It's not about the bike: My journey back to life is one of those books that you have to read while forgetting certain aspects of real life. I had to either be on Lance Armstrong side or consider him a phony and simply dismiss the book. Since I am crazy about bikes, I still think Lance is really awesome (with or without the EPO).
As the title says: it's not about the bike, well... it kind of is, but the author tries to explain his fight with testicular cancer and his wife's process of having a baby in vitro. If you manage to differentiate the entire controversy of doping, you'll find this book as a serious lecture from a man who managed to survive one of the most horrifying diseases of our modern lives.
Before arguing that he had the money to pay for his medical interventions, you should know that he begged his sponsors to cover part of his insurance and he had sold his car and other valuables in order to pay for his treatment. Yes, he had the money and the luck, but he also mentions that when he was down nobody wanted to support him ( as in certain sponsors).
It's a book about family; be it the actual blood family, the family from work or the family you try to make. I had seen another face of the biker. He might be a champion, or a cheater, but in the end he's just another man who is trying to survive in this world. This book just shows that life can be cut short and we still have to fight through all the crap in order to survive.
He's not a hero. He's just wanted to win at all costs. Maybe the first Tour de France was about showing that he still has it. But after that it was just about the money. Read Tyler Hamilton's confessions about doping in the book The secret race
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