Chased by Pandas: My life in the mysterious world of cycling

Product Information

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. I was surprised when the owner of the Auberge Basque, the hotel where we were staying, had offered us a place for dinner, but had gratefully accepted; it would save us the trouble of finding another restaurant in town, a town that we soon realised was as tiny as it was pretty. The book came as a 2022 Christmas present from my son, very fitting and of special interest for me, I used to follow Dan as a rider through the racing season. Dan Martin piques your curiosity and draws you in to keep reading with a refreshing deep descriptions of being at the business end of the breakaway. Overlaying that is a glimpse of the frankly mystical events that have foretold a victory or just the direction his career should take.

The panda was to become a talisman for him though he never discovered who the person was inside the suit.

He’s had an interesting column over the years with Pro Cycling magazine and recent media appearances, like The Cycling Podcast, are always worth listening. I won’t spoil the book but there’s more in the book than the edited extracts on CN, you can see more sides to things. When I started watching races more regularly I for some reason developed an almost instant antipathy to Dan Martin.

Many probably remember the video of him hobbling around, struggling to walk yet able to race on the bike. Martin seems to be on a higher level, there are later examples of him having premonitions of victory, sending messages to his family to say “I’m going to win today”. Given that both Martin and Carrey have strayed further into the sport’s dark places in interviews and articles, it seems even lighter still. Dan is a proud husband of Jess, a British long-distance runner who competed in the 2016 Olympics, in Rio, and a proud father of twin daughters, Ella and Daisy, born in September 2018.Known as one of the sport’s last romantics, Dan has won stages on all of the Grand Tours and has triumphed at numerous one-day classics. His time at Quick-Step seems the best, one small anecdote goes a long way to explaining the “wolfpack” mentality: at the December training camp everyone sits down for dinner together, riders, mechanics, soigneurs all mixing. Many anecdotes get a paragraph or two but could be a whole chapter although the hardback already runs to 300 pages.