I was given this book for my birthday back in February and had saved reading it until the start of the Tour. It was worth the rate. It is an incredible description of the mental state of a cyclist during the race, interspaced with flashbacks looking back at anecdotes in the past. The book is very nicely written, with a great turn of phrase. The opening is rightly famous, "...Vanaf terrasjes kijken toeristen en inwoners toe. Niet-wielrenners. De leegte van die levens schokt me.". ("Tourists and locals watched us from pavement cafés. Non-cyclists. The emptiness of those lives shocked me"). He takes what starts as an apparently innocent observation and turns it on its head, showing how things can look completely different to a competitive cyclist. In a sense he does that in the entire book, letting us into his world, in a very intimate way. Much of the book consists of his thoughts as he battles his way along the route. Some of the struggle will be familiar to anyone who has cycled long distances (perhaps also to runners), other aspects are very specific to competitive team cycling on the road.
The book is intense, short and I will be reading again for certain.