16 quotes from The Secret Race

The Secret Race by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle is the hottest cycling book right now. It fills in all the shocking details how professional elite athletes cheat.

Here are my selection of the best quotes, one each from the 16 chapters of the book:

1. Here's the secret: You can't block out the pain. You have to embrace it.
2. Amphetamines and anabolics are nothing compared to EPO. All of a sudden whole teams were ragingly fast; all of a sudden I was struggling to make time limits.
3. "This is not doping," he said. "This is for your health. To help you recover." I nodded.
4. "Dad if I ever have to take that stuff to compete, I'll retire." I'd thought it would be hard to lie to my dad;  it turned out it was easy.
5. Ferrari was unlike any other doctor I'd ever met, before or since.
6. Lance's face was beet red; he was in a full rage, really letting the guy have it.
7. Whenever I watch the likable gangsters on The Sopranos, I think of Johan.
8. It took the drug-testing authorities several years and millions of dollars to develop a test to detect EPO in urine and blood. It took Ferrari about five minutes to figure out how to evade it.
9. I did a lot of what he called 40-20s, which meant 40 seconds full gas, followed by 20 seconds of rest repeated over and over. These may have been the toughest and most productive workouts I've ever done.
10. One of the things I learned in 2002 was that living in the same building as Lance had its complications.
11. We'd made it to the top of the bike-racing world, and when we got there we found mostly desolation and emptiness.
12. "You need to know something." I pulled in closer. Floyd's Mennonite conscience was bothering him. "Lance called the UCI on you," he said.
13. Lance worked the system - hell, Lance was the system.
14. You spend your life working to get to the brink of success, and then you are given a choice: either join in or quit and go home. What would you do?
15. I didn't say anything. Lance was on a roll now. "I'm going to make your life a living ... fucking ... hell."
16. The truth really will set you free.

The Secret Race reads like an exciting thriller, you cannot put it down. I just finished it and do recommend it.

One more thing: My Life with Lance Armstrong by Mike Anderson is also an interesting story worth checking out.