Ullrich was like a superman—or, to be more accurate, a superboy. He'd come up training in East Germany, where the coaches lived by the maxim Throw a dozen eggs against the wall, and keep the ones that don't break. Ullrich was the unbreakable egg, a Cold War kid who, like Lance [Armstrong], had grown up without a father and, with the help of the East German state, had turned his energy into the single most impressive physique in cycling history. Ullrich's body was unlike any other rider's I'd ever seen. I'd sometimes try to ride next to him just so I could watch: you could actually see the muscle fibers moving. He was the only rider I've ever seen whose veins were visible under the Lycra. His mind wasn't bad, either: Ullrich had a remarkable ability to push himself, to go deep. In the 1997 Tour [de France], when he was only twenty-three, I'd watched Ullrich win the hardest stage I've ever ridden, 242 kilometers [150.3 miles] over eight hours through the Pyrenees; he even destroyed the mighty [Bjarne] Riis. Despite that imposing physique, Ullrich was a gentle soul, a nice guy who had a friendly word for everyone. His weakness was discipline—he struggled with his weight—but he had the ability to rise to the occasion and deliver a monster ride when you least expected it.
(Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle, The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France [New York: Bantam Books Trade Paperbacks, 2013], 125-6 [italics in original])
