Read Online It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Lance Armstrong
Ads: Link
seize up and grow heavy with frigid,
sodden exhaustion.
The day of my debut, it rained so hard it hurt. As we started off into the stinging, icy downpour, I quickly faded to the back, and as the day wore on, I slipped farther and farther behind,
shivering and struggling to pedal. Soon, I was in last place. Ahead of me, the field was growing thinner as riders began to give up. Every so often one would pull over to the side of the road and
abandon the race. I was tempted to do the same, to squeeze the brakes, rise up from the bars,
and coast to the side of the road. It would be so easy. But I couldn’t, not in my first pro start. It would be too humiliating. What would my teammates think? I wasn’t a quitter.
Why don’t you just quit?
Son, you never quit.
Fifty riders dropped out, but I kept pedaling. I came in dead last in the field of 111 riders. I crossed the finish line almost half an hour behind the winner, and as I churned up the last hill,
the Spanish crowd began to laugh and hiss at me. “Look at the sorry one in last place,” one jeered.
A few hours later, I sat in the Madrid airport, slumped in a chair. I wanted to quit the entire sport. It was the most sobering race of my life; on my way to San Sebastian, I had actually
thought I had a chance of winning, and now I wondered if I could compete at all. They had laughed at me.
Professional cycling was going to be a lot harder than I’d thought; the pace was faster, the terrain tougher, the competition more fit than I ever imagined. I pulled a sheaf of unused plane
tickets out of my pocket. Among them, I had a return portion to the States. I considered using it. Maybe I should just go home, I thought, and find something else to do, something I was good
at.
I went to a pay phone and called Chris Carmichael. I told him how depressed I was, and that I was considering quitting. Chris just listened, and then he said, “Lance, you are going to learn
more from that experience than any other race in your whole life.” I was right to have stayed in and finished, to prove to my new teammates that I was a tough rider. If they were going to rely
on me, they needed to know I wasn’t a quitter. Now they did.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. I’ll keep going.”
I hung up, and boarded the plane for the next race. I had just two days off, and then I was scheduled to compete in the Championship of Zurich. I had a lot to prove, to myself and
everyone else–and unless my heart exploded in my chest, I was not going to be last again.
I finished second in Zurich. I attacked from the start and stayed on the attack for practically the entire race. I had little or no idea tactically how to ride in the race–I just put my head down and
bulled through it, and when I stepped onto the medal podium it was more with relief than elation. Okay, I thought to myself, I think I can do this after all.
I called Chris Carmichael. “See?” Chris said. In the space of just a few days I had gone from depressed rookie to legitimate competitor. The turnaround provoked murmurs around the sport:
Who’s this guy and what’s he all about? people wanted to know.
It was a question I still needed to answer for myself.
AN AMERICAN IN CYCLING WAS COMPARABLE TO A French baseball team in the World Series. I was a gate-crasher in a revered and time-honored sport, and I had little or no
concept of its rules, written and unwritten, or its etiquette. Let’s just say that my Texas manners didn’t exactly play well on the continent.
There was a big difference between the discreet jockeying of European cycling, and the swaggering, trash-talking American idea of competition I was reared with. Like most
Americans, I grew up oblivious to cycling; it wasn’t until LeMond’s victory in the ‘86 Tour that I really noticed the sport. There was a way things were done, and attitudes that I didn’t
understand, and even when I did understand them I didn’t feel I had to be a part of them. In
sodden exhaustion.
The day of my debut, it rained so hard it hurt. As we started off into the stinging, icy downpour, I quickly faded to the back, and as the day wore on, I slipped farther and farther behind,
shivering and struggling to pedal. Soon, I was in last place. Ahead of me, the field was growing thinner as riders began to give up. Every so often one would pull over to the side of the road and
abandon the race. I was tempted to do the same, to squeeze the brakes, rise up from the bars,
and coast to the side of the road. It would be so easy. But I couldn’t, not in my first pro start. It would be too humiliating. What would my teammates think? I wasn’t a quitter.
Why don’t you just quit?
Son, you never quit.
Fifty riders dropped out, but I kept pedaling. I came in dead last in the field of 111 riders. I crossed the finish line almost half an hour behind the winner, and as I churned up the last hill,
the Spanish crowd began to laugh and hiss at me. “Look at the sorry one in last place,” one jeered.
A few hours later, I sat in the Madrid airport, slumped in a chair. I wanted to quit the entire sport. It was the most sobering race of my life; on my way to San Sebastian, I had actually
thought I had a chance of winning, and now I wondered if I could compete at all. They had laughed at me.
Professional cycling was going to be a lot harder than I’d thought; the pace was faster, the terrain tougher, the competition more fit than I ever imagined. I pulled a sheaf of unused plane
tickets out of my pocket. Among them, I had a return portion to the States. I considered using it. Maybe I should just go home, I thought, and find something else to do, something I was good
at.
I went to a pay phone and called Chris Carmichael. I told him how depressed I was, and that I was considering quitting. Chris just listened, and then he said, “Lance, you are going to learn
more from that experience than any other race in your whole life.” I was right to have stayed in and finished, to prove to my new teammates that I was a tough rider. If they were going to rely
on me, they needed to know I wasn’t a quitter. Now they did.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. I’ll keep going.”
I hung up, and boarded the plane for the next race. I had just two days off, and then I was scheduled to compete in the Championship of Zurich. I had a lot to prove, to myself and
everyone else–and unless my heart exploded in my chest, I was not going to be last again.
I finished second in Zurich. I attacked from the start and stayed on the attack for practically the entire race. I had little or no idea tactically how to ride in the race–I just put my head down and
bulled through it, and when I stepped onto the medal podium it was more with relief than elation. Okay, I thought to myself, I think I can do this after all.
I called Chris Carmichael. “See?” Chris said. In the space of just a few days I had gone from depressed rookie to legitimate competitor. The turnaround provoked murmurs around the sport:
Who’s this guy and what’s he all about? people wanted to know.
It was a question I still needed to answer for myself.
AN AMERICAN IN CYCLING WAS COMPARABLE TO A French baseball team in the World Series. I was a gate-crasher in a revered and time-honored sport, and I had little or no
concept of its rules, written and unwritten, or its etiquette. Let’s just say that my Texas manners didn’t exactly play well on the continent.
There was a big difference between the discreet jockeying of European cycling, and the swaggering, trash-talking American idea of competition I was reared with. Like most
Americans, I grew up oblivious to cycling; it wasn’t until LeMond’s victory in the ‘86 Tour that I really noticed the sport. There was a way things were done, and attitudes that I didn’t
understand, and even when I did understand them I didn’t feel I had to be a part of them. In
Similar Books
