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| Authors: Johan Bruyneel, Bill Strickland
Creator: Lance Armstrong
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
List Price: $25.00
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Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 5773
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.6 x 1
ISBN: 0618879374
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.620944
EAN: 9780618879373
ASIN: 0618879374
Publication Date: June 4, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 22
 Gives you a new appreciation for the tactics required to win a Tour de France July 27, 2008
Julia Flyte (Seattle)
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 more interesting (and easy 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 interesting read for anyone who's interested in the Tour de France.
 We Might as Well Win July 12, 2008
D. Muller
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Interesting, well written book . If you enjoy cycling or just watching the Tour de France this book has a lot of the inside stories about the winninsist cycling team - Discovery and how this team director came to the team. He also talks about his winning strategies.
4.5 Stars... Excellent 'memoir' for Tour de France aficionados (and more) August 1, 2008
Paul Allaer (Cincinnati)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Johan Bruyneel, the team director of the US Postal/Discovery teams from 1999 to 2007, hails from Belgium (as do I), and I kinda grew up with him watching him on TV (he is 4 years younger than me, yea I'm giving away my age here). After a somewhat unremarkable professional cycling career (the highlight being wearing the yellow jersey in the 1999 Tour for one day), Bruyneel struck a bond with Lance Armstrong, and at the young age of 34 became the team director for the US Postal team.
"We Might As Well Win: On the Road to Success With the Mastermind Behind Eight Tour de France" (224 pages) brings Bruyneel's musing on what it was like to be Lance Armstrong's team director, and what a delight it is to read. Bruyneel is his humble self, even though confident all the way through. The title of the book comes from a conversation with Lance Armstrong, after he recovered from cancer, when they discussed their tactics for entering the 1999 tour: if they were gonna enter the race, 'might as well win it'. And win they did. The beauty of this book is that it gives insights on how determined all of them were in winning the Tour, again and again. But the hardest test for Bruyneel comes after Lance retires in 2005, and heads a team in 2006 and 2007 without Lance, posing the question "whether I was a team director who had won seven Tours thanks to one rider, or whether I was a winner in my own right" (Alberto Contador won the Tour in 2007 for Bruyneel's team).
If your interest in professional cycling is limited to the Tour de France, this book is not for you. The book oozes of great details on other things going on in the sport, including the Tour of Georgia, the one day Classics (such as Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders), etc. Bruyneel's musings are fund to read, and this book flies by in no time. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED reading for professional cycling aficionados.
You Might As Well Buy The Book June 2, 2008
C. Larson (TX USA)
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
I was looking forward to this book for a long, long time - I was completely blown away by its crispness and the ease reading. Johan has done as stellar of a job in the approach to this book, as he exhibited in winning 8 Tours.
Granted you may not want to read it, if you hate cycling ... but if you are really remotely interested in the reasoning behind a brillant mind -- You Might As Well Buy The Book -- read it and enjoy it! Well worth the time and very motivational!
Finally the other side of the cycling equation. June 23, 2008
Robert Kruger (Fredericksburg, VA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Johan Bruyneel gives a picture of how one man can make all the difference in cycling. His insight and knowledge really gives an understanding of how USPS and Discovery Channel Cycling Teams were so dominant. This book is a must read for any fans of cycling. I have read all the books on Lance and USPS, but this book brings together how everything is put on the shoulders of the team director. Bruyneel is a master of painting a picture that makes you feel part of the action.
I recommend this book for anyone who loves cycling and wants to know the "how" to being successful.
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