Closer you get to Armstrong, the more complex he seems

Verna Noel Jones, Special to the News

Published June 24, 2005 at midnight

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Lance Armstrong has long reigned supreme in the world of avid cyclists and even in the minds of casual observers. Everyone knows about his testicular cancer scare, his amazing six wins at the Tour de France and his cancer foundation - brightly supported by the highly popular yellow bracelet.

Yet there's much about Lance we don't know: the secrets that give him an edge, for instance, or the depth of his sacrifices. So, a year ago February, Daniel Coyle decided the only way to truly determine what makes the guy's wheels spin is to be there day and night to see for himself. He packed up his wife and four children and left his home in Alaska for Girona, Spain, Armstrong's European home base.

He would spend the next 15 months abroad shadowing Armstrong's training sessions and back-road rides and probing the Lance enigma through the eyes of those in the rider's most trusted inner circle: his coach, trainer, technical advisors, close friends and teammates.

Coyle has been a sportswriter for some time. A former senior editor at Outside magazine, he now writes for Outside, Sports Illustrated and other publications. He is a two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, as well as author of Hardball: A Season in the Projects and the novel Walking Samuel.

What Coyle unearths in this fast-paced book is a highly complex and exacting man. Says Floyd Landis, one of Armstrong's support riders, "He seems so simple from a distance. . . . But the closer you get," the more you realize "this is one very, very complicated guy."

Coyle's wild ride explores Armstrong's candor, his humor, his competitive drive and his great ambition. The book is exceedingly entertaining and tightly written, with a keen eye toward the smallest detail. Here is Doyle's amusing description of the determined look Lance gets while racing:

"The furrows in his forehead would deepen and his eyes fix, and as they did, his upper lip would slowly rise up over his front teeth, a half-snarl, half-smile that resembled a . . . Dead-Elvis grin."

With the precision of an artist's brush, the author also pens exacting portraits of the many colorful people who are key to Armstrong's life: the Belgian tough guys, the questionable sports doctors, the team riders and competitors, including Boulder resident Tyler Hamilton. (Hamilton, who rode three Tours with Lance before breaking away to build the Phonak team to take him on, is known as the nicest and toughest guy in the sport, with an ungodly tolerance for pain.)

Throughout the book, the reader learns startling facts, such as: Armstrong's heart is one-third larger than most males', and that his body is able to process lactic acid (the stuff that makes muscles burn) far more efficiently than other cyclists. Lance's engine, Doyle says, can produce more power with less pain, making him "the alpha, the meanest, the toughest."

Armstrong, the author says, lives by basic principles. There are no gray areas. Attacking is better than defending. Everything is good or bad. (Bad being what Lance terms "trolls," the people he believes are out to ruin his reputation.)

Reports his chiropractor, Jeff Spencer, "He has no fear of paralysis and it frees him up to be optimistic about everything, even when it makes no rational sense to be."

As Doyle follows the pack that makes up Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service squad, he dispenses encyclopedic details. For example, he notes that among about 400 cyclists, there are an average of five serious injuries a week, ranging from broken collarbones, shoulder blades and backs to concussions, comas and sometimes death. Lance, though, hasn't crashed in five Tours and doesn't get sick.

While the elite Tour de France cyclists humbly refer to themselves as "cycle dorks" (as in skinny, equipment-obsessed Euro-dweebs, Doyle says), to a man their daily metabolic rate exceeds that of Everest climbers.

This group is also a highly superstitious lot. Before big rides, they shun air conditioners, chocolate mousse, tomato sauce and ice cream. Celibacy appears important as well, though there seems to have been an exception made for Juanita Cuervo, the nickname given to the woman better known to music fans as Sheryl Crow. (Yes, Lance's girlfriend also makes an appearance in print.)

It wouldn't be a complete accounting without mention of the continual scandals regarding illegal use of drugs to enhance performance. Long before the days of blood doping, EPO, testosterone and human growth hormone, cyclists experimented with the likes of strychnine, cocaine, ether and amphetamines. Armstrong, too, has been accused of blood doping, but he dodges those charges to the end.

Doyle's War may be the best attempt yet to reconstruct the pieces of the complex puzzle that is Lance Armstrong. The reader sits firmly in the bike saddle as he feints, chases and sprints past other pro cyclists through the final hairpin turn.

While the book is replete with Armstrong's unmatched toughness, we see the soft side, too, for those whose lives have been touched by cancer. These people, after all, are his strongest fan base, "a loyal makeshift family whom he loves and inspires, and who in turn love and inspire him, a spiral of belief that finds its expression in the Tour."

Verna Noel Jones is a freelance writer for the Rocky Mountain News, the Chicago Tribune and various magazines.

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