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Dave Wiens and Lance Armstrong Leadville Videos

August 16th, 2008

August 9th, 2008, Lance Armstrong competed in the Leadville 100 mountain bike race. Even most non-cyclists know who Lance is. Five time defending Leadville 100 champ, Dave Wiens, is less well known.

Even though Dave Wiens is less well known than Lance, he had a very successful mountain bike career. He won 2 World Cup races and numerous NORBA races. Dave was inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in 2000.

During the early 90s, I saw Dave at many races in Colorado. Before mountain biking grew in popularity, often the Pros and Experts would start together and I’d be close to him on the start line.

Dave’s wife, Susan DeMattei, was also a top pro mountain biker. In 1996 she won a bronze medal at the Olympics in Atlanta. In 1994 she won the silver medal at Worlds. She was inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in 1997.

Here are several videos of what became a race between Dave Wiens and Lance. Course conditions were great from rain leading up to the race. With the good course conditions and by working together they shattered the course record Wiens set in 2007 when Floyd Landis raced.

Lance Armstrong and David Wiens talking at the pre-race meeting.

Closer view of Lance Armstrong at the pre-race meeting.

Closer view of Dave Wiens at the pre-race meeting.

Great summary video of the 2008 Leadville 100.

Good video of that start that shows just how many racers there are. The race is so popular that there’s a lottery to do it.

Another video of the start.

Lead riders go through the Pipeline aid station outbound.

Dave Wiens and Lance Armstrong hike-a-bike up the “North Face“.

Dave Wiens and Lance Armstrong come into the Pipeline aid station on the way back.

Dave Wiens wins his 6th Leadville 100 with a new record of 6:45:45!

Lance finishes the 2008 Leadville 100 almost 2 minutes behind Dave Wiens.

Lance after he finished. It looks like he’s in the medical tent and shows his bloody elbow from his crash.

Lance calls Dave Wiens a stud at the awards ceremony and also mentions he may race Leadville again in 2009.

Lance gives a few thoughts on the race.

This video isn’t of Dave Wiens or Lance Armstrong but shows more of the course from a flip video camera on one of the racers.

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Tags: Colorado, Dave Wiens, Lance Armstrong, Leadville 100, mountain biking
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Dave Wiens Wins 6th Leadville 100, Lance Armstrong 2nd

August 10th, 2008

Update: Watch videos of Dave Wiens and Lance Armstrong at the 2008 Leadville 100 | Complete unofficial 2008 Leadville 100 mountain bike results

Dave Wiens won the Leadville 100 mountain bike race yesterday. Lance Armstrong hung with him until about 10 miles to go.

Even though I’m 35 lbs over my race weight and only started training 6 weeks ago, I managed to finish in 11:21. That’s over 3 hours longer than my best time.

It was a long, painful day for me. It certainly wasn’t fitness that got me through the race. I just kept crawling along and probably was stopped less than 5 minutes the whole race.

Usually aid station splits are updated during the race and finish times posted and racers finish. They don’t seem to be posted this year except for unofficial results for the top 24.


1 Dave Wiens 6:45:45
2 Lance Armstrong 6:47:41
3 Manuel Prado 7:20:52 
4 Ethan Passant 7:27:54
5 Jonathan Scholnick 7:30:16
6 Max Taam 7:32:26
7 Nate Whitman 7:39:14
8 Jim Lehman 7:39:35
9 Kevin Andrews 7:42:18  
10 Kimo Seymour 7:43:31
11 Jake Rubelt 7:44:31
12 Chuck Gibson 7:44:31
13 Dax Massey 7:45:54
14 Garth Prosser 7:48:52
15 Jim Silverman 7:49:21
16 Ted MacBlane 7:49:37
17 Joel Mischke 7:51:27
18 Kent McNeill 7:56:17
19 Keith Collins 7:56:18
20 Bill MacFarlane 7:57:02
21 Yuki Saito 7:58:10
22 Paul Gorbold 7:59:03
23 Jeff Wardell 7:59:51
24 Ryan Hamilton 8:00:31

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Tags: Colorado, Dave Wiens, Lance Armstrong, Leadville 100, mountain biking
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Only a Few Hours Until the Leadville 100

August 8th, 2008

The Leadville 100 starts in the morning. I’m about to find out if I can finish when I’m 35 lbs over my race and only trained for 6 weeks. I’m still giving myself a 50/50 chance of finishing.

Both Dave Wiens and Lance Armstrong talked a bit at the racer meeting today. Dave talked about how he’s been coming to Leadville since he was young. One of his first races was the Mosquito Pass race here.

Lance downplayed how well he’ll do. He said he’ll be happy to be within an hour of Dave. Somehow I don’t believe that. He did say he’ll be showered and had meal by the time Chris Carmichael finishes. He rode the Columbine climb last week and said it was really tough.

One of the Trek guys had Lance’s bike out near the start. It is one sweet bike. Of course it’s more the engine than the bike.

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Technorati Tags: Colorado | Dave Wiens | Lance Armstrong | Leadville 100 | mountain biking

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Lance Armstrong Pre-Leadville 100 Videos

August 6th, 2008

Here are a couple videos of Lance Armstrong when he was at Leadville last week pre-riding part of the Leadville 100 course. When I got some parts at Colorado Cyclist on Saturday, I talked to a guy whose roommate had gone up with the Carmichael Training Sytems group to ride with Lance. He said Lance was looking fit.

The 2nd video is of Lance and a couple other guys starting up the Columbine Climb. I recognize the spot at the end where the dog is barking and it isn’t very far up. At that point you’re close to the lowest point on the course around 9,000 feet and from there you climb to the high point at 12,600 feet.

Update: Lance Armstrong and Dave Wiens race videos

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Will Lance Armstrong Show at the Leadville 100?

July 30th, 2008

Update: Lance finished 2nd in the 2008 Leadville 100. See videos of Lance and Dave Wiens at the Leadville 100.

In January Lance Armstrong did the Miles of Discomfort mountain bike race. He dropped out from cramps 43 miles into the 52 mile race. The word was that he was training for the the Leadville 100.

In March Biking Bis reported that Chris Carmichael, Lance’s long time coach, said Lance was planning to do the Leadville 100. Since then I haven’t been able to find anything about Lance doing the Leadville 100 until today.

Today Ken Chlouber announced that Lance has entered the Leadville 100. Early last year, it appeared there would be a battle between Lance and Floyd Landis. Soon after Landis announced he’d be racing, Lance said he had a scheduling conflict. In July Lance rode part of the course and it seemed he would be racing. In the end Lance didn’t show but Landis did race and finished 2nd to Dave Wiens.

Ricky, one of the very few that have finished every Leadville 100 MTB race, has posted on the Leadville 100 Yahoo group that Ken had also told him about Lance racing. Lance told Ken he wasn’t in that good of shape but thought he could still finish in the top 10. Of course he’ll have to actually show up.

I doubt we’ll see a race between Lance and Landis this year. Although Landis was going to be racing the National Ultra-Endurance Series this year, he hasn’t done any of them since CAS ruled against him in his 2006 Tour de France doping case.

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Tags: Colorado, Floyd Landis, Lance Armstrong, Leadville 100, mountain biking
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Greg LeMond’s Air Force Academy Speech

April 20th, 2008

Greg LeMond spoke at a fundraiser at the Air Force Academy last night. It was only $15 for USA Cycling members. I was considering going but with everything else I have going on I decided not to.

Did anyone else go? The only thing I’ve found about it was an opinion column in The Gazette.

I used to be a big fan of LeMond. When he was winning the Tour de France, was when I was really getting into cycling. I dreamed of becoming like him.

The last few years, LeMond seems to have become bitter. He’s squabbled with Lance Armstrong and accused him of doping. He accused Floyd Landis of doping. LeMond tries making it sound like he won everything clean. Cycling has a long history of doping even much farther back than LeMond. I’d like to think he won clean just like I’d like to think Armstrong and Landis were clean. Unfortunately with all the doping scandals of the last few years, I don’t think many if any top pros raced clean. There’s also the fight between LeMond and Trek.

LeMond was in town training and checking out the velodrome for a possible hour record. I think it was 1991. My friend figured out he was staying at the Broadmoor hotel. He saw him leave on his bike mid morning one day. The next day we just happened to be casually riding around the hotel about the same time.

LeMond came out and headed out for a ride. He kept messing with his shoes and we caught up to him and never let on we knew who he was. After riding with him for to the edge of town, he explained that the he was going to use the motorcycle in front of us to do some motor pacing. He said he’d be going very fast and would be riding very close to the motorcycle. He asked us to not stay with him.

Later that day, we found him at the velodrome. After he was finished training, I was able to get a picture with him. I haven’t seen it in a while. He also autographed my foam helmet. I still have the helmet in a box.

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More about his comments at Biking Bis.

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Tags: cycling, Floyd Landis, Lance Armstrong, Tour de France
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Lance Armstrong Turns Back on Cycling

September 26th, 2007

It seems that Lance Armstrong has turned his back on cycling. He has better things to do now. When asked about the Landis doping decision, he said

“I’d love to answer the question but unfortunately I’m out of that business. I’m here to fight cancer. I haven’t looked online. I still love the bike and ride all the time but on the competitive side I’m just not engaged.” Found via Biking Bis

I agree fighting cancer is more important than cycling but it gave him the platform to fight cancer. A lot of the LAF fund-raisers involve cycling. He isn’t at the top end of competition but that’s what partly feeds recreational cycling. He should use his champion status to help the sport but he’s not.

He’s not out of that business. He just doesn’t want to answer the tough questions about the state the sport is in. Several of his teammates have tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. He used a doctor that was associated with doping. I believe there are doping issues but as we’ve seen with the Landis case, the anti-doping bureaucracy is also corrupt. Cycling isn’t the only sport with doping problems, other sports have them too.

Update: Lance has now made a comment on the Landis verdict.

“When you are giving someone the death penalty, which they essentially did, you cannot tolerate shoddy work, which they clearly did. I don’t understand that type of rationale. I don’t understand the verdict.

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Lance Armstrong in Colorado Springs

August 15th, 2007

Last Thursday night Lance Armstrong was in town for a fundraiser for Kids on Bikes. Our local paper had an article about his visit. Why did Lance start riding a bike? He said, “I didn’t really learn how to ride it until the girl next door who was the same age as me learned how to ride it. That day, I rode.”

Lance went to high school here in town for a couple years in the late 1980’s while he was on the U.S. junior team. I’m only a year older than him and I rode some with the junior team but I think it was probably after Lance was here.

Local sports columnist and fitness trainer, Milo Bryant, wrote that he thinks Lance should save cycling. I always like reading Milo’s articles since he isn’t afraid to say what he thinks. He also tries getting people to be more active instead of sitting in front of the TV.

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