It almost never happened. Though he was a world-champion cyclist at 21, by 1998 Lance Armstrong was a 26-year-old cancer survivor who'd never finished better than 36th at the Tour de France and was struggling to reenter professional cycling. The big teams didn't want him, and he wasn't sure he wanted the sport. His first race back was the five-day Ruta del Sol, a February warmup for the long season ahead. He finished an encouraging 14th. But just two weeks later, while contesting the much more difficult Paris–Nice, he rolled to a stop in the middle of a cold, windy second stage and got off his bike. Even he doubted he would ever get back on.

Here, Armstrong's coaches, teammates, and closest friends recall their efforts to coax him back, the mental and psychological transformations that followed, and a miraculous Tour de France that ended ten years ago this month with a new American hero.

Too Much, Too Soon
MARCH–APRIL 2008
PAUL SHERWEN (cycling commentator and former pro cyclist): I remember Lance's result in Ruta del Sol. To me, that was already a great success. But Ruta del Sol is a startup race. Paris–Nice is the first vicious race of the season.

LANCE ARMSTRONG: I just didn't feel like being there, so I pulled over and said, "That's it." It was an instinctual reaction, totally irrational.

BART KNAGGS (Armstrong's longtime friend and fellow racer from their junior days, now a partner in Armstrong's management firm): He had big expectations, and all of a sudden he was just one more guy getting pissed on in the rain, with grit in his teeth. He's saying, "Look, I don't need this. Maybe I'll go to school, maybe I'll get a job." We started talking to people about things he could do—be a real-estate guy, a financial guy. But at the same time, we sort of came to a consensus: You know what? This is what he was born to do. Let's rekindle that passion.

CHRIS CARMICHAEL (Armstrong's longtime coach): I really remember one discussion. I said, "Look, you say you've proven enough to the cancer community because you got back to professional cycling and proved you were competitive. Dude, you pulled over and quit, and that's what everyone's going to remember." He didn't like that.

I flew back home, and he called me and said, "All right, we'll do one more race," the U.S. Pro. But he was like "Look, I gotta get out of Austin. I've just been playing golf and drinking beer. If I'm gonna do this, I gotta go flat out."

So we started talking about Boone, North Carolina. Cool hippie town with a college. Really good atmosphere and some great climbing. Then he needed a training partner, and I remember saying, "Hey, what about [American Tour de France veteran] Bob Roll? He'd be perfect." He's funnier than hell, and he was still racing on mountain bikes at the time. And Bob has a good way of getting a guy thinking about stuff in an introspective way, without being forceful.

PHIL LIGGETT (longtime cycling journalist and commentator): Bob and Chris were trying to straighten his mind out more than his body, because he took a real hammering in Paris–Nice. So they went up to Boone in April and they raced on the hard roads, seven hours a day in atrocious weather.

ARMSTRONG: It was just Chris, Bob, and me in a cabin, training long hours and eating at home. It was a monk's lifestyle that we ended up adopting for ten years after that. The weather was really, really bad, but we nutted up and we rode every day. I proved to myself that I loved what I was doing.

CARMICHAEL: The last day was 120 miles, and the guys were going to finish on Beech Mountain, a hard climb. Then I was going to load the bikes and drive the 30 miles back to the cabin. As soon as we hit the climb, Lance dropped Bob. I was following him, and he kept getting out of his saddle and really hammering. It's not even raining now; it's snowing. I just want to get through the thing, but he's attacking. There's nobody there, just a cow on the side of the road and me. I remember pulling up and rolling down the window, laying on the horn and yelling at him, pounding on the side of the car, saying "Yeah, come on!" like he was racing.

I don't know why.

We got to the top, and I remember exactly what he said to this day. It was "Give me my rain jacket. I'm riding back."

This was a Thursday, and there was a race in Atlanta on Sunday. By the time we got back to the cabin, he was like "I gotta do that race." I remember him arguing with the team manager because they didn't have race wheels for him. It really pissed Lance off. I was doing backflips, because he's better when he's pissed off. There it was. Game on.