It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life (28 page)

At night over our training-table meals, we talked trash, pure junk, embellishing old tales and bragging about conquests, 99 percent of it untrue. We delighted in the storytelling of our chef,

Willy Balmet, a 65-year-old Swiss and a dear friend who has cooked for every team I’ve been on. Willy looks like a much younger man, and can speak six languages, everything short of

Swahili. The kitchen was his domain, and in all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never once seen him be denied the kitchen in a hotel. He would arrive and make the hotel staff feel a part of our

team. He always cooked our pasta; nobody else was allowed to touch it.

While I rode, Kik lit candles all over Europe. No matter what village or metropolis she was in, she would find a church and light a candle. In Rome, she lit one at the Vatican.

FINALLY, WE REACHED THE PYRENEES.

We rode into Saint-Gaudens in the shade of the mountains, through a countryside by Van Gogh. The Pyrenees would be the last chance for the climbers to unseat me: one bad day in those

mountains and the race could be lost. I wouldn’t be convinced I could win the Tour de France until we came down from the mountains.

The pressure was mounting steadily. I knew what it was like to ride with the pack in 55th place and finish a Tour de France, but the yellow jersey was a new experience and a different kind of

pressure. When you’re in the yellow jersey, as I was learning, you catch a lot of wind. My fellow riders tested me on the bike every single day. I was tested off the bike, too, as the scrutiny I

underwent in the press intensified.

I decided to address the charges outright, and held a press conference in Saint-Gaudens. “I have

been on my deathbed, and I am not stupid,” I said. Everyone knew that use of EPO and steroids by healthy people can cause blood disorders and strokes. What’s more, I told the press, it wasn’t

so shocking that I won Sestriere; I was an established former world champion.

“I can emphatically say I am not on drugs,” I said. “I thought a rider with my history and my health situation wouldn’t be such a surprise. I’m not a new rider. I know there’s been looking,

and prying, and digging, but you’re not going to find anything. There’s nothing to find … and once everyone has done their due diligence and realizes they need to be professional and can’t

print a lot of crap, they’ll realize they’re dealing with a clean guy.”

All I could do was continue to ride, take drug tests, and deal with the questions. We embarked on the first stage in the Pyrenees, from Saint-Gaudens to Piau-Engaly, a route through seven

mountains. This was the same terrain I had ridden when it was so cold, but now as we traveled over col after craggy col it was dusty and hot, and riders begged each other for water. The

descents were steep and menacing, with drop-offs along the side of the road.

The stage would finish just over the border from Spain, which meant that all the Spanish riders were determined to win it–and none more than Escartin, the lean, hawk-faced racer who

followed me everywhere. In the midst of the frenetic action, our Postal group got separated and I wound up alone, pursuing Escartin. He rode like an animal. All I could hope to do was limit

how much time he made up.

As the mountains parted in front of me on the second-to-last climb of the day, I managed to ride Zulle off my wheel and move into second place. But there was no catching Escartin, who had a

two-minute gap. On the last climb, I was worn out and I bonked. I hadn’t eaten anything solid since breakfast. I got dropped by the leaders and finished fourth. Escartin won the stage and

vaulted into second place overall, trailing me by 6:19. Zulle was 7:26 back.

Not long after I crossed the finish line, a French TV journalist confronted me: there were reports that I had tested positive for a banned substance. The report was wrong, of course. I returned to

the team hotel, and pushed through a throng of clamoring media, and called another press conference. All I could do was assert my innocence each time there was a new wave of

speculation in the papers–and there was one every three or four days..

Le Monde had published a story stating that a drug test had turned up minute traces of corticosteroid in my urine, I was using a cortisone cream to treat a case of saddle sores–and I

had cleared the cream with the Tour authorities before the race ever started. Immediately, Tour authorities issued a statement affirming my innocence. “Le Monde was looking for a drug story,

and they got one on skin cream,” I said.

I was hurt and demoralized by the constant barrage from the press. I put forth such effort, and had paid such a high price to ride again, and now that effort was being devalued. I tried to deal

with the reports honestly and straightforwardly, but it didn’t seem to do any good.

I began to notice something. The people who whispered and wrote that I was using drugs were the very same ones who, when I was sick, had said, “He’s finished. He’ll never race again.” They

were the same ones who, when I wanted to come back, said, “No, we don’t want to give him a chance. He’ll never amount to anything.”

Now that I was in the lead of the Tour de France, wearing the yellow jersey, and looking more and more like the eventual winner, the very same people sent the very same message. “It’s not

possible,” they said. “Can’t be done. He can’t do it. What’s going on here? There must be another explanation, something suspicious.” They were consistent, the naysayers.

It’s a good thing I didn’t listen to them when I was sick.

It hurt me, too, that the French journalists in particular were so suspicious of me. I lived in France, and I loved the country. After the previous year’s problems during the Tour, a number of

top riders had stayed away from France in ‘99, but not me. While other riders were afraid of being harassed by the police or investigated by the governmental authorities, I trained there

every day. France was the most severe place in the world to be caught using a performance enhancer, but I did all of my springtime racing in France, and conducted my entire Tour

preparation there. Under French law, the local police could have raided my house whenever they wanted. They didn’t have to ask, or knock. They could have sorted through my drawers, rifled

my pockets, searched my car, whatever they wanted, without a warrant or any sort of notice.

I said to the press, “I live in France. I spent the entire months of May and June in France, racing and training. If I was trying to hide something, I’d have been in another country.”

But they didn’t write that, or print that.

The next day, we traveled to perhaps the most famous mountain in the Tour, the Col du Tourmalet. The road to the top soared more than ten miles into the sky. It was our last big climb

and test, and once again, we knew we would be under relentless attack. By now we were sick of riding in front, always catching the wind, while being chased from behind. But if we could

control the mountains for one more day, it would be hard to deny us the top spot on the podium in Paris.

As soon as we reached the base of the 20-kilometer Tourmalet, the other riders began nipping at us. We rode a strong tempo, trying to weaken the attackers, and with 8K to go, we accelerated.

The French climber, Virenque, drew even with Kevin and said, angrily, “What’s your problem?” Kevin said he didn’t have a problem. Virenque asked Kevin if he was going “a bloc,” which

means all-out. Kevin said, “No, are you going a bloc? ” With that, Kevin kicked into a bigger gear and sped away from him. For the rest of the day Virenque chased us, glowering.

As we labored upward, Escartin and I shadowed each other. I watched him carefully. On the steepest part of the climb, he attacked. I went right with him–and so did Zulle. Going over the

top it was the three of us, locked in our private race. At the peak, we looked down on a thick carpet of clouds below us. As we descended, the fog closed in and we couldn’t see ten feet in

front of us. It was frightening, a high-speed chase through the mist, along cliff roads with no guardrails.

All I cared about now was keeping my main rivals either with me or behind me. Ahead of us loomed a second climb, the Col du Soulor. Escartin attacked again, and again I went right with

him. We reached another fog-cloaked summit, and now just one more climb remained in the Tour de France: the Col d’Aubisque, 7.5 kilometers of uphill effort. Then the mountain work

would be over, and it was an all-out drop to the finish at speeds of up to 70 miles per hour.

There were now three riders in front, fighting for the stage win, and a pack of nine trailing a minute behind and still in contention for the stage, among them myself, Escartin, and Zulle. I

didn’t care about a stage win. With four kilometers to go, I decided to ride safely and let the rest of them sprint-duel, while I avoided crashes. I had just one aim, to protect the yellow jersey.

I cycled through the stage finish and dismounted, thoroughly exhausted but pleased to have protected my lead. But after five hours on the bike, I now had to face another two-hour press

conference. I was beginning to feel that the press was trying to break me mentally, because the other riders couldn’t do it physically. The media had become as much of an obstacle as the

terrain itself.

That day, the International Cycling Union released all of my drug tests, which were, in fact, clean. What’s more, I had received a wonderful vote of confidence from the race organizer,

Jean-Marie Leblanc. “Armstrong beating his illness is a sign that the Tour can beat its own illness,” he said.

Somehow, we had fended off all the attacks, both on the bike and off, and kept the yellow jersey on my back. We had done it, we had controlled the mountains, and after three weeks and

2,200 miles I led the race with an overall time of 86:46:20. In second, trailing by six minutes and 15 seconds, was Escartin, and in third place, trailing by seven minutes and 28 seconds, was Alex

Zulle.

I still wore the maillot jaune.

ODDLY, AS PARIS DREW CLOSER, I GOT MORE AND MORE nervous. I was waking up every night in a cold sweat, and I began to wonder if I was sick. The night sweats were more

severe than anything I’d had when I was ill. I tried to tell myself the fight for my life was a lot more important than my fight to win the Tour de France, but by now they seemed to be one and

the same to me.

I wasn’t the only nervous member of our team. Our head mechanic was so edgy that he slept with my bike in his hotel room. He didn’t want to leave it in the van, where it could be prey for

sabotage. Who knew what freakish things could happen to keep me from winning? At the end of Stage 17, a long flat ride to Bordeaux, some nutcase shot pepper spray into the peloton, and a

handful of riders had to pull over, vomiting.

There was a very real threat that could still prevent me from the winning the Tour: a crash. I faced one last obstacle, an individual time trial over 35.4 miles in the theme-park town of

Futuroscope. In a time trial very, very bad things could happen. I could fall and break a collarbone, or a leg.

I wanted to win the time trial. I wanted to make a final statement on the bike, to show the press and cycling rumormongers that I didn’t care what they said about me. I was through with press

conferences (although not with drug tests; I was random-tested yet again after stage 17). To try to win the time trial, however, was a risky proposition, because a rider seeking the fastest time is

prone to taking foolish chances and hurting himself–perhaps so badly that he can’t get back on the bike.

We saw it all the time. Just look at what happened to Bobby Julich in Metz, when he crashed at 55 mph and suffered massive hematomas in his chest. I’d nearly crashed myself in that time trial,

when the child jumped out in front of me as I came around the tight turn. On the Alpe d’Huez, the spectator had jumped in front of Guerini and he crashed. Zulle would have been only a

minute behind me if he hadn’t crashed on the Passage du Gois.

Bill Stapleton came to see me in the hotel the night before the stage. “Lance, I’m not a coach, but I think you should take it easy here,” he said. “You’ve got a lot to lose. Let’s just get through

it. Don’t do anything stupid.”

The smart play was to avoid any mistakes, don’t fall, don’t hurt yourself, and don’t lose ten minutes because of a crash.

I didn’t care.

“Bill, who in the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” I said.

“What?”

“I’m going to kick ass tomorrow. I’m giving it everything. I’m going to put my signature on this Tour.”

“Okay,” Bill said, with resignation. “So I guess that’s not up for discussion.”

I’d worn the yellow jersey since Metz, and I didn’t want to give it up. As a team we had ridden to perfection, but now I wanted to win as an individual. Only three riders had ever swept all of

the time trials in the Tour, and they happened to be the three greatest ever: Bernard Hinault, Eddy Merckx, and Miguel Indurain. I wanted to be among them. I wanted to prove I was the

strongest man in the race.

I couldn’t sleep. Scott MacEachern from Nike came back to my room to visit, and so did Stapleton. Johan stuck his head in the room and saw Scott sprawled on my bed, while I was still

on my feet. Johan looked at his watch: it was 11:30 P.M. “Get these guys out of here and go to bed,” he ordered me.

My mother flew in for Futuroscope, and I arranged for her to ride in one of the follow cars. She wanted to see the time trial because she felt that old protective instinct; if she was with me, I

wouldn’t get hurt. But the time trials frightened her as much as anything, because she understood cycling well enough to know how easily I could crash–and she knew this day, the

second-to-last of the race, would either make it or break it for me, once and for all. She had to be there for that.