Review by Jon Johnson
“There are two kinds of people,” the old joke goes, “those who believe there are two kinds of people, and those who don’t.” If you’re one of the former, you might logically extend the joke to racing cyclists. One group of riders, let’s call them “analyticals,” install every available sensor on their machines and themselves, constantly check their bike computers while on the road, and can’t wait to get home to download and analyze their data. The other category, who might be called “viscerals,” get on their bikes and ride, heedless of the dozens of even basic factors that make them slower or faster. Viscerals think analyticals miss out on the sheer animal pleasure of the sport. Analyticals think viscerals are willfully ignorant of the nuanced beauty of the interplay of physiology and physics. Analyticals study books on the science of biking. Viscerals don’t. They would wait for the movie if movies were, in fact, made from performance biking books. Viscerals steal analyticals’ lunch money.
That would be the cycling version of the joke.
In reality, of course, it’s just a joke. There aren’t just two kinds of cyclists. There are three. There are also reasonable people, and though underrepresented they do actually exist in the bike racing population.
Michael Hutchinson has written a highly readable performance cycling book–Faster: The Obsession, Science, and Luck Behind the World’s Fastest Cyclists–that reasonable racers will certainly find instructive and even enjoyable. And though the book contains nary an equation, table or graph–the literary dry toast on which analyticals feast–they too will almost certainly learn something from Hutchinson’s deep experience and research. (Sorry viscerals–no pictures either, just words.)
As the title suggests, it’s a book about how bicycling has become faster over the years. Hutchinson is a self-confessed analytical, seriously so, but he’s self-aware enough to know that an overly analytical book would fill a small and already overpopulated niche. Better yet, he’s a damn fine writer, and his chapters clearly and succinctly describe the best available science, and practice, behind going fast on a bicycle. He’s even funny, occasionally very funny. (Sorry viscerals–no fart jokes, though he comes close when he mentions the side effects of consuming too many carbs while riding.)
Hutchinson’s cred comes from serveral sources. He’s a world class time trialist who holds or has held UK records at many distances. He’s ridden 100 miles in 3:23. That’s a little over 29.5 mph for 100 miles, folks. He never quite made it to the Olympics, undoubtedly because he was competing to be on Great Britain’s team, which has been the dominant cycling force in the world over the past few years (more on this in a bit). His experience as a high level racer of many years adds considerable depth and interest to the book. Hutchinson is also a Cambridge educated former academic who had the good sense to abandon a university job to be a professional cyclist. The experience left him with solid skills as a researcher and writer, though blessedly not pedantic in the way that so many academics are.
About that British cycling bit: For those who don’t know the story, Great Britain had a disastrous Olympics in the mid-1990s, only one gold (and that was in Rose Pruning). Like any good nation with self esteem issues, this generated no small crisis. In response, the UK restructured its sports establishment to focus on developing elite competitors, funded it munificently with National Lottery money, and set about making strategic investments in sports in which the country felt it could be most competitive. Cycling was one, and the resulting system, which includes Team Sky, has certainly generated returns on the investment, at first on the track and more recently on the road.
The abundant funding went to creating the very best science, coaching, and support of cycling in the world, and Hutchinson is privy to just about all of the people and resources involved, which is the fodder for Faster. The book is structured into nine chapters, which flow from physiology to coaching/training to psychology to technology and finally to genetics.
He covers far too much material to adequately cover in a blog length review, but I will say that even as a perhaps overly bookish analytical myself (please don’t steal my lunch money), I learned something new, or found some of my knowledge was obsolete, in every chapter. Even for subjects of which I am very familiar, Hutchinson had a way of knitting them together that left me with a more holistic view of what is going on when riding a bike.
Better yet, Hutchinson puts it all in a language that actual riders will appreciate, and he doesn’t give false certainty where it doesn’t belong. For instance, on the subject of training, Hutchinson has this to say:
“One of my favorite observations on training is from the running coach Franz Stampfl, who said: ‘all training is principally an act of faith.’ ‘Faith’ is exactly right: you believe in training; training is what makes you what you are.”
He goes on to explain how, for all of the advances in exercise science and coaching practice, there is still a great deal we don’t know about training, and later describes how variable athletes’ responses to different kinds of training stimuli is. We all, as athletes, train, and a great deal of our training is based on our own intuitions, experiences, trust, and (it turns out) blind faith.
Elsewhere, Hutchinson provides new insights into the importance of aerodynamics, and where and how aerodynamic advantage has been found by GB racers. One morsel: “Your skinsuit matters more than your bike.” Your bike still matters, by the way, but drag is a complex process, and since your clothing covers by far the largest source of aerodynamic drag on a bike, namely you, it is key.
On the matter of genetics, Hutchinson first describes how it works, how important it is, and how dynamically complex it is, and then gives some early insights into the coming likelihood of genetic doping, noting that “Cycling has, just once or twice over the last hundred years or so, run into areas of negotiable morality.” The potential performance increases are phenomenal, but he also makes the point that the consequences for the genetic dopers will likely be more profound than for your garden variety medical doping: it’s hard, if not impossible, to undo a genetic manipulation.
There are more equally interesting highlights, but I’m out of space. Rest assured there is much of interest, and much to learn.
Hutchinson is a time trialist through-and-through–he can hold over 400 Watts for over an hour but his best sprint power ever was 1,100 Watts, a subject from which he wrings maximum self-deprecating comedic value–and his book is naturally inclined to a time trialist’s point of view. That said, he has a lot to offer the mass start racer, and if I haven’t emphasized the point sufficiently, he does it in a very entertaining way.
Unfunny jokes notwithstanding, there are a thousand reasons to ride and race a bike, and of course each of us comes to the sport with our own unique motivations and objectives. In reality, most of the “viscerals” I know are more zen than meathead, more interested in biking in the moment than dealing with data driven distractions. With its larger picture perspective, Hutchinson’s book has something for them as well, as it does for any rider interested in going faster. It is, by a fair piece, the best written, most enjoyable performance biking book I have read.
Hutchinson, Michael. 2014. Faster: The Obsession, Science and Luck Behind the World’s Fastest Cyclists. Bloomsbury.
Note: This book is put out by Bloomsbury Publishing and is available in print/ebook.
Be sure to checkout Jon’s review on Slaying the Badger. Click here.
Jon is utterly fascinated with aerodynamics & racing strategy. He is a billy goat on the bike and a professor at the University of Arkansas off the bike. – OCA
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