It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life (4 page)

on a bike or behind the wheel of a car. I’d weave up and down the avenues on my bike, dodging cars and racing the stoplights, going as far as downtown Dallas. I used to like to ride in traffic,

for the challenge.

My brand-new Raleigh was top-of-the-line and beautiful, but I owned it only a short time before I wrecked it and almost got myself killed. It happened one afternoon when I was running

stoplights. I was spinning through them one after the other, trying to beat the timers. I got five of them. Then I came to a giant intersection of two six-lanes, and the light turned yellow.

I kept going anyway–which I did all the time. Still do.

I got across three lanes before the light turned red. As I raced across the fourth lane, I saw a lady in a Ford Bronco out of the corner of my eye. She didn’t see me. She accelerated–and smashed

right into me.

I went flying, headfirst across the intersection. No helmet. Landed on my head, and just kind of rolled to a stop at the curb.

I was alone. I had no ID, nothing on me. I tried to get up. But then there were people crowding around me, and somebody said, “No, no, don’t move!” I lay back down and waited for the

ambulance while the lady who’d hit me had hysterics. The ambulance arrived and took me to the

hospital, where I was conscious enough to recite my phone number, and the hospital people called my mother, who got pretty hysterical, too.

I had a concussion, and I took a bunch of stitches in my head, and a few more in my foot, which was gashed wide open. The car had broadsided me, so my knee was sprained and torn up, and it

had to be put in a heavy brace. As for the bike, it was completely mangled.

I explained to the doctor who treated me that I was in training for a triathlon to be held six days later at Lake Dallas in Louisville. The doctor said, “Absolutely no way. You can’t do anything

for three weeks. Don’t run, don’t walk.”

I left the hospital a day later, limping and sore and thinking I was out of action. But after a couple of days of sitting around, I got bored. I went out to play golf at a little local course, even

though I still had the leg brace on. It felt good to be out and be moving around. I took the leg brace off. I thought, Well, this isn’t so bad.

By the fourth day, I didn’t see what the big deal was. I felt pretty good. I signed up for the triathlon, and that night I told my mother, “I’m doing that thing. I’m racing.”

She just said, “Okay. Great.”

I called a friend and said, “I gotta borrow your bike.” Then I went into my bathroom and cut the stitches out of my foot. I was already good with the nail clippers. I left the ones in my head,

since I’d be wearing a swim cap. Then I cut holes in my running shoe and my bike shoe so the gash in my foot wouldn’t rub.

Early the next morning, I was at the starting line with the rest of the competitors. I was first out of the water. I was first off the bike. I got caught by a couple of guys on the 10K run, and took

third. The next day, there was a big article in the paper about how I’d been hit by a car and still finished third. A week later, my mom and I got a letter from the doctor. “I can’t believe it,” he

wrote.

NOTHING SEEMED TO SLOW ME DOWN. I HAVE A LOVE of acceleration in any form, and as a teenager I developed a fascination with high-performance cars. The first thing I did

with the prize money from my triathlon career was buy a little used red Fiat, which I would race around Piano–without a driver’s license.

One afternoon when I was in llth grade, I pulled off a serious piece of driving that my old friends still marvel at. I was cruising down a two-lane road with some classmates when we approached

two cars moving slowly.

Impatiently, I hit the gas.

I drove my little Fiat right between the two cars. I shot the gap, and you could have stuck your

finger out of the window and into the open mouths of the other drivers.

I took the car out at night, which was illegal unless an adult was with me. One Christmas season, I got a part-time job working at Toys “.H” Us, helping carry stuff out to customers’ cars.

Steve Lewis got a job at Target, and we both had night shifts, so our parents let us take the cars to work. Bad decision. Steve and I would drag-race home, doing 80 or 90 through the streets.

Steve had a Pontiac Trans Am, and I upgraded to a Camaro IROC Z28, a monster of a car. I was in a cheesy disco phase, and I wanted that car more than anything. Jim Hoyt helped me buy

it by signing the loan, and I made all the monthly payments and carried the insurance. It was a fast, fast car, and some nights, we’d go down to Forest Lane, which was a drag-strip area, and

get it up to 115 or 120 mph, down a 45-mph road.

I had two sets of friends, a circle of popular high-school kids who I would carouse with, and then my athlete friends, the bike racers and runners and triathletes, some of them grown men.

There was social pressure at Piano East, but my mother and I couldn’t begin to keep up with the Joneses, so we didn’t even try. While other kids drove hot cars that their parents had given

them, I drove the one I had bought with my own money.

Still, I felt shunned at times. I was the guy who did weird sports and who didn’t wear the right labels. Some of my more social friends would say things like, “If I were you, I’d be embarrassed

to wear those Lycra shorts.” I shrugged. There was an unwritten dress code; the socially acceptable people all wore uniforms with Polo labels on them. They might not have known it,

but that’s what they were: uniforms. Same pants, same boots, same belts, same wallets, same caps. It was total conformity, and everything I was against.

IN THE FALL OF MY SENIOR YEAR IN HIGH SCHOOL I

entered an important time trial in Moriarty, New Mexico, a big race for young riders, on a course where it was easy to ride a fast time. It was a flat 12 miles with very little wind, along a stretch

of highway. A lot of big trucks passed through, and they would belt you with a hot blast of air that pushed you along. Young riders went there to set records and get noticed.

It was September but still hot when we left Texas, so I packed light. On the morning of my ride I got up at 6 and headed out the door into a blast of early-morning mountain air. All I had on

was a pair of bike shorts and a short-sleeved racing jersey. I got five minutes down the road, and thought, I can’t handle this. It was frigid.

I turned around and went back to the room. I said, “Mom, it’s so cold out there I can’t ride. I need a jacket or something.” We looked through our luggage, and I didn’t have a single piece of

warm clothing. I hadn’t brought anything. I was totally unprepared. It was the act of a complete amateur.

My mom said, “Well, I have a little windbreaker that I brought,” and she pulled out this tiny pink jacket. I’ve told you how small and delicate she is. It looked like something a doll would

wear.

“I’ll take it,” I said. It was that cold.

I went back outside. The sleeves came up to my elbows, and it was tight all over, but I wore it all through my warmup, a 45-minute ride. I still had it on when I got to the starting area. Staying

warm is critical for a time trial, because when they say “go,” you’ve got to be completely ready to go, boom, all-out for 12 miles. But I was still cold.

Desperate, I said, “Mom, get in the car, and turn on the heat as hot and high as it’ll go.”

She started the car and let it run, and put the heat on full blast. I got in and huddled in front of the heating vents. I said, “Just tell me when it’s time to go.” That was my warmup.

Finally, it was my turn. I got out of the car and right onto the bike. I went to the start line and took off. I smashed the course record by 45 seconds.

The things that were important to people in Piano were becoming less and less important to me. School and socializing were second to me now; developing into a world-class athlete was first.

My life’s ambition wasn’t to own a tract home near a strip mall. I had a fast car and money in my wallet, but that was because I was winning races– in sports none of my classmates understood

or cared about.

I took longer and longer training rides by myself. Sometimes a bunch of us would go camping or waterskiing, and afterward, instead of riding home in a car with everyone else, I’d cycle all the

way back alone. Once, after a camping trip in Texoma with some buddies, I rode 60 miles home.

Not even the teachers at school seemed to understand what I was after. During the second semester of my senior year, I was invited by the U.S. Cycling Federation to go to Colorado

Springs to train with the junior U.S. national team, and to travel to Moscow for my first big international bike race, the 1990 Junior World Championships. Word had gotten around after

my performance in New Mexico.

But the administrators at Piano East objected. They had a strict policy: no unexcused absences. You’d think a trip to Moscow would be worth extra credits, and you’d think a school would be

proud to have an Olympic prospect in its graduation rolls. But they didn’t care.

I went to Colorado Springs anyway, and then to Moscow. At the Junior Worlds, I had no idea what I was doing, I was all raw energy with no concept of pacing or tactics. But I led for several

laps anyway, before I faded, out of gas from attacking too early. Still, the U.S. federation officials were impressed, and the Russian coach told everybody I was the best young cyclist he

had seen in years.

I was gone for six weeks. When I got back in March, my grades were all zeroes because of the missed attendance. A team of six administrators met with my mother and me, and told us that

unless I made up all of the work in every subject over just a few weeks, I wouldn’t graduate with my class. My mother and I were stunned.

“But there’s no way I can do that,” I told them.

The suits just looked at me.

“You’re not a quitter, are you?” one of them said.

I stared back at them. I knew damn well that if I played football and wore Polo shirts and had parents who belonged to Los Rios Country Club, things would be different.

“This meeting is over,” I said.

We got up and walked out. We had already paid for the graduation announcements, the cap and gown, and the senior prom. My mother said, “You stay in school for the rest of the day, and by

the time you get home, I’ll have this worked out.”

She went back to her office and called every private school in the Dallas phone book. She would ask a private school to accept me, and then confess that she couldn’t pay for the tuition,

so could they take me for free? She dialed schools all over the area and explained our dilemma. “He’s not a bad kid,” she’d plead. “He doesn’t do drugs. I promise you, he’s going places.”

By the end of the day, she’d found a private academy, Bending Oaks, that was willing to accept me if I took a couple of make-up courses. We transferred all of my credits from Piano East, and I

got my degree on time. At the graduation ceremony, all of my classmates had maroon tassels on their caps, while mine was Piano East gold, but I wasn’t a bit embarrassed.

I decided to go to my senior prom at Piano East anyway. We’d already paid for it, so I wasn’t about to miss it. I bought a corsage for my date, rented a tuxedo, and booked a limousine. That

night, as I was getting dressed in my tux and bow tie, I had an idea. My mother had never been in a limo.

I wanted her to experience that ride. How do you articulate all that you feel for and owe to a parent? My mother had given me more than any teacher or father figure ever had, and she had

done it over some long hard years, years that must have looked as empty to her at times as those brown Texas fields. When it came to never quitting, to not caring how it looked, to gritting your

teeth and pushing to the finish, I could only hope to have the stamina and fortitude of my mother, a single woman with a young son and a small salary–and there was no reward for her at

the end of the day, either, no trophy or first-place check. For her, there was just the knowledge

that honest effort was a transforming experience, and that her love was redemptive. Every time she said, “Make an obstacle an opportunity, make a negative a positive,” she was talking about

me, I realized; about her decision to have me and the way she had raised me.

“Get your prom dress on,” I told her.

She owned a beautiful sundress that she liked to call her “prom dress,” so she put it on and got in the car with my date and me, and together we rode around town for more than an hour,

laughing and toasting my graduation, until it was time to drop us off at the dance.

My mother was happy again, and settling into a new relationship. When I was 17, she met a man named John Walling, a good guy who she eventually married. I liked him, and we became

friends, and I would be sorry when they split up in 1998.

It’s funny. People are always saying to me, “Hey, I ran into your father.” I have to stop and think, Exactly who do they mean? It could be any of three people, and frankly, my birth father I don’t

know from a bank teller, and I have nothing to say to Terry. Occasionally, some of the Armstrongs try to get in touch with me, as if we’re family. But we aren’t related, and I wish they

would respect my feelings on the subject. My family are the Mooneyhams. As for Armstrong, it’s as if I made up my name, that’s how I feel about it.

I’m sure the Armstrongs would give you 50,000 different reasons why I needed a father, and what great jobs they did. But I disagree. My mother gave me everything. All I felt for them was

a kind of coldness, and a lack of trust.

FOR A FEW MONTHS AFTER GRADUATION, I HUNG

around Piano. Most of my Piano East classmates went on to the state-university system; my buddy Steve, for instance, got his degree from North Texas State in 1993. (Not long ago, Piano

East held its 10th reunion. I wasn’t invited.)