Instead each chapter explores a particular fear, whether crashing, injury or the burden of leadership and through this the arc of Dan Martin’s cycling career is covered. Along the way there are oddities, Martin’s been one of a handful to reject traditional post-race massages – they are a ritual, can be relaxing but there’s little evidence to suggest performance gains.

In his free time, Dan wrote a monthly column in Europe's greatest cycling magazine, Procycling, over an unusually long period, from 2008 to 2021.Dan Martin said no to British Cycling and even changed nationality to forge his own path, reinventing himself several times along the way to win two monuments and stages in all three grand tours. Twenty of the book’s 26 chapters have the word fear in their title (“The Fear of Doping”, “The Fear of Falling Off”, etc). His time at UAE explains how much the team might have had more money but it was still the Lampre team underneath: an old fashioned squadra where things get off to a bad start with a clumsy bike fitting before he even pulls on the jersey.

Was a huge fan of Dan Martin ever since the Liege win, where he displayed an unbelievable level of cool to just tail-gun the pack and pick his moment.Written with his long-time friend and best-selling author Pierre Carrey, this is the story of a rider who never sought to conform to modern cycling’s norms and someone who, in many ways, embodies an age in cycling which has long since disappeared. Overlaying that is a glimpse of the frankly mystical events that have foretold a victory or just the direction his career should take.

But others in the peloton also saw great significance, young riders like Romain Bardet thought if he could win then maybe they could as well.He enjoyed a glass of wine when he wanted to and didn’t obsess over every grain of rice on his plate. Known as one of the sport's last romantics, Dan has won stages on all of the Grand Tours and has triumphed at numerous one-day classics. The good vibes he sent through the peloton were rewarded by a Most Aggressive Rider prize at the 2018 Tour de France, where he took his trophy on the final podium on the Champs-Elysées. He was even reluctant to take medicines for his allergies – which used to ruin his form in Spring – for fear of the side effects. The time is the early 2000s, the place south west English midlands, not far from where Dan grew up, the scene a British Cycling seniors race, five or six laps of an undulating circuit with an off circuit hill finish, about 80/90ks, I was a veteran making up the bunch.