Roule Britannia by William Fotheringham

Roule Britannia is a brilliant book by Will Fotheringham that goes into lavish detail about some of Britain's most important Tour de France participants in the last 70 years.

• Pros: Incredibly researched, insider knowledge
• Cons: Some of the references are a little dated

Like the Oxford English Dictionary is a record of changing language over time, Roule Britannia is a record of changing results, approaches and personalities of the British in the Tour de France.

My bookshelf is littered with William Fotheringham books and I firmly believe that he is the best bike racing writer working at the moment. So I was really excited to see what he had done with Roule Britannia since its last publication in 2012.

The book details British riders on the tour, from the earliest to today, with Fotheringham's research so thorough that he often throws in stories that would be impossible to find in even contemporary books about the event. For instance, when discussing Tony Hoar, a member of the GB squad who raced in 1955, Fotheringham references how he arrived at races 'by train and bus because he had no car'; this was a man who raced 64 years ago, yet Fotheringham manages to throw in tidbits like this to demonstrate not only his knowledge, but give each character a sense of personality.

One of the key strengths of the book is that it isn't simply a record of the race itself from a British perspective, but gives a huge amount of detail and personality to cyclists who 95 per cent of British cycling fans today would never have even heard of, let alone seen race. It makes what has the potential to be a slightly limited subject feel fuller, very readable, and incredibly informative.

This book was originally written in 2005 and has been updated every few years since, but one of the elements that perhaps could have been done better is changing the contextualisation within some of the earlier chapters. For instance, Robert Millar is heralded as 'Britain's best ever tour man' with no reference to Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas or Bradley Wiggins, who would probably have a little something to say about who that title belongs to.

There are also some fairly awkward bits that, in hindsight, could have used different examples. For instance, when discussing Mark Cavendish there are two paragraphs showing how Cav's mentality was similar to Lance Armstrong, with his will to win at any cost. At the time of writing (before Armstrong became the ultimate pariah) these would have been a great comparison, but in hindsight are a little jarring.

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Later in the book, as Fotheringham moves from the 90s and 00s to Team Sky's success, the same fully fledged characterisation of the characters seems to dissipate, and the rich multi-page history given to the early riders becomes brief paragraphs. Indeed, beyond being Kenyan-born, there is very little about Chris Froome's background despite being the only Briton to win the Tour more than once.

To some extent this is understandable, given that most chapters generally tend to give an entire history of a rider from first race, struggles, retirement and post-retirement, but it still seems a little off, especially given Froome's monumental successes as a Briton riding in the race that the book is focused on. Indeed, considerably more time is spent discussing the trials and tribulations of Team Sky's jiffy bag and Salbutamol cases than Froome's or Thomas's wins in the race itself. It is probably also true that writing about Team Sky isn't as interesting as writing about British forebears because of their success – underdogs always make a better story after all, so perhaps this was a deliberate move by Fotheringham.

However, regardless of the last couple of chapters, this is an enthralling and brilliant history of Brits in the Tour de France, and the way that Fotheringham brings real personality to some of them is masterful.

Verdict

Brilliant and insightful book, though the updates could be a little more thorough