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| We Might as Well Win: On the Road to Success with the Mastermind Behind a Record-setting Eight Tour De France Victories | 
 enlarge | Authors: Johan Bruyneel, Bill Strickland
Publisher: Mainstream Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: £12.99
Buy Used: £6.00
You Save: £6.99 (54%)
New (21) from £6.20
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 19081
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 5.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 1845963857
EAN: 9781845963859
ASIN: 1845963857
Publication Date: June 5, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Gives you a new appreciation for the tactics required to win a Tour de France July 27, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a fascinating behind the scenes look at what it takes to coach a winning Tour de France team. You can't argue with the author's credentials: Johan Bruyneel was a professional cyclist who competed in the Tour de France himself before becoming the team director behind Lance Armstrong's seven wins and subsequently for Alberto Contadour in 2007.
In this book Bruyneel describes the strategies behind a winning team (and he makes it clear that it's very much a team effort to win the Tour de France). He talks about how a team can control the race, when they should let breakaways go and when they need to chase them down, how they can play the mind game with other teams, the different skillsets that individual riders within a winning team need to have and countless more insights into the world of cycling. I was reading this book during the 2008 Tour and it made me appreciate far more the way that team CSC were approaching the race and why they did some of the things that they did. Very, very interesting.
I didn't like the way that the book jumps about in time as required to provide support to the points that Bruyneel is making. For example, Chapter 6 talks about the 2001 tour, Chapter 7 talks about the 1999 tour and Chapter 11 talks about the tour in 2000. While Bruyneel makes it clear at the outset that he hasn't set out to write an autobiography, the book would have been enhanced (and easier to follow) if he'd kept things in chronological order.
Bruyneel talks several times about the use of performance enhancing drugs and how they have affected the sport. He is adamant that Armstrong never took them, although I found it interesting that he talks at one point about how he deliberately had Armstrong lose a stage that he could have won, in part because "if we won again, so quickly, I could foresee...accusations of doping".
He also describes the immense amount of time and money that goes into finetuning the bikes and equipment: money is no object if it converts into a few precious seconds saved on the race.
This is an easy and very worthwhile read for anyone who's interested in the Tour de France.
this is a great read; obssession with road cycling not required June 23, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I read this book incredibly quickly. It is well written and interesting and takes a whole new tack on the lance armstrong years. I enjoyed the team car/ manager's eye view of the discovery team and Bruyneel's recollection of the minute strategies and adaptability that let discovery dominate the tour de france. The book is well balanced, insightful and offers glimpses into areas of professional cycling not really covered elsewhere. Basic functional explanations make this book accessible to non cycling obsessives without slowing down more avid supporters.
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