re: Cycling Lance Armstrong Documentary

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I’m watching the 2000 Tour right now because I was too young to watch it back in the day. They had a 250 KM mountain stage deep into the 2nd week of the tour. That is so freaking savage, no wonder these boys were doped to the gills.

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I've been watching some old TDF as well. I loved watching Pantani, Ulrich, and others. It's odd watching those things and seeing Lance or someone glide up a mountain and appear to be pretty comfortable doing it. After Lance started winning, the grand conspiracy was that the TDF organizers were orchestrating the route to sabotage him, because the French didn't really like to see Americans doing well at their race.

2003 Luz Ardiden after Lance gets flipped over is one of the greatest stretches in cycling history, to me. He went on a rampage to win that stage but others waited for him as is the custom. It was just a great display of some of the things I appreciate about the sport.

I remember at that time, after his first TDF win, people postulated why he went from great cyclist (he'd won a world title before cancer) to dominant champion - some people thought the cancer had caused so much weight loss that when he recovered, he managed to not put back on any mass in the upper body, making him lighter, making his cycling improve. He had been a triathlete prior and people thought that the period with cancer got rid of his residual upper body mass etc etc etc. I'm sure that did happen, but obviously, the drugs played a role as well.

That era is a fascinating time in cycling. In my college at UF, one of the professors was a triathlete and loved cycling. He'd seen me out training so he'd say hello. He stopped me once and asked if I'd read Lance's book. He said he read it non-stop over a weekend. I immediately went out and got a copy and read it. There was so much energy back then as Lance kept winning. Bike shops had a renaissance. When LeMond was winning it wasn't the same - internet wasn't a thing. Very interesting time.