In Search of Robert Millar: Unravelling the Mystery Surrounding Britain's Most Successful Tour De France Cyclist

In Search of Robert Millar has won the 'Best Sports Biography of the Year' award at the British Sports Book Awards.

A classic (0/0 people found this helpful)

A spectacular insight by author Richard Moore into the enigma that is Robert Millar. Moore really gets to grip with the subject matter here and Moore's own experience as a highly successful cyclist seems only to add to his incisive commentary. If you only buy one cycling book this year, make sure it's this one.

Superb book about the UK's best professional cyclist (0/0 people found this helpful)

Like many people Robert Millar was a childhood hero and I remain fascinated by the man and his exploits to this day. This book is gives an insight into what makes the man tick, as well as giving background to his exploits. I rarely read books in one go, but this was an exception. Superb stuff !

An Excellent Insight into a Fascinating Character (0/0 people found this helpful)

As a Scot and a cycling enthusiast, it was logical that I would follow Robert Millar's career closely. The fact that he rode with great flair and had such a cool image only added to his appeal. Clearly the author felt similarly toward Millar and this has resulted in an excellent book. Millar's story is told thoroughly from his childhood, through his amateur and professional careers, to his recent disappearance. The author's knowledge of cycling is considerable and this adds hugely to the story, explaining both the tactics and politics of professional cycling. Whilst he only had very limited access to Millar himself (as evidenced in an excellent conclusion where he recounts their email correspondence), he accesses a very impressive array of sources who add much to the story.

For anyone interested in professional cycling, this is an excellent read. As for Robert Millar himself, he's clearly a very complex character, but I was left with a sense that Richard Moore gets very close to the man. At the end of the book I was left with one closing thought; what on earth has Robert Millar's private life got to do with readers of a rag like the Daily mail? What do they care about the man and his achievements? This level of intrusion into someone who only wishes to be left alone is disgraceful.

Tour de force (0/0 people found this helpful)

When a sporting biography comes packaged with an approving back-sleeve quotation from (ex)New Labour spin-doctor Alastair Campbell ("A gripping read about a fascinating sportsman".) you know that you are in for something interesting, or at the very least, different. Richard Moore's informative probe of Briton's most successful road cyclist does not disappoint. Unlike so many sporting books on sporting figures it is neither hagiography, nor is it a retelling of booze-and-birds anecdotes. That much can be seen in the cultural icons that Moore, and others, associate the occasionally difficult, often diffident climber Millar with. In 20-odd pages or so of the beginning he is compared, favourably and unfavourably, with Manchester's Morrissey, film director Woody Allen, Scottish folk singer John Martyn and deceased film star and 1950s icon James Dean.

It is surprising Moore has taken on this taxing subject: Millar's public pronouncements and character invite adjectival descriptions like `gnomic or `delphic'. (On other occasions, such as turning down autograph-hunters with expletives, you could call them plain, down-right rude.) Moore tackles this challenge in an energetic, lateral fashion. He is assiduous in his research: he e-mails Millar; leafs through Millar's columns for cycling magazines in the 1990s; asks old friends, work colleagues and school-mates about his character; talks to his cycling team-mates; visits his childhood home and trawls the internet. Indeed, he even draws upon his own relationship with Millar, firstly, as a young admirer, and latterly, as an unsuccessful cyclist who was coached by Millar in his short-lived, ill-fated spell as British national road coach in the mid-90s.

That personal experience and understanding of the life of a road cyclist - however limited - enables Moore to understand, and particularly appreciate Miller's self-discipline and his single-mindedness. Millar's asceticism sets him as a man apart. The index to this book indicates that - there are 22 separate entries on the subject of Robert Millar `Ambition and Dedication'. That commitment appears to be something upon which all who have worked with him can concur. Opinions range from awe to disbelief about how hard Millar is willing to work to get to the pinnacle of his profession. As one of his team mates Roman Pensec observes, "He was almost religious in his dedication to training".

One of the interesting by-products of the author's diligence in his research is that he manages to tease out interesting subtexts in Millar's life and career. Take, for example, his difficult relationship with the country of his birth - Scotland. Much to the chagrin of many Scots, Millar always an honest and direct speaker, does not sex-up its reputation. Glasgow, for Millar, is "all grey". In the early 1990s, having lived in continental Europe for a decade, he notes his reluctance to return home, saying that in Scotland, "It rains too much". But, this negativity is balanced with patriotism evident in his support of the Scottish National Party. In 1998 he belligerently tells one journalist that "I don't feel Scottish, I am Scottish". Lingering behind these contradictory attitudes is the feeling that Millar believes that he has not been properly appreciated in his homeland; to co-opt the biblical proverb, he is a sportsman not without honour save in his own country. He may be the first and only Briton to finish on the podium in the Tour de France (as the King of the Mountains in 1984) but he has to grudgingly accept that football was, is and always will be given far greater coverage and acclaim than cycling.

Like any good writer Moore tries to tell the honest, unvarnished truth about his subject. He does not back away from the tabloid allegation that Millar had undergone a sex change; he deals with the subject in a mature, rational and considered fashion. Unflinchingly, he recounts incidences when the gap between single-mindedness and petulance become opaque in Millar. Scott Sutherland, an Australian team-mate, recalls Millar, who had just been served over-cooked spaghetti, complaining to the waiter that it was "like glue... [It] would stick on anything". Apparently, he then threw it at the ceiling "to prove the point". The recollections of other team-mates, including Sean Yates, Allan Peiper and Phil Anderson indicate that this was not a one-off event when Millar, a fastidious eater, sat down for dinner.

As the title of the book indicates there is a large question mark over the essence of Millar. Who is he really? What drives him? He is, as many of his cycling colleagues ambiguously note, `special', `different'. Beyond that superficial analysis so many witnesses fail to grasp what makes him tick. It is far clearer from the carefully presented evidence here to say who, or what, he is not; Millar is not a convivial individual like his Irish contemporary Stephen Roche, nor is he an all-round cyclist like Tour de France winner Greg Lemond who was as adept on the flat and undertaking time-trials, as he was assaulting the Alps. Only occasionally does Moore find someone like fellow cyclist and friend Wayne Bennington who can cut through the blandishments, and speak intimately and incisively about his character. Pascal Simon, a French rider indicates how difficult it is to establish simpatico with him, noting that, "We shared rooms with each other on races for years, but you could never say we were best friends... We were quite capable of going out training together for two or three hours and not saying a word to each other". That Moore is ultimately unsuccessful in defining Millar's identity does not matter, it merely adds to the rider's mystique.

This biography is a tour de force. It enables us to see beyond the stage victories, classifications and the sponsor-heavy, luridly-coloured jerseys and give us a rare glimpse at some of the character and background which helped form the individual who is described in the Prologue as "different, possibly cool, certainly interesting".

In Search of Robert Millar: Unravelling the Mystery Surrounding Britain's Most Successful Tour De France Cyclist

Richard Moore

Reader Reviews:

Best Sports Biography of the Year (0/0 people found this helpful)

A classic (0/0 people found this helpful)

Superb book about the UK's best professional cyclist (0/0 people found this helpful)

An Excellent Insight into a Fascinating Character (0/0 people found this helpful)

Tour de force (0/0 people found this helpful)

Similar Products

Categories