3.29.2011

Armstrong's End Game

"I was on a motorcycle speeding beside him in a time trial at the 1994 Tour DuPont. Power billowed off his body like smoke off a burning skillet of grease. He was battering his bike, punishing the pedals with kicks and stomps, pushing the handlebar as if trying to shove it up against a barroom wall. This brawling ride was the antithesis of what I thought epitomized the ideal of the sport—the smooth, effortless-looking mastery of the bike called souplesse. The moto driver throttled us close enough to see Armstrong's expression. His lips were pursed, his eyes were slits, the bones of his face were set in hard angles. He seemed to me to be riding mad and in madness, desperate to escape something behind him and furious that he had yet to punch his way through the horizon." -Bill Strickland

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