Sofa Spotlight - 23 Days in July, John Wilcockson

I wanted to read this book for a couple of reasons. The shortest is that it is about the 2004 Tour de France and, as I didn’t really start watching the Tour until 2010, I thought it would be fun to read about one of the races that I didn’t see.

My second reason is that it was the year that Lance Armstrong won his sixth Tour de France and so it was written before all the hype around when he admitted to doping so he didn’t actually win those races. If you check out the Wikipedia articles for the Tour de France races that Armstrong won you see his name scratched out.

Even though it’s been nearly six years since Armstrong confessed to cheating there’s still a lot of stuff in the news surrounding the sport about doping. I’m not sure what I believe when it comes to what is reported. Last year it was Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome. Cyclists I both like, so there is a big part of me that is hoping that it was all innocent. But I think the problem is no one knows what to believe anymore. When I watch it I want to believe that what I am seeing is real but I don’t think there’s any way of knowing and I hope that one day that gets cleared up.

But in this book none of that is being talked about because it just hadn’t happened yet. The Festina affair had happened but that was in 1998. And there is some mention of the allegations being made against Armstrong. On the whole though there wasn’t as much talk about it as there is now.

Each chapter of the book takes you through a different stage of the Tour and its events and post- race analysis. For me it was as exciting as watching the race on TV. The pace of the book was just as fast and dramatic. I think even if you don’t know the cycling world you would enjoy this book because there’s enough information given to give you the picture but not so much that it becomes dull. And if you love the sport and reading then this is the perfect combination.

Up against Armstrong are Jan Ullrich from Germany and also Tyler Hamilton from the USA, who sadly crashes out. Neither of them are names that I recognise but it was fun trying to spot riders that are still in the sport, or were in it when I started following it.

What comes across is how tough a race it is. I don’t think you have to be a cyclist to feel a bit of the agony that the riders go through climbing the mountains. Wilcockson makes this a brilliant read and I think it’s worth reading to see what the sport was like in the Armstrong years. But if reading isn’t your thing and you don’t really know what happened with Lance Armstrong then The Programe or The Armstrong Lie are worth a watch.