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Summary: loved it, great read, inspriational....
Review: do you think you can relate? a must read....
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Summary: What an amazing athlete
Review: It is easy to see why Lance has been so successful in his life. He has an amazing capacity for attacking any obstacle that gets in his way, whether it be cancer or the French alps. As a fellow cancer survivor, I could so relate to his battle. Mine was not as advanced as his was, and many times I felt like just giving up. I cannot imagine having to endure surgery, and chemo, and still managing to get on a bike. There are times when Mr. Armstrong comes across as arrogant and obstinate; probably what gave him the strength to persevere in the face of the naysayers who had already given him up for dead.
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Summary: Bravo!
Review: Lance Armstrong's journey from being diagnosed with cancer to winning the Tour de France 5 years in a row. His remarkable story will influence thousands. His autobiography is simply remarkable in its reality and realistic features that affect people's everyday lives.
Being raised by a single mom for many years, his growing up in poverty influenced his mother to succeed in business and in parenthood.
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Summary: Life Happens to Champions, Too.
Review: Meet Lance Armstrong, the illegitimate son of a single teenage mother in Texas, who became the fastest thing on a racing bike this planet has ever seen. At the height of his early career, Lance was diagnosed with testicular cancer and beat the disease and the odds to survive, thrive, and prosper, often in the face of naysayers who said, "he's finished."I'm not a cancer survivor or a cyclist, so neither of those things drew me to this book. I wanted to read how a champion, someone who's always been a winner, handles adversity. I didn't come away with any formula for success; for one thing, Lance says explicitly in the book that he'd seen people with no strong will to live survive cancer while others who were absolutely determined to beat the illness died from cancer. Looks like it simply wasn't Lance's time to go. Since his recovery, he's helped many other people with cancer and devoted a great deal of his time and resources to those struggling with the illness. He says that once you have cancer, you are forever a member of what he calls "the cancer community." Lance didn't strike me as someone with a sense of entitlement, a case of "that will never happen to me." He was too busy pedaling. But when he was diagnosed, he wasted no time applying the same tools and tactics to fighting cancer that he applied to racing. The consistent thread between his illness and his championship bike racing was his approach to both: he's in it to win and he'll do whatever it takes to succeed. This is a man with true commitment, a very rare quality in today's hurry-up-I-want-it-all-right-now culture. This story has a happy ending-he beat the disease, he won the Tour de France, he got the girl, and the happy little family walked off into the sunset. That's the short version. But it's no fairy tale. Lance's story has given hope to many and enjoyment to others. An accessible, conversational tone runs throughout the book, and we get a sense of the Texas boy who grew up riding through the Texas prairie with a very determined will and a good sense of his natural gifts. Easily polished off in a focused weekend. *It's Not About The Bike* is also a great tribute to single moms and the power of a mother's unconditional love and support. Linda Armstrong is a champion, too, and Lance never lets anyone forget it. Right on!
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Summary: It is definitely not about the bike, it is about Lance
Review: In this book LA tells you his story... Everything from how he got his first bike, how he raced on it, what he felt, what he thought, all the way to his come back after cancer. I greatly recommend this book for inspiration and to help you understand what a GREAT athlete is made of.
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Summary: It's NOT about the bike...
Review: There's truth in the title: it's not about the bike, not even about Lance, although he's the one generating the narrative, and a good one it is. Joseph Campbell spoke about the "Hero's Journey", which is what this book outlines. Some come to enlightenment through study, others through life-altering experiences, most never get there at all. With feet of clay, and a pretty good-sized ego (necessary for world-class athletes), and help from more gods and humans than anyone has a right to expect, Lance arrived on that windswept peak that overlooks life in this world. I thank him for sharing that with us, as painful as it was, and for helping us understand that we all can rise to that peak, but we cannot do it alone. In the words of the Hollywood reviewers, "I laughed, I cried, I was changed." If you read this and aren't, you're not human.
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Summary: Inspirational but the Ego Detracts from the Message
Review: I went into my read of this book practically worshipping this guy. His accomplishments both on and off the bike are nothing less than extraordinary. The book does have an inspirational message, but I found myself often distracted from it by a constant thread of egomania. Where there is modesty it tends to ring false. If anyone is entitled to feel good about himself it is Lance, but enough already.
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Summary: A lesson about life
Review: I red this book on a flight to Miami almost two years ago.
It has became my bible: this is not about the bike at all. It's about the love of a single parent raising her only child facing so many challenges, it's about true friendship (something that is really hard to find nowadays...), it's about passion and efforts to reach a goal in one's life. It makes you think about how easly your life can change and you cannot avoid it, all you can do is find the energy to fight back as good as you can. I red this book over 25 times, I now it all. Forward and backward. And it still suprises me and I can still discover parts that give me a new impulse. It changed my life. I keep this book right beside my cupboard. And now I'm waiting for Lance's sixth victory. sabyne moras
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Summary: Honestly Inspiring
Review: Lance Armstrong, whose basic story will be well known by nearly anyone who picks up this book, surpised me. I of couse knew that he was a multiple winner of the Tour de France and had conquered cancer, but this story delves much deeper into the incredible hurdles that faced him in both situations. His honesty about the disease, his relationships and the consequences of cancer (sterility and a failed romance most notably) was refreshing and made this story much more immediate and moving then I had expected. It also made him much more real and seem more amazing then I already imagined him to be. Of course, this is a biography and Armstrong has a healthy ego to begin with, so it is of course biased in his favor, but at no point did that lessen my appreciation for what he has suffered through or accomplished. This book is not very well written (though there is nothing wrong with it at all, in fact it is very easy, quick reading) and it is a bit self serving at times, but its message of hope and can-do spirit is inspiring. I respect Lance Armstrong a great deal after reading this book and appreciate what he'd done more then ever before. I think everyone will appreciate this book and get something from it, whether you are a biking fan, a cancer survivor, an endurance athlete looking for motivation or someone who is interested in pop culture and notable people. It is a very well presented story and does not require much time or effort to complete.
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Summary: He's a hero, but, uh ... it IS about the bike
Review: Mr. Armstrong is a world-class athlete and champion, and he battled back from a deadly disease that should have taken his life. He's highly disciplined in a manner I can scarcely imagine and he regularly engages and overcomes adversity. He is an inspiration to all and especially to those in the throngs of cancer. What does not work is this underlying pretense epitomized with the book's title. He is only about the bike, or rather himself. Every other character in the book seems to be an object he can manipulate or castigate. Of course, he is no different from any other successful athlete, businessman, or president... Such success requires an intense, self-absorbed focus. I recommend this book for the inspirational value, but be prepared for the surface sentiments and contradictions.
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