I read Lance Armstrong's "It's Not About the Bike" because I thought it would be an interesting read, taking into consideration his recent admission that he doped for all of his Tour de France wins.

His coming clean didn't really affect my thoughts about him much. Partly because I never thought much of him personally anyway. I followed those Tours de France and was thrilled at his performances, but he never interviewed well. Off the bike, he wasn't all that impressive or even likeable.

Reading the book also confirmed that his personality type is not one that I like. He was a typical jock, basically a selfish, arrogant asshole, which I think kinda goes with the territory at performing at the highest level of the elite.

I don't think it's something he'd deny. Call him a selfish, arrogant asshole and he'd admit he is because that's part of what gives him a competitive edge (but if you said it as an insult, rather than a descriptive, he just might punch you in the face).

So OK, fine, he doped, he cheated. But win or not, he completed seven Tours de France! Holy crap! You're already pretty elite if you can ride even a single stage of the Tour, I reckon. Any major leaguer can hit a baseball out of the park, but doping makes you do it more often. That's cheating.

In an event like the Tour de France, doping might improve performance, but it doesn't mean that you'll win, it doesn't mean that you'll even be able to complete it and it certainly doesn't mean that it's easy. It's already a superhuman feat, and that's part of why I'm still no less impressed by Armstrong's performance.

You can say he doesn't deserve those wins because he cheated, and I have no problem with that, but I also believe the allegations that doping was and is rampant in the sport.

Maybe he doesn't deserve those wins, but who knows who does? I'm curious as to why after Armstrong was stripped of his titles, they didn't go to the second place winners. But who knows? They may have been doping, too, but just didn't come under such intense and sustained scrutiny because they were second place and were not Lance Armstrong.

Doping in cycling and not getting caught is practically a sport in itself. And as often as Armstrong was tested and never tested positive, the USPS team was certainly the best at cheating (OK, maybe that's not quite so impressive).

But the book is mostly about the cancer, which is what prevented me from re-shelving the book in the library under fiction. Only the last part is about his comeback and covers only his first Tour de France win. That's the part where the reader can start reading in a subtext of doping between the lines.

When did they first start planning it? How did they put the whole system into place to not get caught? How did they convince the whole team to go along with it and risk their careers and reputations? Everything he describes about riding that Tour now has a doping subtext.