Lance Armstrong and his tips to avoid crashes: "Use gravel bike and avoid long straights, people get more distracted"
Cycling
Lance Armstrong spoke on his podcast The Move about road safety and gave some tips for cycling to try to avoid accidents.
"I've been hit by a couple of cars, but not by distracted drivers. When you're on a bike, you get scared if someone gets too close to you. But yes, I think it's becoming more and more common. There are ways to avoid it, aren't there, to protect yourself? And I think this is useful for all those who are looking for advice on the subject," he said.
Gravel bike as a solution in case of nerves: "Look, I'll explain. First of all, I ride mostly on my gravel bike, so I can ride on almost any surface. If I'm on a road and I'm feeling unsafe, and I'm on a gravel bike, which as I said can ride on pretty much any terrain, if there's a sidewalk available, I pedal on the sidewalk. Or if I see a small trail, I just follow that dirt road."
Lance's other 'trick' has more to do with the route that a cyclotourist can choose when doing his ride: "I think one thing I always try to avoid is straight roads. Whenever a road is long and straight, people are more distracted. If drivers are on a curvy road or one that requires more technical attention, they tend to be less distracted because they have to concentrate on driving: turning, getting a good handle on what they're doing. Those long, straight roads I avoid at all costs."
He is very clear that things on the road have changed a lot since he started riding professionally in the 1980s:
"For example, when I ride my bike here in Austin.... When I moved here in 1989, if you saw what it was like here compared to today.... Any area west of here was already starting to get cold back then, but now it's not like that anymore."
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- Yes, I agree but you’re taking risks writing such long posts here ;-) In that sense, the Tourless Primoz discussion is also pretty pointless as he virtually won a Tour (nobody would have counted on Tadej doing what he did at the last moment at that time and I guess it was bad karma for Primoz for so ofren cutting things so fine). I think you over interpreted my original thesis, it was not for trying to explain his current state, it was to suggest there was already mental material pre-crashes that has helped worsen his state, when it rains it pours. I really do remember having the feeling in that past he was more focused on not letting MVDP get better than him than doing his own thing. The seed of doubt was already planted and it doesn’t take much for doubt to grow in all sorts of directions.Mistermaumau01-04-2025
- i wouldn't count Pogi out. Low probability of a win, but not impossiblemobk01-04-2025
- Right now it doesn't seem that his legs are there or that his head is in the racevappaxbipmv01-04-2025
- would have been nice to hear exactly WHY he thinks pog has zero chance in some greater detail. i mean, tend to agree that his chances aren’t GREAT, but some explanation from the expert with an opinion would be nice. MINE is that, in spite of the recon he did where tadej concluded that the course “wasn’t that hard” i think that doing the full route at full gas is really going to beat up pogacar’s 145lb body, to a degree that he maybe isn’t expecting. but hey, we’ll see in a couple weeks. like everyone else, i do think it’s supercool that he’s going.OCexile01-04-2025
- Go back to that era and look at the lousy mechanicals he's had at Paris-Roubaix. Take those away, maybe he has another Monument, Van der Poel has one less, and suddenly all the rules change. Those mechanicals preceded his awful crashes - and you're right, that Tour was amazing. Ventoux, TT, and Champs-Elysees?! Something that Pogacar and Van der Poel can't do, just Wout. It still amazes me.RidesHills01-04-2025
- Oh, the impossibility of this kind of comparison. A pre-WW2 Binda had amazing statistics, and that was one era. During what I think of as the romantic era, Poulidor had an incredible run at the Tour without winning, and Bobet won some grand tours and some Monuments. In this modern era (for me: after Hinault), we've had multiple Monument winners win a grand tour (such as Valverde and Kelly, with Kelly the better rider in general), and then we've got someone like Roglic, the true GC rider. Sure there was a Monument that was kind of a fluke (both Pogacar and Hirschi might have won, and twitchy Alaphilippe deserved relegation), but what matters are the 5 grand tours and all these wins across the 1 week GC races except for the Tour de Suisse (you'd think he'd race it to get the set of them all). In this era, since 2000 or so, maybe he meets the description as best non-Tour winner. How many GC riders have these wins and not the Tour? To compare to other eras really is not possible. He's his own unique rider, and it's been amazing watching him for the past many years. That's about all we can say.RidesHills01-04-2025
- Ease up on a brother!bobo01-04-2025
- Primoz finds ways to win. Too bad he'll never take Tour de France.awp01-04-2025
- I don't think I would ever count Wout van Aert out of a race if his head is in it. He is a serious talent.awp01-04-2025
- He's a great rider for sure, not sure if he the best to never win the Tour though.awp01-04-2025