the wonderful and wonderfully idiosyncratic people who have contributed to this nation’s two-wheeled history.
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From 2015 to 2017, Peter Sagan achieved the seemingly impossible: he won three road race World Championships in a row, ensuring his entry into the history books as one of the greatest riders of all time. But to look at Peter’s record in isolation is to tell only a fraction of his story, because Peter doesn’t just win: he entertains. Every moment in the saddle is an opportunity to express his personality, and nobody else has succeeded in making elite cycling look so much fun.
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It is an interesting read and gives an insight
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Sit back or saddle up as double Olympic gold medallist and multiple world champion Geraint Thomas gives you a warts-and-all insight into the life of a pro cyclist. Along the way he reveals cycling's clandestine codes and secret stories; tales from the peloton; the key characters like Wiggins, Hoy and Cav; the pivotal races; and essential etiquette. Geraint Thomas is treasured for treating his sport just as the rest of us see it: not as a job but as an escape and an adventure.
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Just a bunch of anecdotes.
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For professional cyclists, going faster and winning are, of course, closely related. Yet surprisingly, for many, a desire to go faster is much more important than a desire to win. Someone who wants to go faster will work at the details and take small steps rather than focusing on winning. Winning just happens when you do everything right - it's the doing everything right that's hard. And that's what fascinates and obsesses Michael Hutchinson.
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Entertaining, informative, delivers prospective
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The Tour According to G
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For years Geraint Thomas appeared blessed with extraordinary talent but jinxed at the greatest bike race in the world: twice an Olympic gold medallist on the track, Commonwealth champion, yet at the Tour de France a victim of crashes, bad luck and his willingness to sacrifice himself for his teammates. In the summer of 2018, that curse was blown away in spectacular fashion - from the cobbles of the north and the iconic mountain climbs of the Alps to the brutal slopes of the Pyrenees and, finally, the Champs-Elysees in Paris.
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Great book but odd narration.
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Bernard Hinault and the Fall and Rise of French Cycling
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Bernard Hinault is one of the greatest cyclists of all time. He is a five-time winner of the Tour de France and the only man to have won each of the Grand Tours on more than one occasion. Three decades on from his retirement, he remains the last Frenchman to win the Tour de France. His victory in 1985 marks the turning point when the nation who had dominated the first eight decades of the race they had invented suddenly found they were no longer able to win it.
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I, Hinault - The Badger's life
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Summary
What is it really like to be a racer?
What is it like to be swept along at 60kmh in the middle of the pack? How does it feel to be reeled in from a solo breakaway metres from the line? What happens to the body during a high-speed chute? What tactics must teams employ to win the day, the jersey, the grand tour? How does a domestique keep going to the end of a stage once his job is done and his body exhausted? How does a time trialist maintain his form when every muscle and sinew is screaming at him to stop? What sacrifices must a cyclist make to reach the highest levels? What is it like on the bus? In the hotels? What camaraderie is built in the confines of a team? What rivalries? How does it feel to be constantly on the road, away from loved ones, tasting one more calorie-counted hotel breakfast?
David Millar offers us a unique insight into the mind of a professional cyclist during his last year before retirement. Over the course of a season on the World Tour, Millar puts us in touch with the sights, smells and sounds of the sport - the barked instructions of a road captain in a sprint chain, the silence of a solo training ride.
This is a book about youth and age, fresh-faced excitement and hard-earned experience. It is a love letter to cycling.
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What listeners say about The Racer
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- H. Bacon
- 09-11-15
Outstanding!
I've read quite a lot of sports autobiographies and often been left wondering why I bothered - they're elite athletes that train, eat and rest... why was I expecting it to be entertaining!?
And then I read this. It's insightful, funny, moving, heartfelt, inspiring and thoroughly entertaining throughout. The trouble with a book as good as this is that others will surely pale in comparison!
The narration is excellent and captures the emotion and personality with which the book was written.
This is surely destined to be a classic cycling book - essential reading for any cycling fan for the next 50 years!
6 people found this helpful
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- Chalkie
- 29-08-17
Fantastic
Liked David Millar's first book, this was also great. Interesting perspective on the sport and not the usual fairy tales associated with sports biographies.
1 person found this helpful
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- nick
- 19-05-17
Absolutely Brilliant!!!!
Having been a fan of road racing for a number of years this book allows access to what it is actually like to be a world class cyclist over the period of a year!
The flashbacks to previous years are a welcome historical reminder of Davids previous experiences and fit in extremely well!
Laugh out loud moments contrast with 'watery eye' time as we get to fully understand the intense competition involved at this level together with the respect and camaraderie that such intensity at this higher echelon brings!
Superbly written and perfectly brilliant narration make this one of the best books that I have ever heard/listened to!
I cannot rate or recommend this experience highly enough and want to listen to it again immediately!
1 person found this helpful
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- Craig Duncan
- 22-10-16
A look inside the closed doors of the peleton
Where does The Racer rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
A well-written insight into life in the top-tier of world cycling, Millar paints a detailed picture of the ups and downs, the complexities and intricacies of a life spent racing bikes. The book is written with an intelligence and self-awareness that is often missing from (especially sports) biographies. As someone who has followed Millar's career and always suspected him as having one of the most highly strategic and tactical minds in the business, those suspicions were pleasantly confirmed with a book full of beautiful nuggets of analysis, which he explains in an easy to understand manner.
What other book might you compare The Racer to, and why?
There are a number of excellent books written about the world of cycling or its individual personalities - 'Blazing Saddles', 'The Flying Scotsman', and 'Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape' to name a few, but few put you into the mind of the rider in the same way as 'The Racer' does.
What does John Sackville bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
Sackville sounds very much like Millar. He has the same timbre and intonation, but added to this the skills of a vocal actor. You could be convinced that it's Millar himself reading the book.
If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
Irrelevant question.
1 person found this helpful
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- RedReader
- 02-11-15
Its OK.
Racing through the Dark is much better and recommended. This is just OK.
Narration is annoying unfortunately. I may have enjoyed it more if not for this.
1 person found this helpful
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- Steve
- 09-12-20
If you like cycling you’ll love this book
I’ve always admired David Millar but do so even more after reading this. It’s an incredible insight into the pressured life of a professional cyclist. I love cycling, a definite MAMIL, and always watch the grand tours but I’m looking forward to the next season even more now I feel I can more easily imagine what life in a tour is really like for the guys in the race. David’s account seems honest, he’s certainly not one for blowing his own trumpet, but he should be very proud of his career. Well done dude, I look forward to reading Racing Through The Dark next.
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- Martin
- 22-07-20
Insightful and interesting
A better read than the first instalment, which was necessarily dark. The narrator still mispronounces several names which pulls you out of the story - surely this could have been briefed in by the author or publisher, especially as the first book had the same problem.
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- Joe Plewis
- 03-04-20
A true love of cycling
If you love cycling you will love this book. It took me a little time to get into it but if you stick with it you are reward with a true heartfelt story of David's final year. What a gent.
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- GP
- 10-03-20
Honest, engaging, satisfying
A really engaging story of the very mixed last hurrah of a pro-cyclist who did almost everything in the sport, and has come through it with scars. It feels honest, but also that there's plenty to read between the lines (yes I know it's an audiobook!)
The reading is good, although some of the more weird and wonderful names and places are mis-pronounced. I would have rather had Millar read it himself, but Sackville is a very good match nonetheless.
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- James Arkwright
- 11-02-20
Awesome read awesome listen
fantastic insight into the life of a racer, thank you David for sharing your memories