We Might As Well Win: On the Road to Success with the Mastermind Behind Eight Tour de France Victories by Johan Bruyneel, Bill Strickland, Lance Armstrong (Introduction)

Synopsis

For the first time, go behind the scenes and inside the mind of Johan Bruyneel, the winningest team director in cycling history and the strategist, confidant, motivator, and coach behind Lance Armstrong's amazing success.

Johan Bruyneel knows what it takes to win. In 1998, this calculating Belgian and former pro cyclist looked a struggling rider and cancer survivor in the eye and said, "Look, if we're going to ride the tour, we might as well win." In that powerful phrase a dynasty was born.With Bruyneel as his team director, Lance Armstrong seized a record seven straight Tour de France victories. In the meantime, Bruyneel brought innovation to the sport of cycling and went on to prove he could win without his superstar—in 2007 he took the Tour de France title with a young new team and a lot of nerve, sealing his place in sports history forever.

We Might as Well Win takes readers behind the scenes of this amazing nine-year journey through the Alps and Pyrenees, revealing a radical recipe for winning that readers can adapt from the bike to the boardroom to life.We witness Bruyneel's near-death crash and comeback as a rider.We are privy to the many ways he and Armstrong outsmarted their opponents.We go over the airwaves to hear the secrets of eking the best out of a disparate team.We learn that not winning isn't always losing as Bruyneel struggles to prove himself—post-Armstrong—with new riders, new strategies, and skeptics around every corner.

Whether mounting a difficult climb, managing a team of thirty riders and forty support staff from a miniature car hurtling along narrow European roads, or looking a future legend inthe eye and willing him to believe, Bruyneel is, and has always been, the consummate winner. Readers will relish this inside tour.

Biography

JOHAN BRUYNEEL is a former professional cyclist and was the team director from 1999 through 2007 of the U.S. Postal Service Pro Cycling Team,

(later the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team). In that role, he won a record eight Tour de France victories (in nine years' time), making him the winningest team director in history. Born in cycling-mad Belgium in 1964, Bruyneel is fluent in six languages and receives significant worldwide media coverage.

BILL STRICKLAND is the executive editor of Bicycling, the world's largest cycling magazine, and has ridden and written about cycling for twenty years. He is regularly cited as an expert source on the sport for national media outlets. He is also the author of the memoir Ten Points.