In this Vanity Fair profile, Lance Armstrong elaborates on his plan to return to cycling with Team Astana to ride a few major races in 2009, including the Tour de France, where he'd be shooting for his eighth win.

Why did he decide to come back?

The impetus to come back, he says, sprang upon him quite unexpectedly over the summer, in Colorado. Armstrong had an epiphany on August 9 after placing second at the Leadville Trail 100 Mountain-Bike Race—a 100-mile “Race Across the Sky,