Is Lance Armstrong is a liar and a fraud, or is he an inspiration to millions of people?

I love a great bike ride, just like the rest of you I'm sure. I get up insanely early just so I can ride with the least amount of traffic and to be home by 6:15am to wake the kids for school. I get dressed in the dark into my riding bib shorts and multi-colored cycling jersey with defeat socks and Specialized Pro road shoes. I put on my helmet and gloves and make sure the lights (two on the back and front are charged and working well). At this point I usually think to myself that I’m glad my wife is still sleeping so I do not have to hear her laughing at me again for the outfit I wear on my bike.

But I love to ride and like millions of people around the world, looked to Lance Armstrong as the American ambassador to the world of cycling. We denied the reports, said they’re just jealous that he won seven (count them…. seven) Tour De France victories. We supported him even though there were rumors of doping and rode along anyway.

Lance Armstrong became one of the two or three most transcendent American sports stars of our generation despite the fact that hardly anyone in America cares at all about cycling. The ratio of passionate Lance Armstrong fans to people who have ever actually watched Lance Armstrong race except for maybe a few minutes during the Tour de France is just crazily out of whack, but in America it's almost definitely the case that more people have seen Lance Armstrong commercials than have seen Lance Armstrong compete. Which is all just to state the obvious, that it was his story that made him a superstar: his comeback from near-fatal cancer, the hope he offered other cancer patients, his charitable work through the Livestrong Foundation, the yellow bracelets, the sense of larger purpose? Cycling wasn't the cause here so much as the arbitrary venue in which the cause could prove itself noteworthy. He could be broadcast as pure information, or whatever the emotional equivalent of information is. He was a hero of feeling, not a hero of sports.

I want to write: "I would rather be devastated by the truth than comforted by a lie" and be able to believe it. But that's easy to say when you're outside the drift of the regular world, writing away on our little blog as I wonder what the sports fanatic as well as the cancer survivors are saying.

Lance Armstrong may be a liar, and a fraud, and is an inspiration to millions of people, and the trees in the north have begun to change their leaves, and basketball season has just begun….

 How will situations like this effect or change your life? Or will it?