Joe was even then, when I heard from him, mentioning this new, young rider, this great athlete with the even-better name, Lance Armstrong. (Image from LanceArmstrong.Com.)

A name from fiction, that. You can’t make up a better one. Say it a few times. Lance Armstrong. Lance Armstrong. Was there ever a more American name?

And the story that went with it…Joe told me Lance was raised by his mother, that his father abandoned him as a child, and that what he wanted most was what every such child wants, to make the money to get her a home. He linked the asphalt of my Texas salad days to the hunger of the basketball courts near where I now lived.

You can't make this kind of stuff up.

The great American hope by then was Andy Hampsten (right, from the 1992 Tour, picture by Dave Lawrence.)

Hampsten was a good rider. He won a few stages, and sometimes finished in the top 20. But the era belonged to Miguel Indurain, the great Spaniard, who combined the heart of Secretariat with the tactical brilliance of Hinault.

Indurain (left, from his foundation) would win every time trial, sometimes by a huge margin, then come through the mountains near the front at every stage, seldom winning that day’s race, but always grinding his main rivals into the dust. He was a machine, he was a brute, he was unstoppable. He was glorious.

But every rider ages, often suddenly, and in 1996 time caught up with Miguel Indurain. A Dane named Bjarne Riis won the tour, a bald guy like me, and better than that they were all coming to my town, to Atlanta. To the Olympics.

Joe and his wife came, too. They used our couch as a hotel room but would rise each day long before I did, then head off to the Velodrome, or the mountain biking in Conyers. It was wonderful seeing them again. Joe had switched careers, he had gone to cooking school, and was now a pastry chef. He’d gained a few pounds too, but he still had his bike, and I was sure could still ride me into the ground. Especially since I’d been off the bike for 8 years.

I played hooky from work one day that Olympiad. It was for the men’s road race. It would be contested in Buckhead, just miles from my door, on some of the first roads I’d ridden. It would be Lance Armstrong’s coming-out party. I had to be there. (The image below is of the womens' race that year, and comes from Olympic Minerals, Australia.)

Armstrong had done the tour a few times by then, even winning some stages. But he was just 23, there was plenty of time, and we were waiting for his breakthrough. What better place than back home, at the Olympics, before adoring crowds.

Every Texan in Georgia made his way to Buckhead that day. Texas flags were painted on the roads, with “USA USA” and “Go Lance Go” on every incline. It was a giant cocktail party. The riders would do 11 circuits. We had our bikes with us. We would find a spot on someone’s lawn, the riders would whiz by, then the roads would fill with spectators and we’d go look for another vantage point. At Paces Ferry Road the course took a sharp left, then a right. I stood at the right-hand turn and felt them go past me, inches from my face, the sound of their gears like a locust storm, the breeze like that of a NASCAR race, only fresh and clean, scented by sweat and deodorant.

Lance made his move as we all knew he would, four laps from the end. We had gone to near the start-finish line, where a giant TV screen had been erected to follow the whole course. We saw Lance whiz by. We cheered like mad. The crowd chanted “Go Lance Go! Go Lance Go” for many minutes after he went by, watching the TV coverage, rooting him home.

And then, inexplicably, he slowed. The peleton caught him. He dropped back, further and further, spent. Another American rider took off after the leaders, who had attacked the peleton the moment Armstrong was caught. He fought like a demon, like a madman, but the gap was too great. He wound up fourth, which at the Olympics gets you a hearty handshake and a “better luck next time.”

As we rode home, dejected, we asked each other, “What happened to Lance?”