On a stupendous European summer morning in July 2009, I was perched on the side of a mountain in the Pyrenees, watching the Tour de France peloton climb from Barcelona to Andorra, hoping for a glimpse of Lance Armstrong .

The seven-time winner of the world’s greatest bike race was making his professional cycling comeback that year and, like millions of cycling fans around the world, I was transfixed by the possibility that he might make it eight maillots jaunes when the three-week race arrived in Paris.