Icarus took shape as a vehicle for Bryan to track his own progress as a competitive amateur cyclist. He wanted to see if he could beat the doping test in the famous Haute Route, a race that is known as the amateur Tour de France. He was introduced to Grigory Ridchenkov, the head of Russia’s anti-doping system, and Ridchenkov helped him begin a program of hormone injections and steroid use. When he finally gets to the race, Vogel finds that his performance is not really enhanced, and his experiment is essentially anticlimactic.