What makes lance armstrong tick

The cyclist, who is pursuing an unprecedented seventh straight Tour de France title this month, is that most public of figures: a world-famous athlete. He has co-written two autobiographies, inspired millions to wear yellow "Livestrong" bands on their wrists and become a popular advertising spokesman for companies including Subaru and Nike. And yet he remains opaque, a man of intense will and action but apparently little introspection, single-mindedly devoted to winning, or pushing himself to his physical limits, or standing up for his causes -- which often happen to be the same thing.

Coyle was determined to find out. The Outside magazine contributing editor moved his family from southern Alaska to Europe to follow Armstrong and other cyclists as they pursued the Tour de France title.

It wasn't easy. Cancer patients, attracted by Armstrong's triumph over the disease in the late '90s, seek a minute with the man as if his blessing could heal their wounds. Journalists, skeptical of his success, are determined to find proof of doping. Armstrong, who has always tested clean, calls antagonists "trolls.

Armstrong is wary at the best of times, keeping tabs on everyone who keeps tabs on him. It's that will that makes him distinctive, Coyle says. Armstrong devotes his time to maintaining Lance Armstrong, whatever that means at a particular moment -- his cancer foundation, his workout, his family.

It's a decision that extends to downtime. He doesn't read books apparently, Coyle says, not even his own , and if a movie is longer than two hours, he won't watch it.

But then, the best cyclists are equally focused -- if not strapped with the kind of adulation and suspicion that surrounds Armstrong. Indeed, some of the most striking portraits in "Lance Armstrong's War" aren't about Armstrong at all, but his competitors and the requirements of cycling.

Cyclists are streamlined human machines aboard the most streamlined of human-powered machines. As Coyle notes, all cyclists' energy goes into cycling; racers don't run if they can walk and they don't walk if they can sit.

Armstrong, who lived in a second-floor apartment while training, always took the elevator to his residence. They train to absurd lengths, routinely cycling hundreds of miles a day and creating bodies with enormous leg muscles, incredible lung capacity and ropy trunks. They push their bodies to the limit," says Coyle. And then they race, placing themselves on lightweight contraptions of metal and rubber and going 30, 40, 50 miles per hour with other cyclists hot on their wheels.

When they crash -- which is often -- it's not pretty. Stackelberg game is also capable of introducing what has been billed as systematic randomness to the equation, vital in this instance given the random nature of drug testing.

Cyclists can be requested to provide a sample at any time, even in the middle of the night, a factor which can be worked into the game. Stackelberg game has been used in airport security to make strategies harder to analyse through surveillance, a method which could have thwarted the way in which Armstrong and Ferrari successfully thwarted USADA for more than a decade.

What Lance Armstrong has managed to make abundantly clear is that current anti-doping controls are not working. Testing procedures need to become significantly more stringent and randomised if they are to be considered fit for purpose.

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