I Am Slower Than Lance Armstrong
August 30, 2010 11:48 AM
I can't compete with Lance Armstrong. That should have been obvious, but just to underscore it, I got lost in Armstrong's dust only a few hundred feet into Sunday's Ride The Drive in downtown Madison.
Lance and I and Trek President John Burke were supposed to ride a six-mile lap around the RTD course. John did. But I found myself dozens of bikers behind them only minutes after the start. Even a leisurely Sunday ride for the seven-time Tour de France winner is a little bit faster than I'm used to on my commute to work.
But who cares? It was another great day in Madison, with maybe 50,000 people turning out to enjoy a car-free, carefree afternoon. As in the two previous RTD events, families dominated, but so did a fair amount of Madison-uniqueness.
And Lance was very generous with his time. He even insisted on turning around to get his picture taken with me and the Capitol in the background (thanks to Trek for the photo). And he signed dozens of autographs. He literally could have done nothing but that all day.
We'll do RTD again next year, but the larger point is that we want to make Madison the best biking community anywhere in America. By 2020 our goal is to have 20% of all commutes done by bike. We won't do it at Lance Armstrong's pace, but he sure helped the cause on Sunday.
