Social Workout

Lance VIII: Inspiration

Two Days to Le Tour

Lance! (Via Treehugger.)

In America on Saturday, we'll be lighting sparklers and drinking Bud. Meanwhile, back in Monaco, Lance Armstrong et. al will kick off the 3,500 kilometer 2009 Tour de France with a 15.5 km time trial amuse bouche. The headlines: Like an alcoholic with just a few weeks of sobriety, professional cycling claims it has cleaned up its act. Forgive and forget, and let's please just get back to good old fashioned, inhumanly difficult, drug free, bike racing on narrow mountain roads in the Pyrenees. Word up. As for Lance: He's 37, out of the action since he last won the Tour in 2005, and on a quixotic quest for personal redemption. "I'm doing this for my kids," he says in his new book. "I don't want them growing up and reading all these things about me and doping." FYI: Lance had been trash talking last summer "I'll kick their asses," he said post 2008 Tour; but these days he's sounding humbler and wiser: "I would love to be eternally young, but I'm not," he said. "That's just the reality. It's not going to be easy to win." We do hope he does well, and so do his peeps at Nike, who have worked their inspirational video magic on le retour....