What’s the point of a breakaway? Every time I watch a stage of a bike race I wonder why does the peloton allow a group of riders to race ahead – break away – and then spend the rest of the race chasing them so that they can overtake them in the last few miles? Once or twice, a break away rider would win but, given the number of races in a season, it seemed an exercise in futility. Why spend all day racing ahead when you could spend all day in the main group and end up in the same place all battling to get to the finish line. This book answered my question. If you weren’t in the breakaway then those riders would never win so they take their chance that their race might be the one in one hundred chance they have of winning a stage or race.

But why race on other days? Why continue to battle even when it’s clear the peloton will overtake you. The answer to that is experience It’s about finding out information on your opponents and how they and their team react so that when you’re in a break that could matter you might have an advantage over the other riders because you know their team is slow to react or that they tend to bluff and pretend to be stronger than they are.

While ‘Full Gas’ is not a complex book. It assumes the average reader knows little about bike racing, it is one which has unexpected depths by interviewing a wide number of riders to offer an impressive range of opinions on different parts of racing – from race tactics, how teams work, winning sprints or just what each member of a team is expected to do.

I’d recommend this to anyone who’s interested in knowing more about why cycling is a team sport and who want to know more about how every race is both a mixture of team work and individual brilliance.