Lance training with Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team in Solvang, California. For more on the team, visit www.team.discovery.com  (photo: courtesy Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team)

This past July, after he rode into Paris, finishing up the final leg of the 2005 Tour de France, Lance Armstrong slipped into the malliot jaune, cycling’s yellow winner’s jersey, for the last time. He had once again taken the crown for what has been called the most grueling, toughest endurance sport in the world—more than 2,000 miles over three weeks—an unprecedented seven years in a row.

Grueling and tough—just the way Armstrong takes his challenges. If his saddle were on a horse instead of a bike, he’d be a hell-for-leather endurance rider. It was sheer tenacity and iron will that allowed him to tame the mountainous roads of France with frontierlike vengeance. And if the cancer that threatened to unsaddle him before he even became an international champion had been a flesh-and blood opponent, Armstrong would have left him face down in the dust. Hanging up the bike after bagging seven tours doesn’t mean he’s backed off his never-say-die attitude one bit.   

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