Sometimes his need for confrontation serves him well, and sometimes badly. It helped him surmount a fatherless childhood in Dallas, and find himself as a competitor. It also made him too combative on occasion. In a small criterion race around a dusty Texas track one afternoon, he crossed the finish line punching at another rider. It was his indispensable ally in beating cancer, the Bastard, as he calls it, and when he came to after brain surgery, with tubes in his chest and a U-shaped incision in his scalp, the size of a horseshoe, he fought to get out of bed. "What are you doing?" the nurse said, pushing him back down.

But it hasn't made him much of a diplomat in dealing with his critics. "Let it go," I'd tell him, whenever another story appeared accusing him of using needles to win. He had money, healthy children, love, an adventurous life. Why did he need to answer every enemy, call them up personally? "Easy for you to say," he'd reply.

It's what his whole comeback is all about, really, coming face to face with things, especially the doubters. "Am I doping now?" his body language seems to say, as he hovers over the pedals, swaggering even as he rides. He didn't like the slackness of retirement. The absence of physical punishment made him feel he was drifting, even when he ran marathons with stress fractures. So he called up his old friend and former team director, Johan Bruyneel, and said he was going to ride again.

"He's drunk, he's at a party," was Bruyneel's first thought.

Armstrong's ability to confront is a quality I've always admired about him, even when it causes him difficulties. It's a quality I wish I had more of, as opposed to ducking, or stalling, or aheming my way out of difficult situations, because it leads to clear answers and definite outcomes. It's a kind of emotional gamble: He puts himself out there for anyone to see, and to judge.

In the climb he faces today in Stage 7, he won't be able to hide, and won't seek to. By the end of the stage we will know whether he's strong enough to race to win, or whether he will spend the rest of the Tour riding in support of the young Contador. The 139-mile ride to Arcalis finishes with a monster climb at 2,240 meters, one of the highest finishes in Tour history, that will leave him gasping. It will take him through the mountains of Andorra, a part of Spain he has ridden through before, when he lived in the ancient Catalonian city of Girona, when he was a younger man who breathed easier. He would walk his bike across the cobblestones until he was outside of the old siege walls, and then ride up into the mountain passes, to look for himself.

"People don't understand that when he attacks the race the way he does, he's exposed," his friend John Korioth once told me. "He could crack, and if he cracks, a competitor can blow right by. When he attacks he's showing all his cards."

Also on NBCSports.com Rosenthal: Steelers’ struggles could sink their playoff hopes Circling the Bases: Dodgers unlikely to land Halladay Inside the Irish: Clausen reportedly involved in fight Opinion: So far, Nowitzki is NBA’s MVP  |  Fan Ranker Twitter: Follow us @nbc_sports

MORE FROM TOUR DE FRANCE

Tour de France Section Front

Contador defied all, including Lance Armstrong lambastes Contador on Twitter Contador's reign on Tour expected to last In his return, Lance shows a more human side Contador says he ‘never had admiration’ for Lance Astarloza facing 2-year ban after positive B test Opinion: When it counted, Armstrong came through NYT: In the end, France is in love with Lance Spanish Vuelta gets more TV coverage in US   Slideshow from the 2009 Tour de France Tour de France Section Front   Add Tour de France headlines to your news reader: