We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up or fight like hell.

I believed in belief, for its own shining sake. To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe - what other choice was there? We do it every day, I realized. We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery. To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in thetreatent, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing.

Lance Armstrong is not the biggest fraud in the history of world sport. US Postal was not the most sophisticated doping programme.

Your past forms you, whether you like it or not. Each encounter and experience has its own effect, and you're shaped the way the wind shapes a mesquite tree on a plain.

A boo is a lot louder than a cheer, if you have 10 people cheering and one person booing, all you hear is the booing.

I figure the faster I pedal, the faster I can retire.

How do you fight an invisible opponent like suspicion?