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Lance’s being just another rambunctious teenager testing his newfound freedom.
     
    The call from Armstrong to J.T. Neal came before dawn on an August morning, 1991. Could Neal come to San Marcos and pick him up? Armstrong wasn’t stranded on the side of the road in the Texas outback. He had not blown out a tire on his bike in a marathon training ride. He was in jail.
    The night before, thirty miles from Austin, Armstrong had partied with some coeds from Southwest Texas State University. As they frolicked in an outdoor Jacuzzi at one coed’s apartment complex, they made so much noise that the police came to quiet them down. But that was only Armstrong’s first meeting with cops that night. The second was the big one. Pulled over for driving erratically, he thought he could talk his way out of trouble. So what if he had appeared drunk and refused to take a Breathalyzer test? He was sure the officer would be impressed when he told them who he was—the best young cyclist in the entire country.
    Had he been a quarterback, maybe the ploy would have worked. But a Texas police officer could not care less about a guy boasting about his prowess on a bike. No, it was off to the county lockup.
    Neal, always concerned about Armstrong’s drinking and driving, came and got him from the San Marcos jail the next day. Months later, upon receiving a notice informing him that his driver’s license could be suspended, Armstrong forwarded the letter to Neal. On the envelope, he wrote, “J.T.—This came today?? Have a great Xmas! Lance.” Now acting as his lawyer as well as his friend, Neal helped Armstrong beat the charges and keep his license.
    In turn, Neal received from Armstrong something rare and precious: Armstrong’s trust. Armstrong sent him postcards from training trips and races—such as a note dated August 16, 1991, from Wein-und Ferienort Bischoffingen, Germany:
    J.T.—Hows it going? Well, Germany is very nice. As you probably know the worlds are a little over a week away and Im [ sic ] nervous as hell. At least I’m riding good now! Wish you were here! The boys say “hello.” Lance
    Neal was an admitted cycling groupie. He was never athletic enough in any sport to be a hotshot jock—he rode a bike, but only recreationally—but now he could walk among those jocks and be accepted and respected by them. He had the job of a cycling fan’s dreams.
    Neal loved that the national team riders and American pro cyclists knew who he was. Some even called him for advice. In Hincapie’s case: I was stopped by customs with a suitcase filled with EPO and other drugs, what should I do? Some of them, like Armstrong and Hincapie, were open with him about their drug use. Whether Neal was complicit in any of that drug use is unclear. He said, though, that a soigneur ’s job in the United States was different from that of one in Europe, where the job had long required an intimate knowledge of pharmaceuticals. He had learned that from his fellow soigneurs who had done work overseas. Only once did Neal inject Armstrong, Neal said: a vitamin shot in the rear end.
    In those early days, Armstrong didn’t hide the fact that he received regular injections. Neal always said that Armstrong never liked to do things for himself, that he felt entitled to have someone wash his car for free or make restaurant reservations. At first, he didn’t like injecting himself, either. A coed named Nancy Geisler, Neal’s office assistant who was close with both men, said that Neal once asked her to give Armstrong a vitamin shot because he’d be out of town and couldn’t do it. She presumed that it was just a part of Armstrong’s training regimen.
    Armstrong was nonchalant about it when she filled in. She saw no label on the vial from which the syringe had drawn its liquid. She assumed that Armstrong had been doping and that Neal knew it. Only years later did she think, “Had I been a part of something illegal?”
    According to Neal, Armstrong relied on