Christian Vande Velde is an American cyclist who finished fourth in last year’s Tour de France. Riding this year for the Garmin-Slipstream team, Vande Velde was in 17th place, 57 seconds off the overall lead after Sunday’s second stage. He will file periodic updates of his experiences at the Tour.

Every rider has a story about how they got to the Tour de France, whether it’s boyhood dreams, the inspiration of their fathers, or watching their heroes achieve the unbelievable.

My story is this: I’m a son of a bike rider, and I grew up watching the Tour de France every July. My heroes were the likes of Viatcheslav instead of Walter Payton. I turned pro at 21 and spent 10 years on some of the best teams with the best managers and leaders of my generation. Last year, I joined a young start-up that I really believed in and I was asked, for the first time in my career, to try my hand at being a leader. I ended up fourth in the Tour de France. I think I surprised a few people and at times, I even surprised myself.

I spent this past winter training in Chicago with the Tour in mind. Despite the bitter cold, my labor paid off at Paris-Nice and Pays-Basque. I was ready for the Giro d’Italia, but that is where everything came to a screeching halt.

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A crash during Stage 3, on May 11, left me with seven broken bones (five vertebrae, a rib and a hairline fracture to my pelvis). Even more so, it left me with doubt and fear for my future. I will never forget lying in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, staring at the ceiling — which was painted to look like the sky — and trying to assess my injuries. I was struggling to figure out what my future would hold and what kind of job I could get if I couldn’t ride a bike anymore. It was terrifying.

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Fast forward from the back of the ambulance to getting cabin fever while recovering at home in Girona, Spain. I spent a lot of time driving my family nuts while questioning myself, trying to answer the news media’s questions that I didn’t know the answers to, and watching my peers race on the roads of Italy. The same roads I should have been on with them.