It’s five days before Tour Time and the cycling pundits are restless, analysing and bantering about the probability of Lance Armstrong earning a record sixth triumph at the world’s greatest bike race. Everybody has an opinion, but what’s it worth? To brandish any kind of clout on Armstrong’s shot at six, you need to have been in his sweaty, race-worn shoes.
2004 Tour de France: Calendar
ARMSTRONG: Fifth Tour win was hardest
Like the Texan, you need to feel your lungs explode on Alpe d'Huez and you need to understand the media frenzy – both adoring and muckraking – that accompanies winning the Tour de France again and again.
Show of hands? We thought so.
Without further ado, Eurosport.com presents the eminently qualified – and brazenly forthright – five-time Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault, who sat down with us during the spring's Paris-Nice race to analyse all things Armstrong.
Eurosport: On July 25, when the Tour has closed its 20 stages and buckled its 3,391 kilometres, will Armstrong be the winner?
Bernard Hinault: At the start of the Tour [Saturday, July 3], I give him a one-in-two chance. Once the race starts, anything is possible. It depends on him and everything that surrounds him: his adversaries, crashes, broken collarbones, his health… But logically, if he does everything exactly like he did for the past five years, there shouldn't be a problem. And if he wins, bravo! He'll deserve it.
Eurosport: Of course, if he wins, he'll be the only rider to have won the Tour six times, a record many think should have been yours…
Bernard Hinault: I was 31 years old when I won my last Tour [1985]. I could have raced maybe one or two more years, but I had always said I would stop when I turned 32. And that's what I did. I hung my bike on the wall and that's where it has stayed.
Listen, the question you need to ask is do you race for a record or for the pleasure of winning bike races? There's an enormous difference between the two. The records come automatically if you win. My opinion – and my advice to Armstrong – is that if you ride for the record, that's when you'll have problems.
Eurosport: If Armstrong wins six, a lot of people will put him on the pedestal of “greatest cyclist of all time.” Do you agree?
Bernard Hinault: What does that mean: “The greatest?” The question shouldn't even be asked. There is no great or small. There's just an elite athlete who has won a lot of bike races. Period.
Eurosport: Yes, but you must have some nagging feelings about this. People are ready to rank Armstrong as the greatest ever when his entire season is distilled down to one race: The Tour de France. You and Eddy Merckx, for example, you rode – and won – everything, from February to October.
Bernard Hinault: Physically, maybe Armstrong isn't able to ride an entire season. I don't know. But he knows how to manage his calendar and how to be at his maximum when he needs to be. That, too, is the mark of a great champion.
It's also logical. You can't win everything. When I raced, I chose five major objectives for the season. Some races I did to train and others I rode to win. Armstrong's goal is the Tour de France and he's right to choose it. Why? Because he can win it. The others, frankly, must be a little stupid to focus on the Tour because they can't win it. Maybe they should focus on another race, where Armstrong isn't, like the Tours of Italy or Spain.
Eurosport: At the start of Armstrong's career – before his cancer – did you think he would one day win the Tour de France?
Bernard Hinault: No. At the start of his career he wasn't exactly thin. When he won the world championships in Oslo [1993] he had a lot of… shape. Knowing that weight is enemy number-one in the mountains, I never would have said this is a guy who can win the Tour.
But after his illness, Armstrong lost 12 kilos in comparison to his weight at Oslo. He came back and he was as thin as a thread. Twelve kilos in the mountains is huge! It makes all the difference.
Eurosport: So if the mountains are the key to the Tour de France, you must agree that this year's Alpe d'Huez time-trial on July 21 will be do-or-die?
Bernard Hinault: It's a colossal stage! The difference is that on a regular point-to-point mountain stage, you can fake it. If you're hurting on a climb, you can sit in and hide your pain, recuperate and then attack on the next. Here, at Alpe d'Huez, it's unforgiving -- 14km all out! If you're off, you're out. Psychologically it will be very, very hard.
Eurosport: Amidst the doping innuendo that is continually swirling around cycling, some have made the connection between Armstrong and the medications he was allowed to take – and may currently still be taking – because of his cancer…
Bernard Hinault: Yeah, I've heard that and here's what I have to say to that bunch of assholes: I wish you just one thing: That you have the same sickness. That you have one foot in the grave. Then you'll see how much you'll want to live. How much you'll want to do what you love and do it to it's maximum.
Tuesday:We handicap the 2004 Tour de France. Ullrich, Hamilton, Mayo, Basso… Amongst the pretenders, who's the real contender for Armstrong's Tour de France throne?
Eurosport - ataber@eurosport.co.uk - 28/06/2004
<dammit - beat me to it and included the pics, too. I'm not worthy>
<If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough>
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Bernard Hinault: I was 31 years old when I won my last Tour [1985]. I could have raced maybe one or two more years, but I had always said I would stop when I turned 32. And that's what I did. I hung my bike on the wall and that's where it has stayed. 
Bernard Hinault: Physically, maybe Armstrong isn't able to ride an entire season. I don't know. But he knows how to manage his calendar and how to be at his maximum when he needs to be. That, too, is the mark of a great champion. 
Bernard Hinault: It's a colossal stage! The difference is that on a regular point-to-point mountain stage, you can fake it. If you're hurting on a climb, you can sit in and hide your pain, recuperate and then attack on the next. Here, at Alpe d'Huez, it's unforgiving -- 14km all out! If you're off, you're out. Psychologically it will be very, very hard.