Riding off into the sunset

Sport: It was in historic Waterloo on July 6th last year where, for this writer at least, Lance Armstrong's image took a bit of a knock.

While taking pictures of the multiple Tour de France winner before the start of the third stage of the race, I got talking to a young French girl who had travelled to the event with one goal in mind. Her father was a huge Armstrong fan and she had a large photograph of the Texan from his younger career. Getting it autographed would be a huge thing for her dad, she said.

The teenager waited patiently outside the US Postal team bus while, nearby, Armstrong chatted to team officials, to his new girlfriend Sheryl Crow and to another singer, Ben Harper. The mood was relaxed, there were still several minutes to go until the roll-out and he was under no pressure. While the American adjusted his saddle height, I told the French girl not to worry, that he'd probably be along in a few moments.

Sure enough, Armstrong passed by on his way into the team bus. The young fan held out the picture, politely asking Armstrong if he might take a second to sign it. "I don't need to do that," he snapped dismissively, turning away from her and getting on to the coach.

The reaction was a real shock to the fan. After all, given his background and his extraordinary life story, the expectation of many is that Lance Armstrong must be a decent guy. When he returned from near-fatal testicular cancer to win the 1999 Tour de France, he was feted as a hero, a near-saint who had been to hell and back and was now going to change the world.

Sure enough, the Texan went on to take a record six tours, providing inspiration to cancer survivors everywhere. Simultaneously, the Lance Armstrong foundation raised millions of dollars to research and fight the disease, partly through the phenomenal worldwide sales (currently estimated at 50 million) of ubiquitous and hugely fashionable yellow Livestrong wristbands.

According to his legions of supporters, it seems Armstrong can do no wrong. Yet, as Dan Coyle argues in his fascinating new book, Tour de Force, seeing the Texan in such a one-dimensional, rosy light is both misleading and inaccurate. He is, says the author, a "complex human being". Former team-mate Floyd Landis agrees - he is quoted by Coyle as saying: "He seems so simple from a distance. But the closer you get, the more you realised that this is one very, very complicated guy."

In a bid to get to the bottom of this enigmatic personality, Coyle, a former editor of US magazine Outside, moved himself and his family to Armstrong's European base in Girona before the start of the 2004 season. He threw himself into the task, earning the trust of the champion cyclist and his entourage, conducting countless interviews with riders, team officials and support staff and attending many of the big events, including the Tour de France itself.

What emerges is a fascinating account of Armstrong and life within the US Postal team (now sponsored by Discovery Channel). Coyle unearths nuggets of previously unknown information, and he builds a more complete picture of the man and what drove him to his record six Tour de France wins.

When Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer on October 2nd 1996, he responded by redirecting his athlete's focus and learning as much as he could about the disease. Nine years on, the notion that information equals power is still important to Armstrong. According to Coyle, the team has three over-riding motos: Keep; Lance; Informed. As he tells it, Armstrong controls everything within the squad - from the riders employed to the salaries paid to the brand of coffee used on the team bus. He has a web service linked to his BlackBerry device that constantly searches for and delivers every article with his name in it. He reads each one.

All this information-processing helps Armstrong feel in control of things. He is portrayed as a religious non-believer who is convinced people shape their own destinies.

It also helps him to keep stock of "trolls", his word for those who would drag him down. This list includes rivals and former friends - he demands absolute loyalty from those in his company, and he has fallen out with quite a few - plus, inevitably, journalists. Coyle states that the team has a blacklist of writers; those asking awkward questions become persona non grata.

The author doesn't offer firm conclusions as to whether or not Armstrong has been doping; he leaves it to the reader to decide. He does reveal that Armstrong's working relationship with the notorious sports doctor Michele Ferrari (found guilty of sporting fraud by an Italian court last October) has been far greater than the "few days a year" that was conceded in the past. Coyle also writes about the technical lengths Armstrong goes to to try and gain an edge over his rivals, with the "F-One" support team working constantly on speed-enhancing projects. Among the ideas mooted have been silk tyres, skinsuits constructed from revolutionary aerodynamic materials and the top-secret "Narrow Bike". This project cost well over quarter of a million dollars but was abandoned early last year when the machine turned out to be biomechanically incompatible with Armstrong, causing a loss of power.

Tour de Force is a superb read, giving insights into what is termed "Planet Lance", and those who work with him, his "satellites". The Texan has done much good, beating cancer, setting an example, raising millions to fight the disease. But what Coyle's extraordinary book shows is that regarding Armstrong as a straightforward guy, a good-natured hero-type, is simply wide of the mark. Rather, he's depicted as a multifaceted, hydra-like man of incredible complexity who thrives on pressure and adversity. He turns negatives into positives: fans spitting at him; rivals disrespecting him; the press insinuating he's using performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong uses these things as motivation.

"You know what's funny?" Coyle quotes Armstrong's coach Chris Carmichael as saying last year. "Lance hardly talks at all about [winning a record] six Tours. Getting six isn't at the motivations core of the guy. It's more like, 'I'm just going to go to the Tour and kick the shit out of everybody'."

Shane Stokes is Cycling Correspondent of The Irish Times

Tour de Force By Daniel Coyle HarperCollins, 326pp. £15.99