Eddy Merckx is to cycling what Muhammad Ali is to boxing or Pele to football: quite simply, the best there has ever been.Throughout his professional career Merckx amassed an astonishing 445 victories. Lance Armstrong, by comparison, managed fewer than 100. Merckx was a machine. It wasn"t just the number of victories; it was his remorseless domination that created the legend. In 1969 while already comfortably leading the Tour de France, Merckx hammered a further eight-and-a-half minutes out of his nearest rivals during an 85-mile solo break in the Pyrenees. He didn"t just beat his opponents, he crushed them.But his triumphs only tell half a story that includes horrific injury, a doping controversy and tragedy. He was nicknamed "The Cannibal" for his insatiable appetite for victory, but the moniker did scant justice to a man who was handsome, sensitive and surprisingly anxious.For Britain"s leading cycling writer, William Fotheringham, the burning question remains, why? What made Eddy...