He doesn't exist for 11 months of every year. Gone. Is Lance Armstrong in a drawer somewhere, filed and folded like a bank statement? We take America's most dominant athlete for granted. And then, there he is again in the leader's yellow jersey, just in time to provide some sweet background noise every July.

Of course, it isn't so simple. Armstrong trains over the winter back in Austin, Texas, or in the French Alps. He competes with the U.S. Postal Service team in road races and time trials for up to nine months.

But we don't know about that, and frankly we don't care. When it comes to cycling, our tiny satellite dish picks up only the Tour de France, which is the sport's Super Bowl and Kentucky Derby rolled into one. And here is Armstrong again, pedaling ahead through the sunflower fields.

There are nearly 200 riders at the start each year, staring at 20 stages and more than 2,000 gorgeous, rugged miles over mountain and through valley. For two or three years, there was little doubt who would win. Now, as he goes for the record sixth, Armstrong seems mortal, beatable.

"Anything can happen," he keeps saying. After the close finish last year with Jan Ullrich, we now believe him.

If he crosses the finish line at the Champs-Elysees in Paris with the yellow jersey for the sixth straight year, he will have done what nobody else has done. He will have dominated his individual sport like no other athletes.

Tiger Woods? Sorry. He has struggled now for two long years. Armstrong endures those high winds and rain on a regular basis, yet never pedals into the rough.

Shaquille O'Neal? Closer. But O'Neal doesn't have six titles, and enjoyed (and resented) a partner of near-equal greatness in Kobe Bryant. Armstrong has a group of eight selfless teammates with USPS. They are competent, complementary. But Armstrong is the man ultimately responsible for himself, and the attacks up the mountain.

The Williams sisters of tennis have slumped at times, have lost interest. They've won 10 majors between them, but they seem to take turns.

He will attack the mountains, another summer of pain. Then we'll ignore him again, until next July. That's when America's greatest athlete beats up the world again, and we cheer.

Armstrong's results can be deceiving, almost human. He doesn't win every race he enters. He didn't win any gold medals at the Sydney Olympics, at any Olympics, despite the unrealistic hopes of those who don't understand that such shorter races are not the same event.

He rarely captures individual stages in the Tour de France. He picks his spots, shares the wealth with his competitors. But he is always in control at the Tour -- whether he is cycling with the main pack, or he is in a smaller, breakout group. He keeps track of the riders who are true threats, reeling them in or leaving them behind.

People take from his remarkable triumphs whatever pre-conceived notions they tote to the finish line. He is a mirror for their own cynicism, or wonder. European journalists and French investigators dutifully, understandably chase drug rumors as long and hard as Armstrong has sought the yellow jersey. He is still suspect, and the subject of a new book that alleges cheating on his part.

"It's unfortunate that some people, including a few in the French judicial system, are seemingly unable to acknowledge that intense and calculated training, not drugs, has been the key to my success on a bicycle," Armstrong says. "What more can I do?"

Some French fans still taunt Armstrong as he pedals past. Others have come to admire this remarkable man, who now speaks to them in their native language after conquering his own shyness.

Armstrong has overcome worse, of course. He once came back from the brink of death. After the testicular cancer was diagnosed in Armstrong nearly six years ago, and after he endured brain surgery to remove lesions, Armstrong underwent intensive chemotherapy at the Indiana University Medical Center and then waited out the results.

The recovery has been remarkable, although Armstrong will tell you that no cancer survivor is truly out of the woods.

He will attack the mountains, another summer of pain. Then we'll ignore him again, until next July. That's when America's greatest athlete beats up the world again, and we cheer.

Not a lot, but a little.