When You Know Your Not

I Want To Die At A Hundred Years Old With An American Flag On My Back And The Star Of Texas On My Helmet, After Screaming Down An Alpine Descent On A Bicycle At 75 Miles Per Hour. I Want To Cross One Last Finish Line As My Wife And My Ten Children Applaud, And Then I Want To Lie Down In A Field Of Those Famous French Sunflowers And Gracefully Expire, The Perfect Contradiction To My Once Anticipated Poignant Early Demise.

I Have Been Dealing With Claims That I Cheated And Had An Unfair Advantage In Winning My Seven Tours Since 1999.

If I Was Racing In 2015, No, I Wouldn't Do It Again Because I Don't Think You Have To. If You Take Me Back To 1995, When Doping Was Completely Pervasive, I Would Probably Do It Again.

There Were No Shortcuts, I Realized. It Took Years Of Racing To Build Up The Mind And Body And Character Until A Rider Had Logged Hundreds Of Races And Thousands Of Miles Of Road. I Wouldn't Be Able To Win A Tour De France Until I Had Enough Iron In My Legs, And Lungs, And Brain And Heart.

We Have Unrealized Capacities That Sometimes Only Emerge In Crisis.