An inside look at the 2003 Tour de France through the eyes of Lance Armstrong’s right-hand rider, the Colombian Victor Hugo Peña. Peña served as Armstrong’s domestique, a crucial yet unsung position unique to cycling. The domestique handles a variety of tasks, but his most important is to ride ahead of the team leader, creating a wind tunnel that makes it aerodynamically easier for the “star” to continue pedaling, even when his muscles are thoroughly exhausted. This is the essence of cycling, and the key to Armstrong’s victories. Yet the domestique gets none of the glory. Now, in revealing the true role of the domestique for the first time, Matt Rendell gives a more vivid and insightful portrayal of professional cycling than ever before.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
'Half the book is made up of Pena's account, filtered through Rendell, of the key stages in Armstrong's tour victory last year. Much of the rest is devoted to Rendell's reflections on the Tour's history and culture, from the sadism of its founder Henri Desgrange to the present, with a Tour that has become less Gallic and more global.' INDEPENDENT (5.7.04) 'Rendell elegantly elucidates the tactical technicalities of cycling's unique mixture of cooperation and competition, teamwork and individualism...The beauty of Rendell's brief book is that he has secured the cooperation of a real-life domestique, the Colombian Victor Hugo Pena, who was a key member of Lance Armstrong's US Postal squad on his way to a record-equalling fifth Tour won last year.' -- Matt Seaton GUARDIAN (10.7.04) 'Rendell packs[s] in a great deal of very useful information, while that unforgettable day is recaptured vividly.' -- Geoffrey Wheatcroft DAILY MAIL (16.7.04) 'there is a scholarly quality to A SIGNIFICANT OTHER, a short but powerful book that uses the diary of a domestique in the 2003 Tour de France as the counterpoint to the author's exploration of the true nature of top-class competitive cycling...you won't find a better analysis of the extraordinary collective feat that is a team of cyclists working together at speed.' -- Simon O'Hagan INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY (18.7.04) 'Rendell's explanations of the technicalities of cycling formations combine admirably with the chapters in Pena's voice, when we see these moves put into practice. The result is a rare sports book that actually gives an idea of the experience of being a professional athlete.' -- David Horspool TLS (30.7.04)
About the Author
Matt Rendell has written for television documentaries, contributed to television sports coverage for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, including the British coverage of the Tour de France. He currently writes for Procycling magazine.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well worth a read,
By
This review is from: A Significant Other: Riding the Centenary Tour de France with Lance Armstrong (Hardcover)
This is a curious book, cutting between Pena'a narrative of an individual stage, which is great if you're a racing cyclist (I am) or an enthusiastic fan, and Matt Randall's history and philosophy of bike racing. Matt could be accused of overly philosophising, especially when he's trying to use professional cycling as a metaphor for the sins of globalisation, which is a bit of a stretch. I enjoyed the read, the book misses out on a top rating because of Matt's final chapter. It's a bike race, fortunatly Pena provides the narrative to carry the politics!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Cycling Journalism I've Read,
This review is from: A Significant Other: Riding the Centenary Tour de France with Lance Armstrong (Hardcover)
This book is on a different level, artistically and intellectually, from most cycling journalism. I've read a bevy of Tour de France books and this is the best by far. It takes a different angle on professional cycling, the perspective of the domestique, to show you things about the sport that you would never learn reading yet another book about Lance or the other stars. The story of Victor Hugo Pena (now exiled from Lance, but riding with another team, Phonak) is far more representative of life in the peloton than that of the stars, and so tells you so much more about the cruel, beautiful sport of cycling.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Half as good as it could have been,
By
This review is from: A Significant Other: Riding the Centenary Tour de France with Lance Armstrong (Hardcover)
I bought this book because I thought I'd learn more about the job of the domestiques in general, and about Victor Hugo Pena specifically. And I really enjoyed the half of the book that was about Victor Hugo Pena. Those portions of the book are well written and engaging. But I was bored by the other half of the book that was more philosophical and historical. There are plenty of books about the history of the Tour de France and I would have bought one of those if I had wanted to read about the Tour. I wish the book had only been about domestiques and Victor Hugo Pena. The book is still worth a read, but it could have been so much better.
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