It was pretty cool being on Larry King. Though I am sick every time I have to talk about doping.
It was cooler to get Jim’s pics into the book. He shot the whole photo insert. Find out a little about him here and here and here, but not too much, apparently. If you try to click through to his personal website you’ll see he has that insouciant artist thing going.
One of my favorite parts of writing the book was getting a chance to bring the Lanterne Rouge to a wider audience, especially the pursuit of it in 2009 by Kenny Van Hummel. (For ongoing coverage of heroics off the back of many races, check here.)
Most mornings, I drink my coffee out of a mug Don Giacomazzi gave me when I visited his dairy, and I think about life and death and rocky road ice cream and being just the right amount of tough and tender when faced with any of the three. His son blogs about the family business here.
I knew that Lance Armstrong is a polarizing figure—I wrote it into the book—but, still, hell, we humans are good at getting surprised by what we already know. Some of my reaction to all the personal reactions was funny. I get a kick out of the succinct review of my book by Twitter poster @cyclingfansanon: “Excuse me while I throw up.” One of the most nuanced and ambiguous opinions of the book came in this equitably ambiguous write-up on the blog washingmachinepost. (You have to click on the “books” tab to find a list of the reviews; there’s no direct link.) I really appreciate what it’s saying and trying to say and what it can’t quite say.
