Move, move, move. To desperation.

For some reason this is written on my notebook. Probably in connection to the pursuit that Lance Armstrong staged at the Pyrenees to catch up with Jan Ullrich and the forward peloton. Recouping after a crash, Armstrong negotiated one climb after another of the killer mountain stage of the Tour de France, standing and with his butt out of the saddle.

But the cleat on the right bike pedal conked out from the crash and Armstrong once tripped and wrecked his balls onto the frame of his bike. To be sure, there was nothing dramatic about it. Armstrong had been impressive and extraordinary that day, see it for yourself here, but there was also the pain and the apparent idiocy of the moment.

That happened a long time ago, back in the 2003 Tour de France, or so the caption of the YouTube video says. By that time Armstrong had already won a trifecta. Still there was urgency in the way he raced with his bike and won that year’s Tour de France. He won and the idiocy turned into something glorified. It would probably take more than this blog to explain it, how an already accomplished man could have fought that hard and competed at such intensity.

Believe you me, faced with the same difficulties and prospect of an even greater pain, I would just have the injury to excuse myself. As I’m sure you would. And that is perhaps why that moment in cycling history was widely regarded as an uncommon display of willpower.

Up until now I feel a shiver when I watch it. That was a definitive performance by Lance Armstrong, and with that pursuit he became one of cycling’s greats. More than in terms of Tour de France won. Maybe for some Armstrong had become a symbol of strength and hope because of this, together with his fight against cancer.

The Livestrong wristband of Lance Armstrong shouts that out in all caps. Livestrong. Not anybody can say that to the world. Lance Armstrong is someone who can. But I don’t need to look far. For in my life there are those, as it turned out, who also can. Brave people with the same integrity and believability of one Lance Armstrong.

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