Book Review - We Might As Well Win

I went out and bought this book shortly after Christmas with some Christmas money. It is written by Johann Bruyneel, Lance Armstrong's cycling coach and coach of Alberto Contador another two time Tour de France champion. It was written after he had "retired" from coaching, kind of like Brett Favre retiring from football. At the time he had coached 8 Tour de France champions, Lance 7 times and Alberto once. Since then Alberto has won again and Lance has un-retired and recruited Bruyneel to coach his new team, Team Radioshack.

The book basically details several of Bruyneel's experiences through life and how they helped him to become a winner. He talks at length about what he has learned from winning and what he has learned from losing. These experiences combined to make him stronger for future victories. From a motivational standpoint, it's really kind of ho-hum, making points that I thought were pretty obvious to most people. But he does show how much winning is more a state of mind than a point in time or the luck of the draw.

What I really liked about the book is the countless stories that he uses to illustrate his points. (Ok, I could count them, but I'm not going to) In each chapter, he uses at least one example from either his racing days or his coaching days to illustrate the particular point that he's trying to make. The stories he tells are funny, interesting, and amazing. If you don't know really how pro cycling works or what the method to the madness is, you will by the end of this book because Bruyneel does a good job of explaining it in an interesting way.

So basically this book is a book full of cycling stories, and a very quick read. I normally rate books on a 3 point scale, so I would give this one a 2/3 because I enjoy the subject. For non-cycling fans, I think it may be interesting just because it explains how the sport works by the means of great story telling.