One Monday morning last month I went to my friendly neighborhood 24 Hour Fitness in Austin, Texas, and discovered that it had been transformed into a Lance Armstrong shrine. Along the back wall, under the heading "The Making Of A Legend," were dozens of photographs of Armstrong, alongside various laminated newspaper articles, Sports Illustrated covers, line-by-line breakdowns of his workout regimen, a racing bike in a glass case, and a history of his life broken into four sections: In The Beginning, The Detour, Born Again Cyclist, and The Road Ahead. A 10-foot-wide mockup of one of those ubiquitous yellow bracelets hung over the check-in desk like a plaster halo. Eight-inch-tall letters, embossed on the bracelets, commanded me to "Live Strong."

"Wow," I said to the desk person, "I wish there were more Lance Armstrong