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It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life: My Journey Back to Life

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Overview

Lance Armstrong is the winner of the 2002 Tour de France!Now Includes New Chapter on Tour De France 2000 and OlympicsThis is the story of one man's journey through triumph, tragedy, transformation, and transcendance. It is the story of Lance Armstrong, the world-famous two-time winner of the Tour de France, and his fight against cancer.

Editorial Reviews

"Beautiful… It is a book for sports fans and sports haters, for cycling enthusiasts and those who haven't ridden a bike since childhood, for cancer patients and the healthiest of the healthy, for anyone who has ever overcome odds…It's not about the bike, or about the sport. It's about the soul."-Cincinnati Enquirer "Lance Armstrong does things in a big way. Other people write books about the long road back from cancer, or the physical and emotional trauma of infertility, or the experience of growing up without a father, or the determination it takes to win the most important bicycle race in the world. Armstrong lays claim to all of it, and the result is a pretty terrific book…Armstrong's book is both inspiring and entertaining. He doesn't whine, doesn't sugar-coat the tough parts and doesn't forget to thank the good people who helped him most along the way."-Denver Rocky Mountain News"A disarming and spotless prose style, one far above par for sports memoirs."-Publishers Weekly "Fascinating."-The New York Times"Lots of drama…an inspirational story."-People"Absolutely absorbing…compelling."-Denver Post"It's about far more than just the bike."-San Antonio Express-News"Stirring." -Buffalo News"A good, emotional, genuine story, eloquently woven by two master storytellers: Mr. Armstrong, with his honesty and detail, and Ms. Jenkins, for the artists' polish she paints on his narrative… The description of the brutal ride into the French town Sestriere (a major Tour hurdle) is as good a piece of sportswriting as you'll find, and the perfect climax for a fast story…captivating." -Cincinnati Enquirer"[This] is a book with an engaging frankness that reaches readers who'd never be interested in the gear-combination mathematics that engage zealous cyclists…a book that anyone who's been confronted by cancer, personally or through a friend or relative, should read." -Denver PostThe descriptions of his sport, especially of his Tour victory, are gripping." -St. Petersburg Times"An all-American story…inspirational." -Booklist"The best biography of a cyclist I've ever read. Lance's voice comes through in a way I've not seen in print before." -Bill Strickland, Bicycling Magazine -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Lance Armstrong

Champion cyclist LANCE ARMSTRONG continues to make winning the Tour de France his annual cycling goal. He also oversees the Lance Armstrong Foundation, a nonprofit organization that assists cancer patients around the world with managing and surviving the disease. He lives in Austin, Texas. Sally Jenkins is a columnist for the Washington Post. In 2002 she won the Associated Press ' s Columnist of the Year Award. She has cowritten many bestselling sports books, including It ' s Not About the Bike and, with Pat Summitt, Reach for the Summit (Broadway Books).

Bio of Sally Jenkins

Sally Jenkins is the author of Men Will Be Boys, and coauthor of Reach for the Summit and Raise the Roof (both with Pat Summit) and A Coach's Life (with Dean Smith). She is a veteran sports reporter whose work has appeared in Sports Illustrated, Cond ' Nast's Women's Sports & Fitness, and The Washington Post.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Berkley

Filesize

878.35 KB

Number of Pages

304

eBook ISBN

9780786571666

Awards

  • Audie Award
  • Christopher Book Awards
  • Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award
  • Friends of Libraries U. S. A. Readers' Choice Award
  • School Library Journal Best Books of the Year

Excerpt from: It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong

Before and After
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 stud 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.
A slow death is not for me. I don't do anything slow, not even breathe. I do everything at a fast cadence: eat fast, sleep fast. It makes me crazy when my wife, Kristin, drives our car, because she brakes at all the yellow caution lights, while I squirm impatiently in the passenger seat.
"Come on, don't be a skirt," I tell her.
"Lance," she says, "marry a man."
I've spent my life racing my bike, from the back roads of Austin, Texas to the Champs-Elysees, and I always figured if I died an untimely death, it would be because some rancher in his Dodge 4X4 ran me headfirst into a ditch. Believe me, it could happen. Cyclists fight an ongoing war with guys in big trucks, and so many vehicles have hit me, so many times, in so many countries, I've lost count. I've learned how to take out my own stitches: all you need is a pair of fingernail clippers and a strong stomach.
If you saw my body underneath my racing jersey, you'd know what I'm talking about. I've got marbled scars on both arms and discolored marks up and down my legs, which I keep clean-shaven. Maybe that's why trucks are always trying to run me over; they see my sissy-boy calves and decide not to brake. But cyclists have to shave, because when the gravel gets into your skin, it's easier to clean and bandage if you have no hair.
One minute you're pedaling along a highway, and the next minute, boom, you're face-down in the dirt. A blast of hot air hits you, you taste the acrid, oily exhaust in the roof of your mouth, and all you can do is wave a fist at the disappearing taillights.
Cancer was like that. It was like being run off the road by a truck, and I've got the scars to prove it. There's a puckered wound in my upper chest just above my heart, which is where the catheter was implanted. A surgical line runs from the right side of my groin into my upper thigh, where they cut out my testicle. But the real prizes are two deep half-moons in my scalp, as if I was kicked twice in the head by a horse. Those are the leftovers from brain surgery.