Of the $5 million that Lance Armstrong agreed to pay the federal government in April to settle a protracted legal battle, $1.1 million went to Armstrong’s former teammate Floyd Landis for his service as a whistleblower. Landis, who famously turned on Armstrong in 2010, told the Wall Street Journal today that he will…
Wayward helicopters are probably very low on the list of things professional cyclists have to worry about, right down there with crashing in the finishing chute. However, a scatterbrained helicopter pilot managed to combine both at the Vuelta a España yesterday.
Among cycling’s three longest and most important stage races of the season, the Vuelta a España has always been the odd Grand Tour out. The Tour de France is the sports’ grandiose showcase bid for mainstream attention, while the Giro d’Italia’s extravagant pageantry and deep history have positioned it as a worthy…
Lauren Geoghegan and Jay Austin wrote that they were trying to see the world by bike. The couple quit their jobs last summer to begin a transcontinental bicycling odyssey of sorts. Their goal was not to break any records, nor even attempt to encircle the entire globe. “We have neither a firm route nor a timetable, a…
Less than 100 miles into the 2018 Tour de France, disaster struck American rider Lawson Craddock. TV cameras didn’t capture precisely what happened, but with around 80 kilometers left in Stage 1, Craddock emerged behind the peloton bloodied and bruised after hitting a water bottle and falling during the feed zone. He…
Now that Lance Armstrong is out from under the federal fraud case against him, he’s started to more fully step into the public eye, a process which was always going to be fraught with contradictions for someone as famous and reviled as Armstrong. He seems done with being a world-class asshole, though the work of…
Chris Froome will not win the Tour de France.
French farmers staged a protest during Stage 16 of the Tour de France this morning, reportedly over reduced funding from the European Union. About 29 kilometers into the stage at Carcassonne, in the south of France, they tossed hay bales onto the road and brought the race to a halt for 15 minutes. Police subdued…
Philippe Gilbert was leading the Tour de France breakaway down the descent of the Portet d’Aspet when he played a corner wrong, locked his wheel up, and vaulted headfirst over a little rock ledge. It’s the worst sort of crash, though Gilbert did scrub some speed before eating shit. That may have saved him—he was able…
This weekend’s Tour de France stages were relatively inert, as two Astana riders won from breakaways and the main general classification contenders opted to save their bullets for this week’s ramble through the Pyrenees. Riders have three punishing days in the mountains to look forward to this week, including a 65-km…
Today the Tour de France returned to Alpe d’Huez for the 30th time in race history. Over one million fans packed the slopes of France’s most famous climb to cheer on crowd favorites like Romain Bardet, Tom Dumoulin, and Steven Kruijswijk, but mostly to sing, drink, and wave flags at riders they hate, most notably…
As is custom and as the entire cycling world probably expected, the first meaningful mountain stage of the Tour de France wrapped up this morning with a Team Sky rider in the yellow jersey. However, it was not four-time champion Chris Froome that grabbed a commanding race lead, but rather his right-hand man, Geraint…
The Tour de France peloton was not impressed with Stage 7, which wrapped up this morning with a ho-hum bunch sprint after 231 kilometers of nothing. Peter Sagan said, “It was boring today. We went pretty easy all day and then raced the last 10 kilometers.” Alejandro Valverde added, “It’s too much. A 230-kilometer…
Every one of Tour de France’s race’s three mass-start stages has been shaken up by a late crash. Fernando Gaviria won Stage One from a reduced group, then found himself unable to challenge Peter Sagan for the win the next day after a rider in front of him played a corner wrong and took him out. Stage Two’s crash…
The time has come once again for a few hundred skinny fellows to hop on their bikes and ride unconscionable distances, every day, for three weeks. They’ll yell at each other in various European languages, celebrate famous victories, weep over crushing defeats, crash out in horrifying ways, and generally wring out…
Chris Froome will take the start line when the Tour de France kicks off at Noirmoutier-en-l’Île on Saturday, thus ending the thorniest bureaucratic scuffle cycling has seen in years. The three-time defending champion’s participation in the race has been uncertain for the entire season, but after a dramatic weekend…
Wisconsin-based bicycle giant Trek has settled a lawsuit today with the estate of Chris Farley, who sued the bike company last year over a line of performance fat bikes that shared a name with the iconic comedian. A fat bike is essentially a mountain bike with even bigger tires, which make it easy to get gnarly on any…
This is a season of purgatory for four-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome. In a normal year, the British rider would be gearing up to defend his three straight yellow jerseys and tailoring his entire season around the Tour, as he’s done every year since he became a contender. However, Froome failed a drug test…
On Saturday, two men were mountain biking about 30 miles east of Seattle in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains when they encountered a cougar. Authorities say Isaac Sederbaum and S.J. Brooks did everything right: they dismounted their bikes, stood their ground, and yelled at the animal. After it charged them, one…
It was more than five years ago when Lance Armstrong went on Oprah, looked her in the eye, and admitted to the world that his iconic comeback story was fueled by the most comprehensive doping regimen in cycling history. The seven-time Tour de France winner and cancer survivor had spent his career brashly denying that…
