“The world of professional bike racing is a total shitshow,” Alex Dowsett suggests in a wry observation, “and I am grateful and privileged to have been a part of it for so many years.” Dowsett raced professionally for a dozen years, winning two stages of the Giro d’Italia and becoming a six‑time national time trial champion before his retirement last October.
Now, in his immensely readable and revealing new book he also explains that road cycling is a business where the suffering rider leaves his chances for glory “in the shaky hands of teams that are both state-of-the-art and shambolic”.
