Lance gave it a go in the second stage of the Tour Down Under today taking part in two late breakaways during the 92 mile race.

Quick-Step’s Allan Davis took the sprint win

“It was fun to be out in front of a race again,” he said. “As they say over here it was good to give it a twist, to give it a crack. 

“It’s going to take a while to adapt to race speed, I’ve said that since I got here and today proved that,” he added. “Those long drags uphill were never my strong suit but having been out of competition and you get in the race and it’s fast and guys are strong it’s a suffer-fest. You suffer when you get to those moments.”

In this AP Photo he rides with friend and former teammate George Hincapie during the stage.

Armstrong said he is prepared to do just that if that’s what it takes to return to his peak.

“I like to suffer, although it sounds weird,” he said. “I know why I’m doing this, I want to be doing it and I’m having a good time. If I wasn’t having fun I would pack it in.”

Having “a helluva good time”, Amrstrong says. “The comeback, so to speak, is at least a year, it’s not three or four, I don’t think, but it could be two years. I’ve got to get through the first part of this season and then decide.

“There are other things, too, that need to fall into place but primarily my condition and how this all feels and how the campaign (to raise cancer awareness) unfolds.”

Ivan Basso didn’t beat Lance offen on the road but is first of the two to post blood values online. Basso served his sentence for his assocation to Spanish Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes in the dopping scnadal Operaction Puerto. To monitor Basso’s tests click here for his Mapei Sports Service site.

Lance Armstrong says he will keep his promise to disclose the results of doping tests he faces in his cycling comeback, but didn’t say when or how they will be released.

But on Wednesday he said he was uncertain how much would be published, using the example of blood cell counts.

“I mean, what do you publish?” Armstrong said. ”(Do) you start publishing blood values? After the race, I saw online that Ivan Basso is publishing his blood values and if you notice you’ll see he’s 45, 44, 43, 41.

“For example, and I’m just hypothetically saying, you go to (a high) altitude for a month and all of a sudden it goes to 46. Not everyone in this room is going to say ‘it went from 41 to 46, you must have cheated’ but someone is going to say, a few of you guys and gals are going to say, ‘that’s not normal’.”

Armstrong indicated he would be reluctant to publish readings of blood tests which might be affected by sickness, dehydration or altitude — which could be misinterpreted.

“So you think, well, do you publish that?” he said. “Then you open yourself up to all this other criticism. But I don’t think it would be accurate to say we’re not going to publish.”

“I would rely a lot on what Don Catlin wants to publish but we’ll definitely publish data and information.”

Armstrong, 37, has been tested once by Australian doping authorities and “on average” once every three days by agents of his self-imposed program since his arrival in Australia for the Tour Down Under, his first professional stage race in three years.

Armstrong promised before the Tour Down Under that results of the testing carried out on his behalf by Don Catlin, an American anti-doping scientist, would be published on a Web site “accessible to anyone and everyone.”