IT\'s Not About the Bike

Lance Armstrong

How can anyone find a hero these days? With sports stars going on steroids and getting in fights, politicians being arrested for shady dealings, teachers having affairs with students, and so on, it is very difficult to find positive role models. After reading It's not about my bike: My journey back to life, I have now found a person worthy enough to become a hero. Against all odds, Lance Armstrong accomplished what everyone believed to be the impossible. After beating cancer, he become the best ever Tour De France winner.

In his book, Armstrong accepts us, the readers, into his daily life. Nothing is sugar coated and omitted for the fainthearted. In the early pages, we are fortified with his strength and will. We begin to see the support he has in his single mother's unending efforts to improve her family's life as well as Armstrong's early days of racing. We meet his agents, his international friends and associates. Even those who know nothing about this sport feel like they are part of the racing scene.

Lance grew up in Texas and trained in this Western state as well as overseas to be a world-class athlete. At the young age of 25, having already won a number of international bike races, he was diagnosed with a virulent form of testicular cancer that spread to other parts of his body such as his brain. Testicular cancer is not an illness that most people survive; from the beginning Armstrong hoped to prove the statistics about his prognosis wrong. He was in the prime of his youth in addition to being strong, athletic and, most important, a winner of many grueling events. He planned to win this contest as well and show us how it could be done.

Thus, we become part of the events, good and bad. And bad is what comes next. Without preparation, we are thrown into the fears, frustrations and pain of a chronic illness and the chemotherapy treatments. It story would have been enough if Armstrong had just skimmed over the worst parts that no one wants to think let alone see in on the page. However, no holds are barred. It's Not About the Bike truly covers the hell of what cancer patients go through, whether they survive or not -- the nausea, pain, weakness, hair loss. It is not just because writers are concerned about thoroughly upsetting the readers that books normally refrain from becoming this vivid. It is also because those who have suffered have difficulty portraying themselves as raw and vulnerable, human and conquerable. What could be more true than someone who has proven time and time again that he is a winner?

Armstrong is also not too ashamed to let readers know that he had to lean heavily on others to succeed; his fortitude was not enough by any stretch of the imagination. We meet Armstrong's own heroes -- his oncology nurse, LaTrice Haney and his friend Jim Ochowicz. When Armstrong heals, we are left as he is with this residue inside ourselves of the changes that occur when someone nears death and revives. As he states: "I will always carry the lesson of cancer with me and feel that I'm a member of the cancer community. Anyone who has heard the words You have cancer and thought, 'Oh my God, I'm going to die,' is a member of it. If you've ever belonged, you never leave."

It is no wonder that Armstrong is such a force at the Tour De France. In the book, he shows his relentless pursuit of his goals. He was going to beat this testicular cancer, despite the 3% odds. Although the book at times brings tears to the readers' eyes and the facts are gruesome, it is more of another victory ride than a story about illness. It is Armstrong riding the horrendous 20 days of biking, over 100 miles a day, throughout France at approximately 25 mph. It just happens to take place in a hospital bed instead. You are plugging for him, just as you do when he is pushing up that hill. You are cheering for him, as he goes down the hill across the finish line.

Armstrong says that his book is not about heroes. He is wrong. It is. Today, we are a very coddled society. We want to buy everything we see on TV and to have the most luxuries possible. We get upset if the computer goes down or the hot water heater dies out. Compared to some of the horrible realities of life in parts of the United States and the poverty and war-ridden countries (where our own men fight), most of our lives are heaven.

The question is how many people would and could have fought like Armstrong? My question to myself after reading the book was whether or not I could have the courage and fortitude as he. Unfortunately, we do not know the answer to such a question until we are actually faced with a similar situation.