My Time, by Bradley Wiggins

..."with" William Fotheringham! There, that, is a tiny part of how this book seeds tiny bits of mistrust throughout. (And beyond, as we will see.) Yes, there is a ghost writer at work; to be fair, it's not often that the presence of one is so upfront. It still nudges one into suspecting some image massaging.

Overall my reading has been quite eclectic, but I must admit I've very rarely ventured into the sports genre. These books are almost always the work of journalists, which doesn't mean they're poorly written, not at all, but stylistically they tend to fall into a narrow range. William Fotheringham is a good writer, by the way, I've read some of his pieces in the Daily Telegraph if I remember correctly.

As for other sports books, I certainly liked Simon Kuper's Football Against the Enemy, all about clubs and fans in odd places around the world; but the biographies, usually published to cash in on recent achievements, have been a bit like this one, with a similar superficiality, faux-directness, and a feel of so much being left unsaid. A long time ago there was one by Sebastian Coe, Running Free I think; again, written "with" a respected journalist which is a little surprising now, seeing as he must have been perfectly capable of writing it himself. Then more recently, Mark Cavendish's Boy Racer, very relevant to this book and very readable, but with any writing 'help' completely hidden. I enjoyed that book.

And despite what I've been saying so far, I enjoyed this one. For all that sports autobiographies are self serving by their very nature, they have one intrinsic plus: if you followed the events in the first place, then here's a chance to relive them, through the eyes of the principals, or one of them. I love watching the Tour, it's epic and one of that select handful of the best that sport has to offer. On the face of it, it shouldn't be so, since cycling is nominally a performance sport. But the Tour goes way beyond, and crucially becomes a team sport. An individual has no hope of winning, because the support of a team makes all the difference. Then there's the complexity of all the permutations made possible by the make up of any particular team. Wiggins's Sky team were caught from several angles - Cavendish's presence, as the Tour's best sprinter, threatened to split their priorities, and then Chris Froome turned out to be a potential winner himself. And finally, there's the fact that it's France, and so much of it takes place in some of the most beautiful landscapes on Earth. My Time couldn't help but be an absorbing read.

It's clear that Wiggins isn't the easiest guy to work with, and people around him must often need to exercise a lot of patience. But the cycling fan doesn't have to be too concerned with that: the fact is, Wiggins was an extraordinary cyclist, he had an amazing career on the track, hauling in a sackful of medals, and on top of that, after devoting himself to road cycling, he finally hit a peak in 2012, culminating in winning the Tour and then the London Olympic Road Time Trial. My Time is all about this one year.

The book comes close to sinking under the weight of questions going begging, over two explosive issues. One is to do with Chris Froome's behaviour. He appeared stronger than Wiggins on a couple of mountain stages, and journalists were quick to stoke the fire, asking if Froome shouldn't take over as leader. This was while Wiggins was still in yellow, with a bit of a margin. He would win if he was supported by his team, as he did, mainly by winning both individual time trials by impressive margins. Some people seemed to ignore the fact that it is perfectly okay to win the Tour like this. That's the Tour, it demands a variety of skills, and it's not only great climbers who get to shine. The view seems to be that maybe Froome was already stronger than Wiggins overall, and of course he's won several Tours himself since. But at the time, there was every reason for Wiggins to be leader, and in my view you don't ditch a leader while he's still on track for the win. I think people forget that Froome could be a bit of a git himself. I'd like to think his perspectives on team discipline are more mature these days. Stepping back, one should consider the consequences for the team as a whole, of switching support at such a stage of the race. I reckon things would have come unstuck very quickly, especially for team morale. The bottom line is indeed the bottom line: Froome and the rest were paid to do a specific job, and all that mattered was the judgement of Dave Brailsford the team manager, Shaun Sutton the coach, and Sean Yates the directeur sportif.

The book covers those incidents in the mountains very cursorily, and with contradictory remarks on Froome, on the one hand praising his riding, on the other, expressing 'confusion' about what 'Froomie' was up to. It's a section of the book which will be baffling for any reader who wasn't watching at the time, but I doubt if there are any such.

The other issue isn't covered at all, and I feel like only briefly referring to it. Doping, under the guise of Therapeutic Use Exemptions. This only came out 4-5 years later, and it's very sad, upsetting even considering the long passionate rant in the book about the damage drug taking has done to the sport. It does seem that Sky and Wiggins were following the letter of the law, but as for the spirit... One should heavily emphasise that others in this story are also implicated.

It's one of those situations where opposite things feel true at the same time. The behaviour of Sky in 2012 in relation to 'medicine' is questionable; and yet I can't deny feeling then and now that the Tour win was an amazing, thrilling, inspiring achievement, especially for any British cycling fan. And the book goes some way to remind one of that.