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Outside Magazine, July 2005

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Tour de France
Street Fighting Man (cont.)

FIRST ULLRICH RODE OFF, then Klöden, then Basso, all of them helmetless in the heat. At the last minute, Armstrong considered donning his helmet to fend off any bottles or rocks. He decided not to, figuring it might, in fact, encourage contact. He mounted the start ramp wearing a blue Postal hat turned backwards. In the car, Crow bit her nails.

He had good legs, he'd told her that morning. He could feel it when they hit the floor, the familiar strength and springiness that foretold a good day. But first he would need to get to the top in one piece. The bottom two-thirds of the climb were unbarriered. For five and a half miles, nothing would stand between him and the people—about 24 minutes of what the military-minded Brewer termed "major exposure."

The first two minutes were flat, a gentle rise from town, a quick zip through the crowds. Then a hard left, the road tilted upward, and he was inside them.

Troll mouths screaming, blasting him with sour breath. Flags snapping like whips. A shaking forest of fists inches in front of his wheel. It seemed as if he was riding down some endless collective throat, a peristaltic dive into some unseen belly. Armstrong stared at the motorcycle's wheel, felt something warm on his leg. Troll spit.

"It made me sick," Crow said later.

He rode, his legs firing out the familiar high cadence. All strategy was reduced to one reflex: If I go faster, they can't get me. The crowd reacted, red-faced men stepping into the road for a crouched, clenched scream, then falling out of the way at the last second. On their motorcycles, the security agents swatted and pushed, trying to clear a path. A roadside gendarme tackled two threatening-looking men, only to have them replaced by more. They threw beer and water; they spat. They were aiming for his face, but most hit his jersey, providing Armstrong a desultory jolt of satisfaction: He was going faster than they'd anticipated.

Bruyneel drove close behind, snowplowing sluggish trolls out of the way. He would draw an official sanction from Tour officials for blocking television-camera motorcycles, but Bruyneel didn't care: The car's presence shortened the trolls' window of opportunity. Bruyneel read the splits, kept up the encouraging talk, as if his voice might block those other voices out.

"Very good, Lance, very good."

Armstrong marked his progress by the numbers of the turns (signposted in reverse order, from 21 to 1) and the church steeples of the two small hamlets along the road. He moved past the smiling Dutchmen from Maastricht at turn 18, past the Belgian guy at turn 8, who'd parked his camper three weeks ago, and the sad Basques who'd hiked up with their bedsheet signs. Past the German technopop groovers and the other Dutch guy with the microphone, shouting, "Show me your titties!" He rolled over the GO ULLRICH and GO BASSO messages, over the elaborately detailed penises, and over a sign that read, RIP THEIR BALLS OFF, LANCE!

Yes, Americans were here, too, in huge numbers. In their yellow baseball caps and Uncle Sam hats and Postal jerseys, their arms swathed in yellow bracelets, waving Texan and American flags and sending out the whooping, ringing call of the American sports fan. There weren't just a few, either. There were dozens, hundreds, thousands of bright-eyed, ecstatic Yanks on that mountain (25,000 of them, it was estimated), people who didn't give a damn about Eurofate or history, people who had come across an ocean and who were now receiving the birthright that every American desires and demands: a miracle.

"Whoooooooooooooooo, Lance!" they shouted as Armstrong rode past. "Whoooooooooooooo!"

He rode furiously. Up ahead, Ullrich had set the day's top mark at the intermediate time check, besting the previous leading time by a whopping 32 seconds. Armstrong came through, wanting to hear his number, wanting the proof. He listened as Bruyneel read it: He'd beaten Ullrich by 40 seconds.

Forty seconds! Atop the mountain, a group of German fans blinked at the number on the screen, open-mouthed. One turned away in disgust.

Armstrong rode through the last of the crowd and on to the relative safety of the barriered road. Up ahead, at turn 3, he could see Basso, who was having a bad day. He'd trained here in May, but now his legs would not turn the same gear. Basso was straining, his grace evaporating, his face etched in pain. Armstrong surged past without a look.

He sprinted for the line, fists clenched, teeth bared, an image of freshly peeled ferocity. Some of the crowd shouted, but many more stared. After 155 riders, 155 different exhausted faces, they were seeing something different, a face that did not ask for applause or love or understanding or anything except the animal respect due a superior force.

Armstrong crossed the line, winning by 1:01 and extending his lead over his closest rival, Basso, by 2:23. He Batmanned to the safety of the trailer, accompanied by Serge and Erwin.

"Got 'em," he said.

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