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Lance Armstrong saddles up with ex-US Postal colleagues including George Hincapie and Christian Vande Velde for MTB raceLance Armstrong Photo by Maryse Alberti, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Lance Armstrong saddles up with ex-US Postal colleagues including George Hincapie and Christian Vande Velde for MTB race

Arizona race 24 Hours in the old Pueblo is not sanctioned under UCI rules so banned Texan can ride
by Simon_MacMichael
Thu, Jan 19, 2017 17:20
12

Lance Armstrong will be joined by former US Postal Service team mates George Hincapie, Christian Vande Velde and Dylan Casey for a mountain bike race in Arizona next month.

The 45-year-old, banned from competitive cycling for life in 2012, is able to compete in the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo endurance race, held from 17-19 February, because it is not sanctioned under UCI Rules.

While Casey, who was with US Postal from 1999-2002, never rode in the Tour de France, Hincapie and Vande Velde were a key part of the team that helped Armstrong to the seven successive yellow jerseys from 1999-2005 that he was later stripped of.

Both men testified against Armstrong to the United States Anti-Doping Agency as it investigated the extent of doping at US Postal. They were each handed six-month bans in October 2012 at the same time as the Texan’s life ban was confirmed.

Hincapie, then with BMC Racing, never raced professionally again, while Vande Velde returned after his ban to the Garmin-Sharp team and retired after the 2013 UCI Road World Championships.

Some 1,800 cyclists are registered for the event, either individually or as part of a team, and the former US Postal colleagues will be racing it as a quartet.

Event organiser Todd Sadow told Tuscon.com that the foursome were looking forward to it.

He said: "They're cyclists, as you know, and our event tends to attract that core of mountain biking enthusiasts.

"We're really excited to have them out there. We pride ourselves on having a good time, and I'm sure they'll find a way to have a good time with everybody out there."

Armstrong, quoted on VeloNews, said: “We are certainly not going to be contending for any victories, but we’re looking forward to it, looking forward to having a good time, meeting the other racers.”
 

Lance Armstrong
George Hincapie
Christian Vande Velde
mountain biking
Simon MacMichael

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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12 comments

Avatar
handlebarcam | 7 years ago
0 likes

I'm not against Lance riding his bike outside of official competitions. Nor of there being the occasional story about him posted here. But, sorry, "Lance hater" is an archaic term.  Up until his confession, it was possible to divide the world in Lance haters and Lance fans. Now there are only people with long memories and people with short ones.

Avatar
Yorkshire wallet | 7 years ago
2 likes

I now he's a scumbag of sorts but he does have some serious alpha-male traits I can't help but admire. You've got to admire the win at all costs element to some degree. Gets cancer, which he won't have helped by taking stuff like HGH and roids, beats cancer, gets on more drugs to try and win again. Amazing mindset really.

Maybe if he'd topped himself like Pantani then we'd put him on a pedestal and pretend he never doped.

Avatar
Team EPO | 7 years ago
1 like

Great athlete, very dubious person.  Just watch / read some of the stories, eg the Movie /docu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPaWOg37yqw&t=0s

Avatar
simonb | 7 years ago
2 likes

FFS the guy just wants to ride his bike with his pals.. whats wrong with that?  All you Lance haters really get on my t**ts-  The world has moved on and you should do as well

Avatar
barbarus | 7 years ago
5 likes

Lance: hey George
Hincapie: hi Lance
Lance: so, are we doing this clean this time?
Hincapie: (drums fingers) don't know where to score these days...
Lance: anyone seen Van Velde?
Hincapie: last I knew he was hanging round the team sky mail room trying to snaffle jiffy bags.

Avatar
huntswheelers | 7 years ago
2 likes

Test rode a USP 5200 Trek after it'd had been in for some restoration work today....  nice bike... all U.S spec ...never felt it would have needed any improvement to do well....  suppose that is why rider "enhancements" were used.... 3

Just wish Lance would keep away now.... we are all fed up of him

Avatar
davel replied to huntswheelers | 7 years ago
1 like
huntswheelers wrote:

Just wish Lance would keep away now.... we are all fed up of him

I get the sentiment, but if he flushes his toilet someone will blog about it. He's been outed as a nasty, cheating prick and I hope those directly affected by him are queueing up to sue him. But at some point we have to accept that it's because the public still wants to hear what he's doing that the public still hears what he's doing.

This is very obviously an article about Lance - it's pretty much exactly what you expect when you click on the link, and every commenter feigning apathy will have clicked on the article and bothered to write words below the line. Nobody dropped their phone out of boredom, leading it to click the link and randomly log the characters itself.

In this instance he's riding in a pretty off-the-grid MTB race in Arizona, not pulling a moonie in anyone's front garden. I see this as genuinely just wanting to ride a bike, not a second attempt at taking over the world. He can crack on as far as I'm concerned, and I'm glad that the now-sanctimonious UCI, that did nothing while Lance was just king of the dopers, can do jack-all about it.

Avatar
fullupandslowingdown | 7 years ago
7 likes

Lance may well have let down thousands of cycling fans who believed in him and was in awe of his historic Le Tour victories, but maybe it's time to let the past go. He's suffered world wide condemnation and humilation, but his doping wasn't the worst crime in the world.

Avatar
Leviathan | 7 years ago
1 like

"Dad to 5. Survivor. Worse half to Anna Hansen. Runner. 7 x TdF Champ."

No self depricating "...apparently" just a period.

Pffft, well I've got more KOM's than him. Quantity is more important than quality ...apparently.

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Swiss | 7 years ago
0 likes

BFD

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Kadinkski | 7 years ago
3 likes

Awesome!

I've noticed that on strava he's really been ramping up the effort over the last few months. 

Despite what he says about victory, you just know he's going to be dissapointed with anything but.

Avatar
jasecd | 7 years ago
5 likes

Don't care.

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