Beech

"Why did I ride when I had cancer? Cycling is so hard, the suffering so intense, that it's absolutely cleansing. You can go out there with the weight of the world on your shoulders, and after a six-hour ride at a high pain threshold, you feel at peace. The pain is so deep and strong that a curtain descends over your brain. At least for a while you have a kind of hall pass, and don't have to brood on your problems; you can shut everything else out, because the effort and subsequent fatigue are absolute.

There is an unthinking simplicity in something so hard, which is why there's probably some truth to the idea that all world-class athletes are actually running away from something. Once, someone asked me what pleasure I took in riding for so long. "Pleasure?" I said. "I don't understand the question." I didn't do it for pleasure. I did it for pain.

Before cancer, I had never examined the psychology of jumping on a bicycle and riding for six hours. The reasons weren't especially tangible to me; a lot of what we do doesn't make sense to us while we're doing it...

...

...Spring had just begun moving up into the mountains, creating a constant fog and drizzle that seemed to muffle the piney woods. We rode in the rain every day. The cold seared my lungs, and with every breath I blew out a stream of white frost, but I didn't mind. It made me feel clean. We rode winding back roads, only some of which were paved and mapped. We cycled over gravel and hardpan and beds of pine needles, and under hanging boughs...

Toward the end of the camp, we decided to ride Beech Mountain. Chris knew exactly what he was doing when he suggested it, because there was a time when I owned that mountain. It was a strenuous 5000-foot climb with a snowcapped summit, and it had been the crucial stage in my two Tour Du Pont victories. I remembered laboring on up the mountainside with crowds lined along the route, and how they had painted my name across the road: "Go Armstrong".

We set out on yet another cold, raining, foggy day with a plan to ride a 100-mile loop before we returned and undertook the big finishing ascent of Beech Mountain. Chris would follow in a car, so we could load the bikes up on the rack after we reached the summit and drive back to the cabin for dinner.

We rode and rode through a steady rain, for four hours, and then five. By the time we got to the foot of Beech, I'd been on the bike for six hours, drenched. But I lifted myself up out of the saddle and propelled the bike up the incline, leaving Bob Roll behind.

As I started up the rise, I saw an eerie sight: the road still had my name painted on it.

My wheels spun over the washed-out old yellow and white lettering. I glanced down between my feet. It said, faintly, Viva Lance.

I continued upward, and the mountain grew steeper. I hammered down on the pedals, working hard, and felt a small bloom of sweat and satisfaction, a heat under my skin almost like a liquor blush. My body reacted instinctively to the climb. Mindlessly, I rose out of my seat and picked up the pace. Suddenly, Chris pulled up behind me in the follow car, rolled down his window, and began driving me on. 'Go, go, go!' he yelled. I glanced back at him. 'Allez, Lance, allez, allez!' he yelled. I mashed down on the pedals, heard my breath grow shorter, and I accelerated.

That ascent triggered something in me. As I rode upwards, I reflected on my life, back to all points, my childhood, my early races, my illness, and how it changed me. Maybe it was the primitive act of climbing that made me confront the issues I'd been evading for weeks. It was time to quit stalling, I realized. Move, I told myself. If you can still move, you aren't sick.

I looked again at the ground as it passed under my wheels, at the watter spitting off the tires and the spokes turning round. I saw more faded painted letters, and I saw my washed-out name: Go Armstrong.

As I continued upward, I saw my life as a whole. I saw the pattern and the privilege of it, and the purpose of it, too. It was simply this; I was meant for a long, hard climb.

I approached the summit. Behind me, Chris could see in the attitude of my body on the bike that I was having a change of heart. Some weight, he sensed, was simply no longer there...

I passed the rest of the trip in a state of near-reverence for those beautiful, peaceful, soulful mountains. The rides were demanding and quiet, and I rode until Boone began to feel like the Holy Land to me, a place I had come to on a pilgrimage. If I ever have any serious problems again, I know that I will go back to Boone and find an answer."

--Lance Armstong: 'It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life'.