Jon Day

Life in the chain gang

The ‘veteran’ Millar’s latest harrowing memoir describes a cycle of constant pain as he grows old in the saddle, aged 36

In 2004, French police officers searching the home of the professional cyclist David Millar found some syringes and empty phials hidden in a hollowed-out book. Millar confessed that he had been using the substance EPO to boost his red-blood-cell count. He was banned from the sport for two years, and returned to cycling a reformed man, becoming a prominent and vocal critic of doping in the professional peloton.

The rise and fall and rise of David Millar’s cycling career formed the dramatic backdrop to his first memoir, Riding Through the Dark (2011). His second book, The Racer, is a more elegiac affair. It follows Millar through the twilight of his career, recording his frustration as he loses his position as the elder statesman of British cycling. Though we get hints about his past, here Millar wants to present himself as a ‘stand-up member of society rather than the twisted and damaged doper I have previously been’.

Millar first became a professional cyclist when, as he writes, ‘doping was rife and ethics were something that we knew of, yet rarely saw put into practice’. In The Racer it’s easy to see how one might be tempted to enjoy the not-so-marginal gains provided by doping. Cycling emerges here not just as a more demanding sport than many others, but as a far more intrusive one. The cycling gaze is as omniscient as it is pitiless. The weight of riders is monitored more closely than that of catwalk models (many go on to develop eating disorders). Every rider knows their own body’s fat content, their VO2 max levels and the amount of lactic acid — down to the milligram — their bodies can handle. It’s a life lived under intense scrutiny, and there isn’t much room to hide.

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