Daniel Cann

What makes this book such an excellent and compulsive read is that it avoids being ‘just another sports biog.’ This plays out like part biography, part mystery detective story as the enthusiastic Moore tries to find out who the man was behind the sports personality. I was riveted as Moore tried to solve the Millar enigma in interviews with old friends, teammates, competitors and mentors.

What emerges is an engaging account of a fascinating individual. Millar was short of stature and something of a loner as a youth, he already possessed a strong independent, single-minded, rebellious streak that would serve him so well in his cycling career. His future seemed all mapped out for him at the factory in Glasgow where he like thousands of other young men served their apprenticeship. But Millar was different, his early years are all about him breaking out from the crowd and following his own path.

Moore takes us through these formative years that have plenty of echoes in the future for who Millar was to eventually become. He possessed a very dry, very Glaswegian wit that often went over the heads of many. He was a vegetarian unlike many of his other cycling contemporaries at the time (late 1970s/early 1980s) and he had his own strict way of doing things that often saw him singled out as his own man. The book tries to peel away the layers and find out what drove him and what made him so unique. Throughout the book the real Millar seems tantalisingly close.

Cycling fans will be enthralled by the action and events described, there are plenty of excerpts from Cycling magazine and interviews and observations from Millar’s mentor Billy Bilsland and contemporaries Allan Peiper, Stephen Roche, Greg LeMond and many others. The agony, ecstasy and controversies of professional cycling are covered in depth. Past incidents come under the authors microscope and training, competing and drugs in the sport are all explored and elaborated on in interesting and easy to read detail.

As the book hurtles towards its end the reader will be totally spellbound as Moore comes ever closer to perhaps solving the enigma of Robert Millar. As most cycling fans know Millar disappeared in 2002 amid unpleasant and unfounded rumours and a gross invasion of his privacy. So Moore has his work cut out in attempting to gain the Scottish legend’s trust. I won’t ruin the books ending but I promise you that you will not be disappointed. Millar is already a fascinating subject and worthy of a book, Moore has proved that not only is he equal to the task but he has produced a work of excellence. If they give out jerseys for ‘King of the Biographies’ then Moore deserves one! Excellent.