It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong Page A
Authors: Lance Armstrong
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telling me that I had blown it. He kept talking. “I’m
serious. You can do a lot better,” he said. “I’m convinced you’re going to be a world champion. But there’s a lot of work to do.”
Chris pointed out that the top riders, the Marco Pantanis, the Miguel Indurains, were all as strong as or stronger than I was. “So is everybody you’re racing at this level,” he said. What
would separate me would be my tactics.
I had to learn how to race, and the only place to do it was on the bike. That first year, I must
have spent 200 days overseas, riding around Europe, because the true test was on the road, where there was no hiding in a 160-mile race. In the last part, you either had it or you didn’t.
At home, I settled in Austin, in the Texas hill country where stony, dark-green banks surround the town lake that’s fed by the wide, uneasy waters of the Colorado River. In Austin, nobody
seemed to care what I wore, or whether I “belonged” or not. In fact, I couldn’t find two people dressed alike, and some of the wealthiest people in town looked like vagrants. It was a town
that seemed to be made for the young, with an ever-evolving selection of bars and music clubs on 6th Street, and hole-in-the-wall Tex-Mex joints where I could eat chili peppers for sport.
It was also a great town for training, with endless bike trails and back roads to explore for miles around. I rented a small bungalow near the University of Texas campus, which was fitting since
I was a student, not in the classroom, of course, but on the bike.
Cycling is an intricate, highly politicized sport, and it’s far more of a team sport than the spectator realizes, as I was discovering. It has a language all its own, pieced together from a
sampling of European words and phrases, and a peculiar ethic as well. On any team, each rider has a job, and is responsible for a specific part of the race. The slower riders are called
domestiques–servants–because they do the less glamorous work of “pulling” up hills (”pulling” is cycling lingo for blocking the wind for the other riders) and protecting their team leader through
the various perils of a stage race. The team leader is the principal cyclist, the rider most capable of sprinting to a finish with 150 miles in his legs. I was starting as a domestique, but I would
gradually be groomed for the role of team leader.
I learned about the peloton–the massive pack of riders that makes up the main body of the race. To the spectator it seems like a radiant blur, humming as it goes by, but that colorful blur is rife
with contact, the clashing of handlebars, elbows, and knees, and it’s full of international intrigues and deals. The speed of the peloton varies. Sometimes it moves at 20 miles an hour,
the riders pedaling slow and chatting. Other times, the group is spanned out across the road and we’re going 40 miles an hour. Within the peloton, there are constant negotiations between
competing riders: pull me today, and I’ll pull you tomorrow. Give an inch, make a friend. You don’t make deals that compromise yourself or your team, of course, but you help other riders if
you can, so they might return the favor.
The politics could be ambiguous and confusing to a young rider, even upsetting, and I got a harsh lesson in them in early 1991. My plan was to race as an amateur through the 1992
Olympics in Barcelona, and to turn pro right afterward. In the meantime, I continued to race in the U.S. for Subaru-Montgomery. Technically, I was a member of two different teams:
internationally, I raced for the U.S. national team under Chris Carmichael, but domestically I competed for Subaru-Montgomery.
While I was overseas with the national team in ‘91, we entered a prestigious race in Italy called the Settimana Bergamasca. It was a pro-am stage race, a ten-day ride through northern Italy, and
some of the best cyclists in the world would be there. No American had ever won it–but our
serious. You can do a lot better,” he said. “I’m convinced you’re going to be a world champion. But there’s a lot of work to do.”
Chris pointed out that the top riders, the Marco Pantanis, the Miguel Indurains, were all as strong as or stronger than I was. “So is everybody you’re racing at this level,” he said. What
would separate me would be my tactics.
I had to learn how to race, and the only place to do it was on the bike. That first year, I must
have spent 200 days overseas, riding around Europe, because the true test was on the road, where there was no hiding in a 160-mile race. In the last part, you either had it or you didn’t.
At home, I settled in Austin, in the Texas hill country where stony, dark-green banks surround the town lake that’s fed by the wide, uneasy waters of the Colorado River. In Austin, nobody
seemed to care what I wore, or whether I “belonged” or not. In fact, I couldn’t find two people dressed alike, and some of the wealthiest people in town looked like vagrants. It was a town
that seemed to be made for the young, with an ever-evolving selection of bars and music clubs on 6th Street, and hole-in-the-wall Tex-Mex joints where I could eat chili peppers for sport.
It was also a great town for training, with endless bike trails and back roads to explore for miles around. I rented a small bungalow near the University of Texas campus, which was fitting since
I was a student, not in the classroom, of course, but on the bike.
Cycling is an intricate, highly politicized sport, and it’s far more of a team sport than the spectator realizes, as I was discovering. It has a language all its own, pieced together from a
sampling of European words and phrases, and a peculiar ethic as well. On any team, each rider has a job, and is responsible for a specific part of the race. The slower riders are called
domestiques–servants–because they do the less glamorous work of “pulling” up hills (”pulling” is cycling lingo for blocking the wind for the other riders) and protecting their team leader through
the various perils of a stage race. The team leader is the principal cyclist, the rider most capable of sprinting to a finish with 150 miles in his legs. I was starting as a domestique, but I would
gradually be groomed for the role of team leader.
I learned about the peloton–the massive pack of riders that makes up the main body of the race. To the spectator it seems like a radiant blur, humming as it goes by, but that colorful blur is rife
with contact, the clashing of handlebars, elbows, and knees, and it’s full of international intrigues and deals. The speed of the peloton varies. Sometimes it moves at 20 miles an hour,
the riders pedaling slow and chatting. Other times, the group is spanned out across the road and we’re going 40 miles an hour. Within the peloton, there are constant negotiations between
competing riders: pull me today, and I’ll pull you tomorrow. Give an inch, make a friend. You don’t make deals that compromise yourself or your team, of course, but you help other riders if
you can, so they might return the favor.
The politics could be ambiguous and confusing to a young rider, even upsetting, and I got a harsh lesson in them in early 1991. My plan was to race as an amateur through the 1992
Olympics in Barcelona, and to turn pro right afterward. In the meantime, I continued to race in the U.S. for Subaru-Montgomery. Technically, I was a member of two different teams:
internationally, I raced for the U.S. national team under Chris Carmichael, but domestically I competed for Subaru-Montgomery.
While I was overseas with the national team in ‘91, we entered a prestigious race in Italy called the Settimana Bergamasca. It was a pro-am stage race, a ten-day ride through northern Italy, and
some of the best cyclists in the world would be there. No American had ever won it–but our
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