“I want to die at a hundred years old screaming down an alpine descent on a bicycle at 75mph.”

This is how it begins, with his end. This exhilarating pace doesnt waver an inch throughout this pumping novel. Lance Armstrong’s, “It’s not about the bike” tracks the cyclists life before he finally climaxed winning the Tour the France a total of seven times. It deals predominantly with his battle with testicular cancer and his eventual triumph over it and over the odds.

I was a critic, a doubter, he is a man who has always been shrouded in controversy. However, after  reading this autobiography it is not easy to stay mad at him. Armstrong surprisingly has writing abilities that have the power to convert the pessimists. So be warned before reading this you may find yourself warming to him. At the beginning , he comes across as an arrogant stubborn youth, but he redeems himself as the reader sees how cancer transforms his mindset on the world and by the close, he emerges a hero in all sense of the word.  Through his delivery of the lines, his passionate speech about the bike, the pain, the hills, the fight for his life, the fight to dominate the road. Its thrilling. Every cycler, every competitor, every person who wants more out of life, should read this book. It is a pusher.

It’s one of those rare finds when you are in a room alone, sitting and reading, just mulling over the words in your mind. Then suddenly, It makes you stop and look up from the book, to take a second and process the idea of what this ordinary man from Texas has accomplished, and the realisation that nothing is stopping the reader from doing the same.

For now at least, the man remains a superhero.