Lance Armstrong won the Leadville 100 mountain bike race Saturday with some added drama — a flat tire and crowds that blocked the finish line.
In spite of those setbacks, he set a new record over the grueling course.
The 7-time Tour de France winner finished the race in 6:28:50, that's 16:55 faster than the course record set last year when Leadville legend David Wiens beat Armstrong by about two minutes.
While Armstrong had an 18-minute lead on the defending champion near the end of the race, he lost time after his tire blew about 5 or 6 miles out. Then in Leadville, police had to push back the crowds that were blocking Armstrong from the finish.
The course record of 6:45:45 was set by Wiens in 2008. The entire 100-mile bike race takes place above the 9,000-foot elevation mark. It starts in Leadville at about 10,200 feet and tops out at Columbine Mine at 12,600 feet.
Wiens reportedly finished about 29 minutes behind Armstrong.
Full year of cycling
When Armstrong raced last year, he had not publicly announced his comeback to professional cycling after retiring following the 2005 Tour de France. This year, the 37-year-old opened the year with the Tour Down Under in Australia and has been racing ever since, except for an interruption with a broken collarbone this spring.
Some hinted that Armstrong competed at the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France merely to train for this year's Leadville. That's certainly not the case, but it did make a difference.
Armstrong rode in the lead group from the beginning, according to reports, and had gained an 11-minute lead by the 57-mile mark. He had an 18-minute lead over 2nd place Wiens at the Powerline climb, about 20 miles from the finish.
Wasted
A few hours at after the end of the race, Armstrong twittered a couple of comments. If you're not among the 1.7 million on his Twitter feed:
“Finally back home after the Leadville 100. I'm. Dead. Wasted. Exhausted. What a great event and an honor to win. Thanks 2 all who came out.
“And to Dave Wiens, you are an absolute legend and hero to many. I was running (very) scared today. Your friend, Lance.”
Top riders
In addition to Wiens and Armstrong, the Leadville 100 drew a wide field of top-notch mountain bikers.
Top riders included former pro Travis Brown, Tinker Juarez, Matt Shriver, Manuel Prado and Len Zanni.
Brown rides for Trek, Juarez for MonaVie-Cannondale and Shriver is the cycling coach for Fort Lewis College. Prado is a rider on Sho-Air-Specialized who finished in third at last year's Leadville, behind Wiens and Armstrong. Zanni finished third in last week's Blast the Mass bike race at Snowmass that Armstrong won.
VeloNews reports that Brown and Shriver were late entrants requested by Trek. Apparently the bicycle maker was looking to drive the early pace to help Armstrong set a course record. Although didn't ride on a Trek team, Armstrong pedalled a Trek bike.
Armstrong's Trek
Armstrong rode a Trek 2010 Top Fuel full suspension mountain bike in the race. It was outfitted with SRAM XX 42-28 front chainring and XX 11-36 cogset. More details at the VeloNews Tech Gallery.
Twitter seemed to be the best place to track the Leadville 100 this year. People along the route and in the crowd at the finish filed Tweets to #leadville and #lt100. The live video feed at the Leadville 100 website reportedly crashed from overuse at critical points in the race.
Photo by SingleTrack at Yfrog. More at SingleTrack Competitor website.
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