A cycling champion's miraculous comeback from cancer (It's Not About The Bike - Lance Armstong)

Member Name: JonnyM79

Product:	It's Not About The Bike - Lance Armstong
Date:	27/02/02 (336 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Extraordinary story, Total honesty, Gives real insight into the effects of cancer

Disadvantages: Macho writing style will annoy some, Pulls no punches

Although the front cover features Lance Armstrong holding a bike, the title is true and this book deserves to be (and is) read by a far wider audience than just cycling enthusiasts. People with no interest in cycling should not be put off in any way.

First: what's the book about?

It's Not About The Bike is basically Lance Armstrong's autobiography. It opens with his childhood in a single parent home where money was tight in one of the poorer suburbs of Austin, Texas. Although this may sound depressing it's all told in a positive light and Armstrong can't say enough good things about his mother. Some of his childhood pranks are hilarious, especially the version of catch Lance and his friends used to play involving tennis balls soaked in petrol and oven gloves!

Around the age of ten Armstrong first discovered cycling, initially as part of Triathlon. His ability was clear almost immediately, racing in senior triathlons at the age of 15, and smashing all sorts of cycling records. We follow his progress through the junior ranks to the USA team, and then professional (he came last in his first race). The success continued untill by the age of 22 he was the youngest ever world champion.

It is at the age of 25 that the real meat of the book starts. Armstrong woke one morning to find that one of his testicles had swollen to the size of an orange. He still went out for his morning training ride (I think that is a great insight into the kind of dedication needed to become a professional cyclist), but was in agony and went to the doctor when he got back. His doctor immediately refers him to a hospital specialist for some tests. After a full day of this Armstrong is shown into a doctor's office and told the results. He has a cancer of the testicle and it has spread to his lungs. His chance of survival is rated at less than 50% (noone tells him until after treatment is complete but people ar
e putting it at more like 10% or even 3%)

The book continues through Lance's treatment: operations to remove the testicle and later secondary tumours in the brain followed by agonising courses of chemotherapy to clear the lungs. Bald and scarred, Armstrong is finally told he is in remission and must try and rebuild his life. While he was undergoing treatment his professional team has sacked him. When attempting to ride a bike again Armstong finds that even a mild hill causes him to collapse on the ground exhausted. It is only the persistence of friends that convinces him to persevere and eventually rejoin the professional ranks in 1998, with the U.S. Postal team, the only outfit that would give him a chance.

When he eventually does this Armstrong finds that the cancer and its treatment have left him a different rider. The brute strength of his muscles has been wasted away by chemotherapy, but he is now lighter with more endurance and an astounding mental toughness. After a promising end to the '98 season he decides to dedicate his training towards winning the '99 Tour de France, the world's most famous cycle race, run over 3 weeks and including gruelling routes over mountain passes. He describes the specialised training regimes and diets. On arriving at the race the cycling world has virtually forgotten him, but he astounds them once the race reaches the crucial mountain stages by taking the lead and holding it against all attack, to ride into Paris triumphant.

Quite simply, this is one of the most candid and moving books that has ever been written. Armstrong's macho texan style seems a bit strange to us (lots of "Ass-kicking" type vocabulary), but it leads to an extremely direct narrative. He pulls no punches about the fear he felt at the diagnosis or the details of the brutal treatments necessary to give him any chance of survival. The sequence of consultations, referals and treatment
s is mapped out to give you a real feel of what it's like to be a cancer patient and just how frightened and powerless you are. Armstrong describes his experiences of meeting other patients while he was under treatment and seeing the effect cancer has on them and their families.

Two of the best written passages are written about Armstrong's fears about not being able to ride a bike any more. The first is a few days after diagnosis; he goes into the bathroom and coughs into the sink: it's splattered with blood. Suddenly Lance realises that this disease is attacking his lungs, so crucial for a cyclist, and will alter his career beyond all control. The second is after treatment in remission; his friends come round to encourage him to restart cycling. They try to disguise how weak he is by riding deliberately slowly, but when he's putting in total effort and is overtaken by an old woman pedalling back with her shopping he's forced to realise just how much treatment has ravaged him.

The book does have some great happier moments. Prominent among these is Armstrong meeting his future wife, Kristin, and falling in love and marrying her, followed by their use of IVF treatment (again described with almost shocking honesty and candour) to have a baby. The final part of the book describing his Tour de France victory is told in such a way that the complex tactics involved in a cycling stage race such as group riding and protecting team members are comprehensible to total novices.

The achievements related in this book really are breathtaking, even more so in the context of Armstrong now having won the last 3 Tours. As an insight into the experience of being a cancer patient it is unsurpassable and may well be the most brutally honest, harrowing, but ultimately uplifting book you will ever read.

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