Different Spokes

By Sean Gregory

How do you replace cycling's legend? Perhaps by starting with something life threatening. During last year's Tour de Georgia in Rome, Ga., Craig Lewis, a 20-year-old cycling phenom, was speeding downhill at 40 m.p.h. when a 65-year-old man accidentally drove a Mitsubishi Montero into his path. Head down, Lewis arrowed into the car. Later, a minister waited outside Lewis' hospital room ready to administer last rites, but the young rider regained consciousness. He asked for a pen, scribbled something on a bloodstained piece of paper and handed it to his coach. "Ride?" the note said. Two months later, Lewis was back on his bike.

It could be a tale out of the Lance Armstrong chronicles. Lewis is years away from competing in a Tour de France, and he may never rise to the mythological heights of his racing hero, who entered the final week of his last Tour poised to win a seventh straight title. But inspired by the cancer survivor's drive to overcome any obstacle and dominate the Eurocentric sport of cycling, Lewis and his once wrecked body are part of the most motivated--and talented--crop of riders the U.S. has ever known. At one point in this year's Tour, five Yanks were placed in the top 25, including three in the top six, something no other country could claim. To the U.S. cycling world, which has thrived for years on Armstrong's trophies, Generation Lance could keep fans pedaling. "What these guys are doing," says Outdoor Life Network commentator and ex--pro cyclist Bob Roll, "is absolutely incredible."

Two former Armstrong lieutenants, desperate to escape his mountainous shadow, could soon reach the Champs Elysees podium. Floyd Landis, 29, who was never even allowed to race a bike as a kid, stood sixth overall through 14 stages (out of 21) in this year's Tour. He grew up without a television or radio in a Mennonite household in Pennsylvania, and he needed permission from a pastor to wear racing tights in public. Landis still won't conform. After riding shotgun for Armstrong on the U.S. Postal team for the past three Tours, he jumped to the Swiss Phonack squad this season for more money and a spot as team leader. (Nonleaders can earn a few hundred thousand annually; Lance, millions.) "They want you to give 100% and make sure Lance does as little as possible," says Landis. "Nobody was angry about that; we all understood the rules. That's the way they run their team, and that's why I left."

Jockey-size Levi Leipheimer, 31, the Montana-born boss of Germany's team Gerolsteiner, makes up with precision riding what he lacks in raw talent. Before each stage, he probes his bike like a quality-control engineer, obsessing over the height and angle of the saddle, its distance from the handlebars. He can drive the tech guys crazy. "I've seen him argue for 15 minutes about a difference of one and a half millimeters," says Gerolsteiner spokesman Joerg Gruenefeld. Leipheimer's approach is clearly working; he reached fifth place entering the Tour's final week.

Rounding out the new crop is Dave Zabriskie, 25, who this year became only the third American ever to lead the Tour--before a crash ended his run. But promising stars like Zabriskie, who looks so young he ought to have a bell on his cycle, probably won't ever compare with the man who inspired millions of fans to wear yellow Livestrong bracelets. "It's a bit frightening," says Ian MacGregor, the reigning under-23 U.S. road-racing champion, of Armstrong's retirement. "Cyclists know there's more to the sport than Lance Armstrong. I don't know if the American public knows that."

If basketball is still searching for its lost panache seven years after Michael Jordan's retirement, will cycling ever recover from Armstrong's? Paradoxically, new blood could help the sport, assuming the new guys can avoid run-ins with SUVs. "Believe me, I'm a Lance fan, but to be honest, the Tour de France has gotten kind of boring," says former U.S. Postal rider Jonathan Vaughters. "I think it will be much more spectacular with more competition." Don't worry, Generation Lance is climbing. --With reporting by James Graff and Mikael Holter/Paris and Tala Skari/Montpellier