Changes

|reviewer=Iain Wear

|genre=Sport

|buy=Yes

|borrow=Yes

|summary=Winning the Tour de France may be an uphill struggle or, usually, several days of uphill struggles. But reading Stephen Roche's story of how he achieved it certainly isn't.

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The title seems apt, as it appears that Stephen Roche was destined for a life on two wheels from quite early on in his life. His father cycled and a neighbour spotted Stephen on his bike while he was a teenager and dragged him away from football in the park to try racing and Roche's course was set. From here on in, the book is a personal view of his career, with brief glimpses of his personal life and a little at the end about his life after cycling.

This does give the book a slightly one dimensional feel, as with Roche's life being entirely devoted to his sport, there is little time for anything else. This is reflected in the content of the book in that there are only brief mentions of his family in between the cycling and the parts of his life before and after cycling are really only touched upon. Whilst I can appreciate that Roche was a cyclist first, I would have liked a little more about the man, rather than just the cyclist he was. However, I can imagine that this single-minded devotion to his cycling is what allowed him to be as successful as he was and what is here is certainly good enough that you don't really notice what is missing.