A legend in his spare time

By now everyone knows that Lance Armstrong raced the Miles of Discomfort Marathon Mountain Bike Race in Comfort last Saturday. Ranch manager Jimmy Dreiss explained that Lance was just out for fun and didn't want a lot of media attention. So there was no press release, and it was kept under wraps. Only the Comfort paper was invited. Apparently Lance is cross training and just starting to prepare for the Leadville 100, a 50 mile (each way) out and back mountain bike race in Leadville, Colorado, which starts and finishes at 10, 200ft with over 14,000ft of elevation gain. If true, Lance has a long way to go because his performance was less than stellar. He DNF’d near the feed zone on the last loop due to cramping. But don’t jump to any conclusions about his fitness level or dedication.

“His not top shape is better than most,” said Adam Salladin, owner of Hill Country Bicycle Works, title sponsor of the 2008 Texas Cross Country State Mountain Bike Series.

Lance raced the 2007 NYC Marathon in November, completing it in 2:46:43 and 698th place overall. This qualified the seven time Tour de France champion for the 2008 Boston Marathon on April 21, which he has already registered for.


Salladin did a pre-ride of the course with Lance on the Monday and caught up with him just before his DNF. He offered some incite into Lance’s performance. “He had a bike with ultra light carbon fiber water bottle cages, which ejected his bottles on the first rocky downhill. Lance did the whole race without water.”

Nathan Winkelmann (Woodlands Cycling Club) won the Miles of Discomfort race with a time of 4:06:32, followed by Tristan Uhl (Team Hotel San Jose) and Francisco Serrano (Promosports).

Nathan Winkelmann was asked what it was like to race with the seven time Tour de France champ. “Pretty Surreal,” said Wink “You see him on TV, OLN…you read about him…7 times…, then he’s standing right next to you at a local TMBRA race. That’s pretty rad.” I asked Nathan why he thought Lance DNF’d. “It was pretty tough out there.” He went on to elaborate how he didn’t think Lance was used to riding a little 26’’ mountain bike.

There may be some truth to that. People typically underestimate how different mountain biking is from road racing. Then again, this is Lance Armstrong we’re talking about. He’s no newbie on a bike, including the type with knobby tires. He won the Dirty Duathlon after his fourth tour in 2002, and he wasn’t doing too badly at Comfort until close to the end.

Regardless of the DNF, Adam Salladin was impressed with how personable Lance was and thrilled that he was out there. I think that goes for everyone. I was glad to shake his hand. Rumors are already starting to fly that he has a scheduling conflict with the Leadville 100. At this point it’s a big wait and see. Let’s hope that he shows up at more local TMBRA races in the mean time.