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’.
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