4/18/14 8:02 AM

http://www.outsideonline.com/featured-videos/gear-videos/bikes/How-to-Fix-a-Flat--with-Lance-Armstrong.html

4/18/14 10:32 AM

nm

4/18/14 11:30 AM

"He's not getting near MY bike. "

I dunno, it was a French bike. I'd let him fix a flat on my Stella maybe... ;)


He was a little too teary ripy if you ask me...

Me, I use the cap so grit stay out...


Probably the first flat he has fixed in 7 years [or more].

4/18/14 11:55 AM

Lance is doing what his handlers are telling him he must do if he has any hope of redemption.

4/18/14 12:09 PM

quote:

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Lance is doing what his handlers are telling him he must do if he has any hope of redemption.

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4/18/14 12:26 PM

Nice that he had a wheel on which no tool was required.

Or maybe it was.

4/19/14 3:11 AM

I thought it was kinda campy and funny.

The asterisk joke and the line about just recently learning to do tis himself.

I don't defend his actions but always remember that all of the racers of his time where cheaters.

"They all cheat"and lie. I hold no grudges against him anymore than the rest of them. He is not the single villain folks.

4/19/14 7:25 AM

I suspect that he did it on a lark, just for fun. The fact that he can make light of his predicament is refreshing and encouraging. Maybe he really has moved on and is training for a new career as a shop monkey. ;-)

I agree that his technique could use some improvement, but perhaps he's serious that he just learned how to do it. I certainly saw stranger things in my days in the bike biz than a pro who couldn't change a flat!

If the UCI ever does come through with a truth and reconciliation program and Lance participates as he says he will, I imagine he'll be seen in a very different context, as merely one of the multitude of riders who doped during his era. While it cannot be excused, it can be more broadly understood that it's just the way things were back then. His "boogeyman" image will eventually fade away, except among the true haters.

4/19/14 7:58 AM

He rides clinchers?

4/19/14 11:21 AM

"He rides clinchers?"

When someone else is not swapping flatted wheels in real time, I am betting yes on that one. ;)

4/19/14 11:52 AM

How quickly some people forget - a fact that LA is counting on.

If he read this thread, I suspect he would say "it's working" from some of the replies.
Nothing about this man is without calculation....that is, until the math gets too complicated (e.g. EPO titration), he has a clear history of enlisting help from the best.

It is well known that he retained a PR strategist in recent years.
Buy the book "Masters of Disaster" and you can read all about it.

And you think now, that so many are softening their stance on his misdeeds, that he would tell these handlers "thanks guys, I'll take it from here."
Not a chance...not with Lance....I suspect they are in overdrive.

Lance wants to compete....he wants to remove the asterisk, or at least reduce it from heavy bold to regular type.

This is all carefully choreographed to show a humble, common man version of LA....he is one of us, a guy we can relate to...an everyman version of LA.

Check out his twitter page....I'm back to work (common man), wearing clothes that others wear (common man), I get two breaks a shift (common man).

IBM teaches this approach....called the "feel, felt, find." It is objection handling 101.
Goes like this....I understand how you feel, others have felt that way, but I think you will find...blah blah blah.

Lance's version..."I know you FEEL betrayed by my lying and cheating (I'm listening), your not alone, many people have FELT the same way (you are part of a majority), but I think you will FIND (making the conclusion for you) that I'm just like you, a regular guy who made some mistakes, but I really want to change and be a good person.....and, uh, can I please have the asterisk removed and get back to competition?

When I saw him in the shop apron, answering the phone, telling the caller he would have their "whatever" ready later in the day I laughed out loud at the transparency of such a PR tactic.....and based on replies here, it's working.

4/19/14 12:24 PM

Are we going to rehash this each time he gets mentioned so each of us can repeat our position on the topic?

Are all the rest of the pro dopers reading these threads and saying, "good, it is working", is the real question? At least that occurs to me in the context. ;)

The ones that want to stay on doping regimes... I am betting, yes, they will say and think it is good. But with the sport cleaning up and all.... LOL

4/19/14 12:35 PM

This is all true imo.

Further, as a celebrity, as with pretty much ALL celebrities, one becomes an actor playing a part in the "show" that the particular media entity is putting on.

Not much is actually left to chance. If the celebrity fails to at least fulfil the goal of the media entity, then likely either the show won't air, and/or the celebrity either won't get paid or won't get any more star roles (interviews, favorable press, etc.).

We as viewers are supposed to just be entertained, as brainlessly as is required to absorb the entire narrative if you will, of LA just taking a plunge at being his humbled self.

For corporate-media conglomerates, such an ability to script various shows is essential to put forth both "marketing" and "consent" propaganda, as well as presenting real-life stories interspersed in parallel with the propaganda narratives and imagery in order to wash everything down. This is key to achieving "corporate" mega-power as anonymously as possible, to be used by the world's billionaires.

Now in this case, this skit might simply be a win-win for Lance's PR team (who likely scripted it) and for the (online magazine?) that presented it. It may satisfy the needs of both with little if any bargaining as to it's content, since any sort of "Lance" video featuring LA himself will generate perhaps millions of hits for the website.

4/19/14 12:43 PM

Of course it is all true, I cannot dispute that. The PR company is just following the political 'Rob Ford' type model, no? That guy just started his re-election campaign too. ;)

"win-win for Lance's PR team"

Still a lot of American bike riders that will buy LA branded products regardless. just a question of timing, and with feeler like that maybe...

I bet LA even tainted may get more bikes sold than Andy Hamsten did. The go into the bike tour biz;)

Speaking of that, how is our resident Recreation/Bike Tours bizness owner doing ?

Drawing a blank on the user's name, such as my memory is... Smunderdog, had to google it up. ;(

4/19/14 1:22 PM

I have never changed my stand on this.

His PR team has not influenced me in the least. I found it funny and just campy enough and poorly presented to be believable.

I follow LA on Strava. There are TONS of LA lovers on his feed, som of it reminds me of people who fall for jailed murderers.

I watch his data he is now human WRT cycling performance but is runs are pretty impressive. Most of his rides that are posted many of us could do and pull some too.

His runs would be TOUGH, many are done at a <4:30 kilometer pace.

4/23/14 5:52 AM

Do you actually read what you write? It's pretty hilarious to see you falling all over yourselves trying to come up with one conspiracy theory after another. Is it possible that this is all just a PR stunt? Sure it is. Does Lance want to redeem himself? Of course he does. However, this video is just as likely to be a case of him poking fun at his predicament and have a good time doing it. There doesn't have to be some dark, evil plot behind it. You guys act like Lance is tantamount to Vladimir Putin, as if what Lance does really matters in the overall scheme of things. Will he ever be able to compete again? Who knows and honestly, who really cares?

How about we keep this in perspective?

4/23/14 11:26 AM

Different perspectives, no doubt...

It still is a free county last time I checked.

4/23/14 2:24 PM

Doesn't he own a bike shop in Austin? (Or is that past tense?). If so, it's not the one shown in the beginning of the video.

4/23/14 2:53 PM

"It's pretty hilarious to see you falling all over yourselves trying to come up with one conspiracy theory after another..."

This has long been obvious that referring to someone else's opinion as "conspiracy" this or that is a silencing technique. An old one.

The other day, locally, a local merchant questioned the financial motives and effects of city council actions in the local newspaper, and raised some good questions about how the council could justify their own spending (fancy new building and parking lot) initiatives, while at the same time doing seemingly everything to bring Costco and Walmart into the very nearby County area, competing with businesses in the city, where financial warnings have been going up for some time in a "perfect storm" of financial stresses coming due.

The councilman (a local Republican) replying in a brief "letters to editor" column, brushed off all the good questions under the umbrella of the merchant's supposed "conspiracy" leanings, even as council members and other local pol's increasingly bring in spouses and other family members to replace those who leave.
This, I think and hope, will wake up the newspaper's readers to this councilman's arrogance.

The imagery of us "falling all over ourselves" perhaps invokes hilarity, but does it reflect any reality?
If someone is falling all over themself, who is that?

4/23/14 3:02 PM

For those who like to eat those popular "energy waffles" for bike riders, one really positive outcome from Lance's recent saga is that these waffles are very nicely priced at Grocery Outlet Bargain Markets, at least the one's with Lance Armstrong's name on them.

Get 'em while they last.

4/23/14 8:22 PM

You're all talking about how calculated every move must be and that Lance's "PR machine" is in overdrive, etc. If that's not conspiracy theorism, what is? I couldn't care less about silencing anyone, as I find it all rather amusing. I'm just pointing out that people are taking this all way too seriously, as if Lance redeeming himself would be some huge, terrible thing for mankind. There are plenty of other admitted dopers who have been welcomed back into the pro cycling fold, either as riders or in team management. Their actions have not been forgotten, but they have been forgiven.

Why should Lance be any different? For that matter, what other cyclist has the "social palmares" to match what Lance has done for the cancer community, which actually does have a significant impact on millions of people's lives? Based on that, one could argue that, provided that he is truly repentant, he deserves forgiveness more than many ex-dopers who have already been welcomed back.

It seems to me that all of this cynicism and outright hatred is really more a matter of the fact that he was the biggest personality in the peloton and disappointed us the most with his failings. That and the fact that it's still a relative fresh wound. He didn't do anything that hundreds of others didn't do as well, but he's the recipient of special condemnation. Where's the justification for that?

4/23/14 9:10 PM

Kind of hard to consider them 'failings' when the top winners took the same failing moves to win the top races for forever...

4/24/14 5:25 AM

...the sport has probably not been clean since money entered the picture. Once there was a financial incentive, the desire to obtain an edge over the competition followed. Eddy Merckx is still revered as the greatest cyclist ever, yet he was busted for dope at least a couple of times, IIRC. He was effectively the Lance of his generation, yet he gets a pass? Of course, everyone was doing it back then, too.

Although I feel no pity for Johann Bruyneel over his 10 year suspension from all sports, one thing he said is absolutely true, it's not fair that a half-dozen people are singled out for retribution for the the misdeeds of their entire generation. That's why I truly hope that the UCI does more than just talk about truth and reconciliation.

4/24/14 8:02 AM

Athletes have been seeking a performance enhancement since the beginning of time. Doping occurred in the ancient Greek Olympics.

It's just not the podium contenders than take PEDs, but those hanging on tooth and nail to stay on the team or make the team.

PEDs is just another added dimension to the sport. Much like the cyclist doing mental math over the risk versus reward of doing an alpine descent even more aggressively, the same is true with taking PEDs. Arguably, Lance did his calculations well, at least for quite some time, while Floyd Landis had a serious miscalculation.

Instead of an outright ban, an arms race that WADA, the UCI, etc. will never win, they should permit some PEDs to be used. By doing so, it will minimize the strong incentive for cyclists and other athletes to pursue even more experimental, fringe, and risky drugs to avoid detection (like Barry Barroid Bonds and the bovine steroid comes to mind).

For instance, allow EPO to be used, with definitive guidelines and under professional medical care. That's just one idea to throw out there. I'm sure there are many that could be debated.

4/24/14 2:17 PM

I think that if speed-enhancing drugs were permitted, even as it might seem to even the playing field for all riders, it would seriously harm the public perception of bike racers, who might lose all admiration, since mere sport-class cyclists would no longer be able, or even try, to relate to the difficulty of achieving such speed, if only in their own imaginations.

I wouldn't want Lance to be unfairly singled out, but his case makes a good example of how arrogance can take over a person, and I think that's what makes a lot of people dislike the man. Many polititians suffer the same fate it seems.

For real Lance-hatred, one might have to go to Europe, where there was a perception that the big, bad United States was having their way (year after year) with everyone, sort of like the political cartoon in today's paper showing a very thuggish image of a mother-Russia Vlad Putin.

As far as the UCI, I don't see how the sport can be expected to improve with that group's continued involvement after this Lance saga.