A Glance At Lance's New Gym

He might not work out much there himself, but Lance Armstrong's name is across the top of the latest 24 Hour Fitness gym to open in Austin. Abby and I are 24-hour members, so I drove a little north of the house to see what a 6-time Tour de France winner can do to motivate regular mokes like me.

It did feel like more fun, looking up at the enormous mural of Lance blasting out of the blocks on the time trials that started under the Eiffel Tower while I cranked up on some late-model cycling machine. There's a serious row of spinning cycles in another room, plus artwork of cyclists jammed tight in a peleton right above the crunch machines. All a better spark than the plain blue walls of the other 24 Hour club in our neighborhood.

Off in the locker room, a Discovery Channel Pro Team jersey and a UT Longhorn t-shirt hang in a glass-doored locker, lit for drama. 24-Hour has Shaq gyms, too. We might as well try to emulate the drive of these heroes, even if we can't expect to achieve their results with garden-variety genes.