An enjoyable read from an idiosyncratic rider who did things his way. As an autobiography this saunters through Martin’s career and given plenty happened there’s a lot to cover. The most interesting aspect is Martin and his approach the sport and there are often moments in the book where you wish for more, as if you could pause the autobiography and ask for more opinion but hopefully there’s a second career ahead for this.

Chased By Pandas by Dan Martin – Signed Edition - Coles Books

Known, thanks to his racing style and attitude, for being one of road cycling’s last romantics, Dan has always shied away from revealing too much about himself and his story. Now, having retired at the end of the 2021 season aged 35 and no longer bound by the constraints of the racing circuit, Dan feels the time is right to tell his story in the same forthright and honest manner that he rode his bike. PK: Another area of abuse is anti-depressants, tranquilisers and painkillers - Tramadol. So again, what is clean? Along the way there are oddities, Martin’s been one of a handful to reject traditional post-race massages – they are a ritual, can be relaxing but there’s little evidence to suggest performance gains. The biggest oddity is The Panda. Who was it that chased him up the climb in Ans, and why the ursine costume? Perhaps the Panda is wondering how Dan Martin got there and what he’s done since, and that’s where this book comes in. This is the celebration of a true cyclist's career, which will appeal to anyone who's embraced the weekend ride whilst dreaming of the mountains. The opening chapter is about the fear of crashing and reprises Martin’s wipe-out on the final bend of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, he’d given his rivals the slip and was just about to overhaul Giampaulo Caruso only to slide out in sight of the finish line. Here Martin reveals a mystical side:Ah, the innocence of youth, when you actually believed the things you read in cycling books. Hold onto it as long as you can, folk, you’ll miss it when it’s gone.

Chased by Pandas by Dan Martin | Hachette UK

While Martin has spoken in interviews about how he “ almost got used to seeing cyclists being led away in handcuffs”, Chased by Pandas doesn’t go to those dark places. Doping is mentioned, Martin telling us his attitude was to “avoid thinking about it”. He’s continued with that defence mechanism here by doing his best to avoid talking about it. Except to tell us how clean the sport became and how clean he is. Martin recalls how he, Thomas and Froome were all in doping control on the penultimate day of the 2018 Tour. He had won another stage that year and, demob happy, they spoke about food. While Martin drooled over the burger he would devour after the Tour, Thomas and Froome were excited about the prospect of “a good salad”. They hadn’t eaten one “for three weeks because of the fibres that lead excess water to be retained in the digestive tract”. The 36-year-old adopted Irishman shakes his head. “It shows the extremes, and their psychological strengths. Chris and Geraint went well beyond their physical capacity by being incredibly focused.” With its descriptions of the profound boredom that oozed from Monaco, or the Tourmalet’s telluric faults and anarchic curves (“like a piece of spaghetti through pesto”), Chased by Pandas is definitely one of the better written chamois memoirs – even if it is another of those chamoirs where the subject’s voice is often lost behind that of the ghost – but at heart it is as light and as trivial as most of the others. Given that both Martin and Carrey have strayed further into the sport’s dark places in interviews and articles, it seems even lighter still. The modern chamois memoir, though, is more an exercise in PR and image management than it is an exploration of a sport forever telling us to ignore what goes on in the shadows and just enjoy the spectacle. We cover all these subjects – including Martin’s concern for young riders today – but first he reflects on an initially “devastating” moment. When he was 18 and one of the leading young cyclists in Britain, Martin was told that Brailsford had “nothing” to offer him. “It set me a challenge to prove him wrong and make it anyway,” he says.Dan Martin: ‘I retired still loving riding my bike, and loving racing, and that was a very fortunate position.’ Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian Chased by Pandas ] is not a conventional study of wins, losses and conquering mountains but overcoming the mental challenges of a sport into which he was seemingly born' The Times

Chased By Pandas By Dan Martin | Used | 9781529427585 - Wob

That’s something I can understand, and I feel like too many cycling books I’ve read seem to centre on the themes of either suffering or doping.

What we’re into this week: Pumpkins!!!

It sounds like he has sympathy for young cyclists today. “My sympathy lies with the guys who have to make more sacrifices than I ever did just to be in the peloton. Just to be on the start line in the Tour you have to do altitude training camps, honed nutrition, you need to be super, super, skinny. You have to be doing what Team Sky did. But I got top 10 in the Tour de France, training out of my front door every day. Today that’s not possible. In his Libé article, Carrey reminded Martin of those days at VC la Pomme, “a factory of champions [...], broken little guys who sacrificed their youth”. Martin was broken, physically and mentally, but came through it with his self-belief, his confidence, and his morals intact. Carrey called Martin a hero, but one who refused the title, preferred to hug the walls of the world. He saw Martin as having been part of a group of riders who opened a doorway for a better form of cycling, he saw Martin as having helped inspire other riders, including Thibaut Pinot and Romain Bardet. Here, though, the chapter names are based around another familiar concept – fear, and include the likes of ‘The Fear of Being No Good,’ ‘The Fear of Being a Leader’ and ‘The Fear of Stopping’. According to Chased by Pandas, Martin never saw doping, he was never offered drugs. He was even reluctant to take medicines for his allergies – which used to ruin his form in Spring – for fear of the side effects. As for dealing with pain, “I would take a paracetamol to help mask the fatigue and dull ache that three weeks of brutal racing inflicts on your body, but I then found out it was more of a placebo. I preferred to be in touch with my body’s messaging, to feel where my limit was, so that I could more accurately balance on the tightrope that is the upper regions of performance.” This is the celebration of a true cyclist’s career, which will appeal to anyone who’s embraced the weekend ride whilst dreaming of the mountains.