Professional Cycling For the Fans - your thoughts on lance

I'm not against Lance as a person, I am against LANCE-A-MANIA though that local Trek dealers are soaked in. Like "okay, yes, he won alot, he is very good, he only has one testicle, now get off it and help me find a bike"

Speaking of bicycle mainia, you can walk into some bars in Europe and instead of seeing posters of the Coors twins, they have posters of.......bicycle racers. Over there bicycle racing is a real sport, not something relagated to OLN. Can you imagine the kind of mania Lance would stir up if here were French, Belgian or Italian? I've spoken with Italians and some are still devastated by the death of Pantani.

I think he might loose it to Ivan Basso, because he was really on his tail last year.

No one anywhere in the history of the world has said this yet so I will.

Lance is going for the Pro Tour world ranking. He will win his 7th on the way to doing that. Check his standing after Paris-Nice and tell me I'm wrong.

YOU ARE SOOOOOOO WRONG!!! LANCE ARMSTRONG 0 POINTS!!! :p

Go Lance! You nayersayers are just jealous. He is a great rider who has overcome enormous hardship and has brought huge respect to American bicycling like no one before him.

Did I say Go Lance!!

What concerns me is will OLN keep on televising bike races if there is no big American star like Armstrong for them to highlight?

Americans like a winner, and I'd bet that, unfortunately, a lot of the people who watched last year's TdF did so in large part to see an American -- a Texan, even -- kick the French in the butt, and not because they really like bike racing.

OLN has said that the TdF is the only race they'll cover extensively this year because it's the only race Americans will watch.

My fear is that when Lance goes, so will much of the race coverage. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems that camoflaged troglydytes shooting things on OLN draws a bigger audience than racing.

I have nothing against Lance, but some of his fans and some of his detractors are a different matter. I get equally pissed off when some ignorant sportswriter calls him the greatest cyclist ever and when one says he is not an athlete. Anyone who even finishes the Tour is a superior athlete.

Lance has won with an inferior team. No way US Postal in 1999 was a match for Telekom. That he now has a superior team is the fruits of his early success without that kind of support.

But I get tired of talk of Lance dominating the Tour and of US Postal being the best team ever. Some of those saying this say it as if no other team or individual even comes close. But has US Postal ever matched the results of Telekom with first and second in the GC and also the Green? Or La Vie Claire several times having the first 2 places and at least once top 2 and KOM? Or Italy (national teams at that time) in 1951 where they took the first 2 places in Both the GC and KOM (No sprinters award back then).

And while Lance has very solid wins at least to me most of them are not dominating. No wins with multiple jerseys, no 8 stage wins in a Tour. Compare that to Merckx taking everything in 1969. Yellow, Green, Polka Dot, Most Aggressive, Team Championship and cappped off by winning the final stage. And his winning margin was greater than the previous 7 Tours combined, greater than any previous year back to Coppi in 1952 and greater than any since. That is domination.

Then there is the Double. Lance has never done it. I've seen people on other boards say that doing the double is just not possible in this day and age, like they are experts on trends in cycling. They seem to forget that the last time it was done was 1998, the year before Lance's run started.

But don't misunderstand, 6 Tour wins is a great accomplishment and I think a good move on Lance's part. Winning the Tour is probably the only to get US sponsorship and individual recognition in the US. It is a great thing. It just bothers me when it gets called the greatest and anything anyone else has done gets ignored.

YOU ARE SOOOOOOO WRONG!!! LANCE ARMSTRONG 0 POINTS!!! :p

This is me eating Crow

If he wins let him win...why gripe that he wins all the time it sound like your a just angry cause your guy sucks. The winner is the person who trains the hardest and wants it most so its up for grabs for whomever has the best luck.

Enjoy all of Lance's wins. Cause you can bet it will be years before we see another american win the Tour Day France.

Hell I just wanna see him RIDE the Tour of Flanders. . .
I didn't see that on his schedule.

Marty Tour de Flanders? As in Ned? :rolleyes: http://f.screensavers.com/migration/wp/flanders_215.gif

I really want to see a RACE. Not a total dominance by, obviously, one of the best athletes of all time.
I hope that he'll face real contenders, physically and mentally. Having said that, I really wish riders like Beloki, Basso, Vinokourov and perhaps Ulrich (doubt his prowess by now as a real contender against Lance), Mayo etc are in their best shapes of their lives, so we can see a real RACE.

Corsaire

I couldn't have put it any better myself Corsaire...Thanks,
See gang, us New Jersey guys can be sensible. :D

Brian

What concerns me is will OLN keep on televising bike races if there is no big American star like Armstrong for them to highlight?

Americans like a winner, and I'd bet that, unfortunately, a lot of the people who watched last year's TdF did so in large part to see an American -- a Texan, even -- kick the French in the butt, and not because they really like bike racing.

OLN has said that the TdF is the only race they'll cover extensively this year because it's the only race Americans will watch.

My fear is that when Lance goes, so will much of the race coverage. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems that camoflaged troglydytes shooting things on OLN draws a bigger audience than racing.


:beer: Sad, but alas, very true methinks.

Lance comes from the same kind of a background as most European racers - lower class, working class, whatever you want to call it, read about how the guy grew up. The European racers generally have a choice between ride, and ride FAST, or be a truck driver, farmer, floor-mopper, etc. We've got much the same kind of class system in the US, no matter how much we try to deny it. So this kid Lance finds out he can win $100, or more, doing a triathlon? Wow! Great!! I know growing up myself, if I knew I could do that, I'd have jumped all over it too - a week's pay for one day's work! Lance had his mother stick by him, which is another point in common. Lance also grew up knowing his life was considered worth less than the life of an affluent person, heck the guy grew up in TEXAS after all, to the drivers he was just a target! That kind of background makes for very determined people.

Me, I'm all for Lance, and as for that other guy, Greg who?