And the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever - the Tour de France

Actually a really great book. Really insightful, full of details, and with a story easy to connect with other books (let's say The Secret Race).
I'm not going to mention anything about Lance Armstrong, read it and make an opinion of your own.
Great read!

A FAIRLY well researched report. The majority of the information is gleaned from a review of the public USADA reports with some interviewed additions and narration.

This does not take away from the tragic self destruction of a man who fought hard against all and came out victorious at all cost and lost just as hard. This is a story of our time but it is only the plot line. The list of characters surely will never be truly known and will likely reveal many of our hero's given enough time.

The whole deception laid bare...I will say that this makes the whole Lance Armstrong saga nothing but a fiction, albeit one that was filled with much excitement, twists, and turns. and yes there was a main evil character :)

Wheelmen - a must read for all cycling fans!

Great, narrative-driven book. Definitely worth it.

Lays out Lance Armstrong's rise and fall, all self-inflicted. Great job by the authors in choosing which details to highlight to make the book a coherent whole.

Gives a good portrayal of the mentality that's part-and-parcel of high level competition. Remember "Winning's not everything - it's the only thing"? The only let-down is the suggestion (by omission) that others - teams/sponsors/individuals - weren't similarly motivated and calculating; certainly they were ... Lance was just better.

It's an interesting read. The journalism is all first rate. The book tells a well-paced, even-handed, detailed, interesting story.

My only criticism is that the writing is typical for 21st-Century nonfiction - it reads like unedited, dictated speech. I would have appreciated another pass by a copyeditor who really loves the language. Compared with every other book near this one in a bookstore, it's fine.

So if your standards are relative - and you are seldom jarred by halting, inelegant prose in contemporary books - think of this as five stars.

While I see Lance Armstrong as a flawed champion, he was in fact competing against a very broad field of other cheats who he beat. Armstrong was part of a deeply flawed system. The use of EPO was very widespread and the rules regarding hemocrit levels seemed to indicate that the use of the drug was fine with everyone so long as the riders didn't overdose and die bringing negative press. The Tour de France organizers have set up a race that is nearly a gladiator match breaking the worlds best athletes - with very limited rest days and the widespread knowledge of testing schedules and habits - beating the test was baked into that system. Lance Armstrong is being made a scape goat for a system where companies and individuals encouraged, aided, and profited from his image being preserved. Lance brought a huge amount of positive press, new supporters and sponsorship - he personally made many companies and people very rich - now he's caught and he seems to be the only rider who has to pay the price. It seems unfair that despite almost every top pro being implicated or outright caught during this period that Armstrong looses all his wins and is banned for life. It should be considered that Armstrong also did a lot of good with his celebrity and forwarded the interest of cancer treatment and research - some level of clemency should be offered to allow him to help clean up the sport if that is in fact the goal - why is Armstrong being singled out and punished at a level never seen in sport? I'm disappointed that Lance hasn't lived up to his image but what celebrity does?

I highly recommend this book, it offers a look behind the curtain of Lance's machine. Lance is a disgusting human being, not because he doped, but because of his lying and exceptions, and the way he destroyed others along the way.

Revealing. And disappointing at the same time. Knew he was doping. Many cyclist were doing this. But the persistent denying when he had a choice to reveal but didn't act was heartbreaking. Great book!

Fascinating stuff, not just on Lance, but the entire cycling machinery (Nike, Trek, Oakley, US Cycling, UCI, Livestrong, spouses, coaches, teammates etc. ) that allowed this to happen because too much money/power/everything was at stake...

I think the reporters did a thorough and informative job of a tough subject to write about. The web of deception was thick and deep. This book really told an honest and unbiased report of what really happened with lance. I couldn't put it down. I didn't want it to end!

This book gives the straight story letting the facts speak for themselves. It's a good background to the situation that grew into the doping problem, and gives credit where credit is due because during its Cold War roots, even the US Olympic Committee felt we had to do it in order to compete with Soviet Bloc countries who also were.

WOW, Great book. This is a classic story - and it's tough to simplify the entire book here. The highly principled people in this book you could count on one hand, and they're not the central characters. Practically everyone involved - directly or remotely - in Lance's seven TdF wins had something to gain by going along for the ride....

Rather, this is a story where the ends justify the means. There are a central cast of characters, people with plenty to gain from Lance's "winning formula". The number of people and sponsors, standing in line with eyes wide at the potential money, fame, increased sales, future profit potential - is vast. The reader is treated to a great story, a human tale, with a sophisticated program of cheating at the center, and then increasingly ambiguous layers of motives spiraling outwards. There's more grey, than there is black and white, with all the players trying to exploit the potential for easy riches. There is so much money involved, the profit potential eclipses the point of competitive cycling itself. Seven times defines the word egregious. The entire Postal Team was subordinate to Lance, but also part of the winning strategy, as tainted and pathetic as it was. Sad to say that Lance's formula feeds a growing taste for the celebrity athlete, and the audience for such stunts is only getting less and less scrupulous - less concerned about the morals and ethics of its 21st century celebrity athletes. Finally, it would be nice to know if the governing bodies like the anti-doping associations are going after the "doctors" who supply drugs to these athletes...

I follow professional cycling closely. Having followed all of the drug controversy over 15 years and reading numerous articles and books, "Wheelmen" provides the keenest insight into the problem. For years I was an Armstrong defender, believing that no one could stay ahead of the system for a decade and therefore must be racing clean. WRONG!

A very interesting book about a well known problem. I had no idea how wide spread this problem was in many sports. As for Lance, a human icon that is brought back to being a self centered, ego driven person. Given what I know now, he is still a great athletic, but has a great deal of trouble telling the truth.

TOP READ.WHEELMAN
Great read tells all about the sport!Well written and keeps you well entertained.
Big disappointment to all up and coming young cyclists to know whats really going on in the world of professional cycling.

If anyone wants a concise overview of Lance Armstrong's career and use of performance-enhancing drugs, this is probably as good a summary as there is right now. Looking to expand their reporting on Armstrong's fall, the authors have gone back and filled in some details about Armstrong's upbringing and competitive career. As someone who has regularly followed professional cycling since 1985, it felt like more of an extended newspaper feature article than an in-depth book treatment. In terms of the actual psychology and methods of doping, I found Tyler Hamilton's book "The Secret Race" to be more informative and compelling. But this book sets out a nice, complete narrative and I would recommend it to someone who wants to get the big picture without investing a lot of time.

Really enjoyed this book, a total page turner. While I'm a big sports fan, never followed this story closely as it was happening. The book is great insight to the details of the doping scandal. I especially enjoyed the business aspects of the story, from Thomas Weisel to the various sponsors.

This is such a sad story about an egotistic, physical over- achiever. Even when he "comes clean" he still lies to himself and all of us.
The constant adulation and lack of accountability makes for a great, but disappointing true story. THanks John Littleton CO

Thoroughly researched, well written; a fascinating look into cycling, doping and the egos behind it all. A study of how big money has affected the sport and the powers behind it who enabled Lance to do what he did for such a long time.

Well researched but did not conclude what the fate of Lance was likely to be.
Will age overtake Lance and therefore render a professional comeback impossible.
There must be some good in him as he galvanised a multitude worldwide to support cancer research.
Like many others he was the fall guy while others(major sponsors) eqully culpable get off scott free.