“Back with the boys!” Sir Bradley Wiggins joins Lance Armstrong’s podcast during Tour de France

Sir Bradley Wiggins may no longer be popping up, clinging to the back of a motorbike, on Eurosport’s coverage of this year’s Tour de France, but anyone missing the 2012 Tour winner’s input and analysis will be pleased to learn (or maybe not) that he will be appearing as a special guest on Lance Armstrong’s podcast, The Move, over the next week.

Five-time Olympic gold medallist Wiggins, who had indicated last month that he had been offered a role during the Tour de France, joined Armstrong and his former Team Columbia colleague George Hincapie in Aspen, Colorado, on Saturday night, and made his first appearance on The Move podcast, discussing both the Tour’s epic gravel stage around Troyes and his own post-cycling career, on Sunday evening.

Wiggins, who famously described Armstrong as a “lying bastard” after the former seven-time Tour winner’s doping confession in 2013 (a stance that has considerably softened in the years since), looks set to appear on the podcast alongside the disgraced Texan and Hincapie throughout the coming week, where he will analyse each day’s Tour stage.

The 44-year-old retired British pro’s in-person role comes after both record-breaking sprinter Mark Cavendish and Visma-Lease a Bike rider Matteo Jorgenson appeared on the podcast earlier in the Tour as part of brief phone-in segments.

 

 

 

 

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The Move’s social media channels have been keen to drum up hype around their British guest star, publishing clips of Armstrong and Hincapie greeting him at the airport, and the trio watching Sunday’s ninth stage of the Tour, won by TotalEnergies’ Anthony Turgis after a thrilling spectacle on the Champagne region’s gravel roads (which features a very questionable English accent from Armstrong).

Wiggins also posted a photo on Instagram alongside Armstrong and Hincapie with the caption, “Back with the boys!”

 

 

 

 

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Appearing on the podcast itself, Wiggins admitted that he had experienced some visa issues, including a missed flight, on the way to his latest Tour analysis role.

“It’s been a great trip so far,” the 2012 winner, who is currently in the midst of serious financial issues after being declared bankrupt last month, said on the podcast. “My son Ben did all the logistics for me, made sure I got to the airport in time, he’s been fathering me a lot recently.

“And I was doing a talk in Leeds, on the other side of the country, and I couldn’t find my passport a few days before, but my daughter found it and drove it across to me. So I’ve got them to thank for getting me here.”

> Sir Bradley Wiggins has "lost absolutely everything and doesn't have a penny" after bankruptcy, reveals lawyer

 

 

 

 

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He also spoke about this turbulent life after retiring from cycling in 2016, noting that he has experienced “both sides of the coin”.

"When I retired, you don't know what to do with yourself, you carry on riding for a bit,” he said. “I took up another sport in rowing because I was institutionalised to train and have something to focus on. Since I was 13, all I had been was a cyclist.

“Then I didn’t train for a year and a half, I put weight on. I got really unfit, I was smoking, but I don’t smoke anymore.”

[Credit: Gareth Winter]

He continued: “I think I went through this transition period of realising both sides of the coin and, I’ll tell you what, your mental health and everything is in a far better place to be when you’re working out every day. It’s all about finding out a new equilibrium, a balance.

“When I trained I always felt like I had to reach for the stars. So if I was doing something like rowing it was big, trying to go to the Olympic Games.

“And I’ve had to find a healthy balance now, where I can train but it doesn’t have to be for something. We’re all competitive, aren’t we?

“I took up a new sport, boxing, a year ago, in an attempt to learn something new, also to face my fears a bit. I’m quite anti-confrontational. I guess that’s one of the fears, actually getting in the ring and fighting someone.”

Of course, Wiggins’ new role alongside Armstrong and Hincapie – which has already attracted a fair bit of consternation on social media – isn’t the first time that the 2012 Tour winner, who it was later revealed had availed of a therapeutic use exception for triamcinolone during that career-defining triumph, has appeared on The Move alongside the controversial Texan.

Back in 2022, Wiggins and Mark Cavendish joined Armstrong, Hincapie, and 1997 Tour winner Jan Ullrich – along with a dozen-strong contingent of paying customers – on a series of group rides around Mallorca.

The star-studded (and rather divisive) end-of-season gathering formed part of the 2022 edition of ‘The Move Mallorca’, a cycling holiday off-shoot of Armstrong’s long-running podcast, where guests paid more than $30,000 to ride a few wheels behind Big Tex and his fellow retired pros on the Sa Calobra.

> Why was Mark Cavendish riding with Lance Armstrong this week?

However, Cavendish and Wiggins’ appearance both in the group rides and on the podcast was heavily criticised by cycling fans online, with one claiming that a very pally image of the British riders alongside Armstrong, Hincapie, Ullrich, and former US Postal sports director Johan Bruyneel “makes me a bit sick”.

“I guess optics don't matter when you're retired (or nearly retired),” another said.

Wiggins’ attitude towards Armstrong has also oscillated wildly over the past 15 years, from praising his rival for the 2009 Tour podium in his first autobiography to calling him a “lying bastard” in the wake of his 2013 doping confession, before defending his “human side” and including him in his book of ‘Icons’ in 2018.

Last month, it was reported that Wiggins had been declared bankrupt following a series of financial difficulties involving his company, with his lawyer later claiming in the national press that the eight-time Olympic medallist “has lost absolutely everything”, “doesn’t have a penny”, and has been forced to sleep on family and friends’ sofas.