A few years ago, before Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life from the sport of cycling by the International Cycling Union, when we American bicycling enthusiasts were mesmerized by him and his seemingly unstoppable Tour victories, a story went around our little dental office community.
It seems one of the dentists who was an avid cyclist himself was riding with a group of friends somewhere along the Southern California coastline. According to the story, this dentist and his buddies were riding along the coast highway, enjoying the view and the invigorating sea air, when out from a side road another rider swung onto the highway and fell in with them. It took just a short distance before the dentist and his friends realized that someone very special had joined them. It was Lance Armstrong, arguably at that time considered (at least by us Americans) to be the best bicyclist on the planet.
I imagine these bicycling enthusiasts/hobbyists were totally blown away and may have had quite a time keeping their bike tires on the road. Lance stayed with the little group for awhile before turning to the men and saying, “You fellas are welcome to ride with me for as long as you want but I gotta get down to work now,” and with that, he was gone. Like he’d been shot out of a cannon or something. I don’t think any of the group even attempted to catch up with him.
Like I said, this story made the circuit among the bicycling dentists in our community. When I think about it, I’m surprised at the number of dentists I’ve known who’ve been avid bike riders. Though Jim was not one of the group riding along the Coast that day, he loved to tell that story, too. Only the other day, his re-telling of the story took a surprising new twist.
“I once rode with Lance Armstrong.” Jim and I were watching the Amgen Tour of California, our state’s premier race which attracts riders not only from the state but from all over the world. It was sort of our lead-in to the Tour de France coming in July. I looked over at my husband. “Don’t you mean the time those other dentists …” I thought perhaps if I gently suggested an alternative scenario, it might correct his memory. No, he was quite adamant: he’d been in that group of riders and rode right alongside Lance Armstrong. I could see there was no point in trying to correct him. Besides, what harm did it do for him to have such a cool memory? “That is so awesome, Babe. I would have loved to have been there.”
Although it is quite common for Alzheimer’s patients to misremember events, most people are surprised to learn that the rest of us do it, too, and more often than we’d like to admit. But that’s a topic for another day. One thing I do remember (hopefully, correctly) was the first time Jim introduced me to the spectacle that is the Tour de France. We were on a biking and wine tour of the Russian River Valley and he was frantic to find a bar where we could watch the Tour because Greg LeMond was racing again after being out of the competition for two years due to gunshot wounds in a hunting accident. Well, damn, if LeMond didn’t win the race in the final stage and I was hooked on bike racing.
Today is Stage 4 of the Tour de France and Jim and I will watch it together (we record each stage so we can watch it at a convenient time) and I’ll see if we can share some more of our own biking memories.
And I honestly don’t care if they’re remembered correctly or not.
Writing Through Challenges & Change 
You handled that quite well, sister. It reminds me a bit of visiting with Dad when he was in the Board and Care facility and he thought I was his brother, Ralph. He thanked me (Ralph) for coming all the way down from Sonora to visit him. “Of course I would, Lee,” I responded.
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