Armstrong’s legions of fans refuse to accept the notion, even the possibility, he might have succumbed to the temptation. They don’t want to hear it, regardless of the source. David Walsh, the investigative journalist, or Floyd Landis, a former teammate? Makes no difference. Garbage in, garbage out.

Most of them are Americans.

Cycling’s legions of skeptics, who assume the entire peloton is dirty, are convinced Armstrong cheated, just like everybody else. Pro riders are all pro dopers, too.

Most of them are Europeans — and the vast majority are French.

I have many friends on both sides of this divide and they have asked me, repeatedly, where I stand on the subject. Well, this is going to sound lame as can be, but I don’t know.

For starters, I’m not an Armstrong confidant or insider. I’ve never hung out with him. As a journalist, I like him because he’s a good interview — thoughtful, engaging and unpredictable.

Also, as what the French call a cyclotouriste who has spent hours slogging up and over many of the Tour de France climbs, my admiration for his strength on a bike is boundless.

But that counts for nothing in this debate. The first time I wrote about cycling, in 1999, after Armstrong won his first Tour de France, I made the smart-aleck observation that the peloton surely had to be on dope because there’s no other way to survive what the Tour demands. The grind over three weeks is almost inconceivable in normal human terms, especially with the kind of heat we’ve seen this summer.

A different era

But, to be sure, not everybody is dirty. Not today anyway. The testing is too thorough, too invasive, too sophisticated. And, as frequently as Armstrong, 38, is targeted by the anti-doping gumshoes, it seems inconceivable he would take a chance on beating the system in the middle of the race.

But the Landis accusations date from another era. Was Armstrong blood-doping and using EPO, etc., when he won his seven consecutive yellow jerseys, two of them with Landis at his side every day? Landis insists Armstrong was — and demanding his teammates do the same.

True or false?

Armstrong is innocent: As a teenage tri-athlete, he tested off the charts when his endurance was measured. It was also noted his physiology made him disposed to become a great bike rider, right down to the fact his thigh bones were disproportionately long, ideal for turning the crank. Pre-cancer, he was a gifted enough cyclist to have become the youngest world champion in modern times, and also the youngest, at 21, to win a Tour stage. Pre-cancer, when he was never a yellow-jersey threat and finished just one of four Tours, he weighed 13 pounds more than when he returned to the sport, more motivated and determined. When he won his first Tour, the two men who should have been most able to exploit his personal doubts and insecurities, previous champions Jan Ullrich and Marco Pantani, weren’t in the race. Once Armstrong proved he was the Tour’s new patron, the best support riders wanted to work for his U.S. Postal Service team, which had the money to pay its major helpers more than many teams could pay their leaders.

Relentless competitor: Armstrong routinely outworked the competition. Ullrich, his top rival, hated offseason training and tried to ride himself into shape in the early stages of the Tour. Armstrong was 7-for-7 because he might have been the luckiest Tour rider ever. Not once did he suffer a crash that injured him more than superficially during those seven years, covering nearly 15,000 miles. He made it through five Tours in a row without a flat tire. Although possibly the most-tested athlete, Armstrong has never had a verifiable positive result. Landis, an admitted doper and liar, has many reasons to be jealous of Armstrong, and to be vindictive. Deeply in debt and his life in shambles after he finished serving his drug suspension, he sought a spot on Armstrong’s new RadioShack team, only to be turned down. None of Armstrong’s accusers have provided a single, verifiable, “smoking-gun” document that proves their assertions. It’s all “he said, he/she said” stuff.

Armstrong is guilty: Doping was endemic in cycling’s culture when he broke into the big time in the early 1990s. It defies credulity to think he could have sidestepped the pressures to go along.

Win at all costs: Armstrong has an aggressive type-AAA, winning-is-the-only thing personality, and he’s known to obsessively explore every angle to achieve his goals. A number of Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Service team helpers, most prominent among them Tyler Hamilton, Roberto Heras and Landis, failed drug tests after they assumed leadership roles on other teams that arguably didn’t have as sophisticated and well-funded operations. The detail in Landis’ allegations would be difficult to invent and, although the two men were never close off the bike, it begs the obvious that Landis would have been privy to everything that went on behind closed doors.

That’s the sum total of what I know I know. So, with the feds in the picture, the process has only begun.