The cut-throat business that is top-level cycling revealed itself in all its glory to Alex Dowsett during his second year on the British Cycling Senior Academy.
Flat-sharing in Manchester with fellow Academy riders, he returned home having been out on a date to find his room trashed, his washbag urinated on and obscenities about his mum written on the whiteboard.
It’s one of many eye-opening tales he recounts in his new book, Bloody Minded – the title of which could scarcely be more appropriate. Not just as a nod to the haemophilia that has dogged him and shaped him since childhood, but also to the sheer tenacity Dowsett has had to call on throughout his career.
Having his room trashed by those who were, on the face of
