Wheelmen: Lance Armstrong, the Tour De France, and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever

by Reed Albergotti

  When he got back to Plano after the summer in San Diego, Lance signed an endorsement agreement with Oakley sunglasses and figured he’d continue making money from his victories in the triathlon. His times during the cycling portions of some triathlons had caught the eye of the US Cycling Federation coaching staff, which invited him to Colorado Springs in 1989 for tryouts for the junior national team. Although Lance wasn’t sold on switching to cycling, he saw an opportunity: a free trip to Russia, where the junior world championships were going to be held the following summer. He ditched school and went to the tryouts, where he was among an elite group of young cyclists chosen to go to Moscow that July.

  Lance’s teachers at Plano East High didn’t take kindly to his truancy. The school informed him that his unexcused absences for the trip would prevent him from receiving his diploma and graduating with the rest of his class. Armstrong had missed a significant amount of school that year, and the school thought of the Colorado trip as the final straw. Linda called every private school in the Dallas-area Yellow Pages until she found one that would let him graduate: Bending Oaks High School. The school had a bad heroin problem, according to Lance’s recollection, as well as a large number of suicides, but the teachers were willing to work with Lance to help him get a diploma. His stepfather, Terry, who by this time was divorced from Linda, came up with the tuition, and Lance did graduate.

  In Moscow that summer, Lance, now seventeen, ignored the instructions of his coaches about pacing himself. He took off early in the race, leaving the field of some of the best young cyclists in the world far behind. But with only 0.6 miles to go, the pack caught up with him, then surged ahead. Lance finished seventy-third. It was an unremarkable final result, but the time Armstrong spent in the wind, holding off the encroaching pack, was impressive.

  When Lance returned home, he felt like Superman. He was done with high school, and his future as a professional triathlete was wide open. He saw women, fame, and fortune ahead. He acted as if he were the star quarterback for the University of Texas and was about to sign a multimillion-dollar contract in the NFL. With the prize money he’d earned from triathlons, and a loan guarantee from bike shop owner Jim Hoyt, he purchased a Chevy Camaro Z/28, which was registered in Hoyt’s name, a decision Hoyt would come to regret.

  One night in 1989, Lance was partying in Dallas with a group of friends. They had all been drinking, and Lance was speeding down the highway in the Chevy Camaro when he noticed flashing police lights behind him. Rather than pull over and risk losing his license for drunk driving, Lance took off, leading the police officer on a high-speed chase. He pulled off to the side of the road and jumped out of the car, using his endurance skills to run away so fast that the police couldn’t catch him. Two of Lance’s friends were caught and arrested, but Lance and two others—also fast runners—got away. Because the Camaro was in Hoyt’s name, and the police didn’t know who had been driving it, they showed up at Hoyt’s house that night with their guns drawn. The car was impounded, and when Hoyt later went to pick it up, they arrested him because Lance had racked up so many unpaid speeding tickets. After that, Lance and Hoyt stopped talking, and Lance began riding for a small local team sponsored by Hoyt’s fiercest rival, Wheels in Motion, a new bike store on Coit Road, just down the street from Richardson Bike Mart.

  Around this time, Mike Fraysse called Eddie B, who was busy working with Thom Weisel to build the professional Montgomery cycling team. “Eddie, there is this young animal in Texas,” Fraysse said over the phone in his thick, northern New Jersey accent. “But he doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Fraysse told Eddie about Lance’s biking times in the triathlons, and his bizarre performance in Moscow. This is what Eddie B lived for: the diamonds in the rough. He knew how to make them shine. He made arrangements to go to Austin to watch Lance compete in a triathlon.

  Eddie B showed up for the event, wearing a cowboy hat to keep the sun out of his eyes. He waited on the side of the road to see Lance go by. He didn’t care about the swim or the run. He cared only about watching Lance on the bike.

  Lance was the first in the pack. He wore nothing but a skimpy Speedo and cutoff T-shirt, an outfit that Eddie B thought looked silly but which made it possible for him to assess the entire muscular structure of Lance’s body, from head to toe. Eddie B saw immediately that Lance had the bulky upper body muscles of a swimmer. A powerful upper back and shoulders are helpful in the water segment of a triathlon, but upper body muscles tend to be a burden in cycling, where any unnecessary body weight will only slow a rider down. Some pro cyclists are so concerned about avoiding bulk in their upper body that they won’t even carry heavy bags of groceries.

  The race included a gradual climb that forced Lance out of the saddle. Eddie B could see that Lance wasn’t comfortable on the bike, that his body rocked from side to side as he pedaled. But he could also see that even though Lance’s body wasn’t yet fully developed, he could bludgeon the pedals with the power of a linebacker. He was no LeMond. By the time LeMond was Lance’s age, he had already won the junior world championship. He knew how to race a bike, and he had the sinewy body type for it.

  At lunch after the race, Eddie B told Linda and Lance that he was looking for talent—young athletes he could develop and train to become skilled cyclists—and that he thought Lance had great potential. But before investing his own time and effort in Lance, Eddie B wanted to know how healthy he was. When he asked Lance how often he got sick, the answer was “Never.” Eddie B turned to Linda. “Is that true?” he asked. “Yes, he is a very healthy kid,” she responded.

  Lance was quiet at lunch. He didn’t immediately jump at the notion of working with Eddie B, clearly a strict coach who needed to be firmly in control of his riders’ training and performance. Lance was also calculating the pros and cons of cycling versus triathlon. Mostly, Lance wanted to know more about Eddie B’s team, and whether there were any attractive sponsorship opportunities available in cycling. Did cycling have the potential to deliver the same level of money and fame as the triathlon?

  Eddie B described how top pro cyclists competing in Europe could earn a million a year. If they won medals in the track or road racing events at the Olympics, that could bring fame and big endorsements, too. Eddie B’s former protégé, Greg LeMond, was proving how far an American could go in the international sport of cycling. And in 1986, LeMond had become the first American to win the Tour de France. The victory made LeMond famous. He earned lucrative endorsements worth millions and, after winning the race for a second time, signed a contract for more than $1 million a year—the highest salary in cycling history.

  Lance hadn’t thought much about Europe, or the Tour de France. But he had been thinking a lot about the Olympics, and he wondered what winning a gold medal would look like on his résumé. As far as Lance was concerned, it was his ticket to fame and fortune, especially if he could win the gold while still young. By the time the 1992 Olympics took place, he would be just twenty-one years old.

  Eddie B invited Lance to come visit him at his ranch in Ramona, where they could train and get to know each other better, and Lance decided to take him up on the offer. He’d join what was then called the Subaru-Montgomery team for the 1990 season, which included a stipend of $12,000 a year. Subaru had recently signed on as the title sponsor, and the team finally had enough cash to compete for some of the best American riders. The stipend would be paid to Lance regardless of how well he did in his races, and while it was high enough to live on, it was low enough to allow Lance to keep his “amateur” status so that he could be eligible to participate in the Olympics if he chose to—which Eddie B was sure he would. Lance would also get team bikes and clothing and have his travel expenses reimbursed.

  Soon he was back on a plane to California, headed toward the team’s winter training in Escondido, an inland suburb of San Diego near Eddie B’s ranch. He was given a Subaru-Montgomery cycling kit—a splashy orange, yellow, and blue pastel uniform that appeared to be inspired by
the modern art Weisel collected and displayed on the walls of his large home near the Golden Gate Bridge. The words Subaru and Montgomery, which were layered over an orange block of color with jagged edges resembling a cartoon explosion, seemed to fly off the front of the team jersey.

  There were other benefits to riding for Thom Weisel’s team. By the early 1990s, the IPO market was on fire, and Weisel arranged for the Subaru-Montgomery team riders to invest their salaries in a “friends and family” account at Weisel’s investment bank, Montgomery Securities. The account made it possible for riders to get small chunks of the IPOs, with small investments of just $2,000 or $3,000 apiece. After the run-ups in stock price, an account manager would automatically sell the holdings for the riders, often doubling their money. Paul Willerton, one ex-Subaru-Montgomery rider, for instance, said he made an extra $6,000 to $12,000 monthly through these accounts.

  Willerton recalls Weisel as quiet, but with an explosive temper. He would often yell at his wife, Emily. Willerton was terrified of him. He recalled riding in the passenger seat of Weisel’s Bronco, with Weisel behind the wheel, and a slow driver ahead inspired Weisel to explode with the kind of road rage Willerton had only read about.

  • • •

  Lance trained hard. Very hard. In fact, what Eddie B thought was special about Lance, and what he shared with all the greats, was that Lance never wanted to rest. He had to beg Lance to ride easy some days to allow his body to recover. But Lance’s single-mindedness had its downside, for it could be impossible to get through to him. Lance refused to take direction from anyone, and thought he could outride everyone through sheer, brute force, without regard to finesse and strategy. Moreover, his competitive spirit was so tinged with selfishness and anger that he resisted the kind of teamwork that supporting riders are supposed to offer the leader of the team.

  Riding hard at the front of the pack to control the pace of the peloton, riding in front or to the side of the team leader to protect him from the wind or possible crashes, and doing things like hanging back to get fresh water bottles from the team car and delivering them to the leader—all these are part of what is expected of the less experienced riders on a team. But Lance didn’t appreciate being put in the role of “helper.” In some races, he ignored Eddie B’s instructions altogether. Instead of hanging back and playing the role he was expected to fill in the team’s tactical agenda, he took off and attempted solo breakaways. Usually, this backfired and the pack would overtake him. But every once in a while, he would be able to stay at the front long enough to win the race.

  There was no question that Lance was physically gifted; but by the end of the season, everyone on the team wondered if he had enough strategic smarts to succeed at bike racing. With his earnings from Subaru-Montgomery, Lance could now afford to move from Linda’s home in Plano to Austin, Texas, a city that appealed to Lance because of its burgeoning music scene as well as its hilly terrain, ideal for training. Linda had begun rising up the ranks of her company, Ericsson Telecommunications, where she worked as a secretary, and began a new relationship with technical recruiter John Walling in Dallas.

  In Austin, Lance rented an apartment from John Thomas Neal, or J.T., a lawyer turned massage therapist and Austin real estate entrepreneur. Lance had originally met him while J.T. was working as a massage therapist for the Subaru-Montgomery team during the 1990 Tour of Texas. Lance had come down from Plano to watch the race. A few months later, when they saw each other at another cycling event, J.T. told Lance about the available apartment in the town house adjoining J.T.’s office. Lance moved in, and they became close friends.

  In addition to training with Subaru-Montgomery, Lance was also still keen on the Olympics, a goal Eddie B supported. This meant Lance had to leave Subaru-Montgomery occasionally to train and ride with the US national team in preparation for the 1992 games in Barcelona. In 1990, Armstrong was dressed in the stars-and-stripes jersey at the junior world championships road race in Utsunomiya, Japan. When the race started, Lance broke away alone. Lap after lap around the course, he kept pounding away, solo. Lance’s solo split up the race, and he was eventually joined by a handful of other European riders in what would form the winning breakaway. Lance was too tired to propel himself ahead of the others and couldn’t outsprint his breakaway mates at the line. He finished eleventh in what the national team coach, Chris Carmichael, viewed as an impressive performance. In fact, it was one of the best for an American in the junior world championships since LeMond’s victory in 1979. Still, Carmichael couldn’t help but think Armstrong could have come away with the victory if he had done a better job of conserving his energy. Nobody Carmichael coached had the raw power that Armstrong possessed, but Armstrong had some of the worst tactical sense of anyone on the team.

  Lance began to improve and hone his riding style under the tutelage of Eddie B, but his big breakthrough came when he was, again, riding for Carmichael on the national team. In April 1991, the US team entered the ten-day Italian stage race called Settimana Bergamasca, which was open to both junior national teams from all over the world and professional teams. Eddie B had also entered Subaru-Montgomery in the race, putting the squad in direct competition with Armstrong and the national team, which created an awkward tug-of-war between the teams that tested Lance’s loyalty. Not that this was all that unusual in bike racing. Cyclists went back and forth between their “trade” teams and their national teams all the time, depending on the event, and sometimes the result was that they raced against the very people they had been racing with the week before.

  About five days into the Bergamasca, Lance was near the top of the overall standings, just slightly behind Nate Reiss, who was riding for Subaru-Montgomery. Because Reiss was in the lead and had a good shot at winning the event, Eddie B told Lance that he wanted him to play the domestique role, supporting Reiss and giving up his own chances of winning. Armstrong was technically riding for the US national team—not Subaru-Montgomery. Borysewicz expected Armstrong to obey his orders. The idea of sacrificing his own interest in order to help another rider win the race—even one on the team that paid his salary—was a notion so alien to Lance that it rattled the very core of his being. Lance griped to Carmichael, who wanted Lance to go for the win on behalf of the Stars and Stripes, and a battle went on for days. Lance’s refusal to work for Reiss caused a rift between Lance and his Subaru-Montgomery teammates, one of whom called Weisel back in the States to complain.

  A few days later, Reiss got a flat tire and lost time in the event. Lance took the lead, with just a few seconds’ advantage over an Italian pro in second place. Eddie B then decided that Subaru-Montgomery should switch allegiances and work for Lance. Despite their bitterness over Lance’s selfish maneuvering earlier in the race, Eddie B’s Subaru-Montgomery riders helped guide Lance to victory. Lance, nineteen and still an amateur, became the first American ever to win the event, which became a big story all over Europe. He fell in love with the drama and attention. But he certainly hadn’t won a lot of friends in the process.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE FIRST MILLION

  On a sunny Friday morning in August 1990, Jim Ochowicz sat in a windowless conference room in the Motorola, Inc. corporate headquarters building in Schaumburg, Illinois, wearing a polo shirt with a red-and-green 7-Eleven logo on his chest. Southland Corporation, which owned 7-Eleven, was hemorrhaging money and it had abruptly canceled its decade-long sponsorship of the team. Soon, Team 7-Eleven would be history, and its twenty-two riders, its team mechanics, and its soigneurs, or assistants, would be jobless.

  Anxious and desperate, Ochowicz figured he might as well take a chance at pitching Motorola’s head of worldwide advertising to endorse his pro team. Ochowicz knew the tech giant was eager for a way to boost awareness of its brand in countries such as France, Germany, and Britain, and he thought he could make a case for doing so through a title sponsorship.

  Sheila Griffin, Motorola’s savvy marketer, was skeptical. She knew almost nothing abo
ut pro cycling and whatever she did know came to her through conversations at home with her husband, a civil engineer and avid amateur racer who would sometimes ride one hundred miles in one shot as weekend fun.

  Griffin had previously considered the idea of sponsoring the Tour de France itself. For several years, Coca-Cola, a major Tour sponsor, had set up a two-story lounge known as the Coca-Cola pavilion, at the Tour’s finish line, which gave Coke major visibility in Europe. But in her eyes, Motorola couldn’t justify shelling out millions of dollars just to sponsor a single twenty-one-day event. She had agreed to meet Ochowicz purely as a courtesy to one of her husband’s biking buddies, who had known him since childhood. She informed him that he had exactly forty-five minutes to make his pitch.

  In his thick Wisconsin accent, Ochowicz began describing himself and his team as American pioneers in Europe, who had successfully brought legitimacy to a sport that for many years had been on the fringes of American athletic culture. Eric Heiden was still riding with the team, drawing crowds of autograph-seeking fans. And in addition to dominating the domestic criterium races, 7-Eleven was also the first US-based team to have a rider who wore the coveted yellow jersey of the overall leader in the Tour de France, and the first to win a stage in a major Tour—an honor in its own right.

  Having pillaged competing teams for talented riders such as Andy Hampsten, a thin, curly-haired, bucktoothed kid from North Dakota who was then the team leader, Ochowicz had high hopes for their ability to compete successfully in the European pro peloton. He described in vivid detail the big day earlier that summer, when Hampsten had become the first American to win the Giro d’Italia, cycling’s second-biggest race. Undeterred by the heavy snowfall on the 8,600-foot Passo di Gavia in the Italian Alps, Hampsten had descended those snowy roads like a madman, defeating all the other top contenders in the race, none of whom had the guts or the technical skill to keep up on the treacherous downhill.