Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

news

“If I’m freaked out on a road, I’m riding on the sidewalk”: Lance Armstrong claims “distracted driving” has made cycling more dangerous and says he “avoids long, straight roads like the plague”

“I’ve been hit by a couple of cars, you get scared when somebody gets close to you,” the Texan said in a recent podcast interview, in which he shared tips for staying safe while cycling and argued the “best solution is to ride the mountain bike”

Lance Armstrong has claimed that distracted driving has become increasingly common in recent years, making cycling on the road more dangerous in the process, saying he avoids “long, straight roads like the plague” due to phone-using motorists and that, if he becomes “freaked out” by dangerous or erratic driving, he will simply ride on the footpath.

In a recent interview with health and fitness journalist Michael Easter on his ‘The Forward’ podcast, the disgraced former seven-time Tour de France winner also shared his own unique set of tips for staying safe while cycling, including seeking out traffic-free routes on Strava and even avoiding roads altogether by riding a gravel or mountain bike.

Speaking about the physical and mental benefits of exercising outdoors during the lengthy podcast interview, Armstrong, who was stripped of his seven Tour titles in 2012 following USADA’s anti-doping investigation into the US Postal team, said: “A lot of people ride indoors now – a lot of them have no choice because it’s cold in the winter.

“But then a lot of others are scared of cars, and the risk of that, so they choose to ride Zwift indoors.”

> “Lance Armstrong didn’t invent doping. We all did the best we could”: Levi Leipheimer on coming to terms with cycling’s “grey” past, “making amends”, and why road racing in the US has to “adapt or die”

Easter, the former fitness director of Men’s Health magazine, then asked Armstrong about his “take on cars and cycling”, including motorists who speed and use their phone at the wheel, and whether it’s “changed over time”.

“Has it got more dangerous?” the health and fitness journalist asked.

“Yeah, I think it has changed,” Armstrong said. “It’s distracted driving, is what it is. I’ve been hit by a couple of cars – but not by distracted drivers. You get scared when you’re out riding when somebody comes close to you.

“I think it’s becoming more and more common, but there are ways around it, I think, to safeguard against [distracted driving], for anybody who wants tips on this.

“Firstly, I ride mostly on my gravel bike, so I can ride on anything. If I’m on a road and I’m freaked out, and I’m on a gravel bike, if there’s a sidewalk there, I’m riding on the sidewalk. Or if I see there’s a little path, I‘ll just ride on the little dirt path.”

Lance Armstrong on Mont Ventoux, 2002 Tour de FranceLance Armstrong on Mont Ventoux, 2002 Tour de France (credit: Photosport International)

He continued: “I always try to avoid straight roads. Anytime the road is long and straight, people get distracted. You put people on a twisty, turny road, a very technical road, they tend to get less distracted – because they have to focus on driving, they have to turn, they have to manage what they’re up to.

“Those long, straight roads, I avoid like the plague. When I ride here in Austin – I moved here in 1989, it was pretty chill, but it’s just not like that anymore.”

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

Another Armstrong-patented road safety tip focused on using modern technology to seek out the most bike-friendly routes, while the Texan also – somewhat bizarrely – pointed to a future filled with driverless cars as the key to keeping cyclists safe.

“We’ve had things that have come along to help the average cyclist avoid traffic, primarily the heat map on Strava,” he noted. “You see the routes other cyclists are using, and they’re using the routes that have less traffic and that they feel safer on.

“And once we get to the point of self-driving cars, if we ever get there, those cars will not hit a cyclist – in a perfect world.”

The former world road race champion must have missed our story from back in 2023, when a Cruise self-driving taxi, which didn’t even have a human being inside, made a left turn into a cycle lane in Armstrong’s home city of Austin.

The car then continued to travel in the infrastructure along the next stretch of road, prompting one local to comment on social media: “Perfect! These are completely safe autonomous vehicles.”

> Researchers suggest cyclists could wear smart glasses to communicate with self-driving cars — automated vehicles "need to learn the language of cyclists"

Reflecting more generally on distracted driving and the current state of the roads in Texas and the US, the former Discovery Channel leader concluded: “Yeah, it scares me.”

Lance Armstrong Lance Armstrong (credit: NBC)

“Even if you’re not on your cell phone now, cars have Apple Play,” interjected Easter. “Basically you just put the cell phone interface right on the screen, and you can tap away. But it’s also distracting.”

And it’s that point in the interview at which Armstrong, famous for his addiction to his Blackberry (or Crackberry, as he called it during his, and the phone’s, 2000s heyday) decided to undermine his entire argument about distracted driving – by admitting he also gets distracted by the screen in his car.

“I love it,” he said. “And I know we’re all guilty of that. Yeah…”

Of course, Armstrong isn’t immune to bouts of bad driving himself. In 2015, the retired pro was fined $150 after pleading guilty to careless driving, related to an incident which saw him drive into two cars in a snowy ski resort car park in Aspen, Colorado, before initially letting his now-wife Anna Hansen take the blame.

“You know the best solution to all this?” he continued on his podcast. “It’s to ride the mountain bike. In the summertime when we’re in Colorado, I bet I ride 95 per cent of my cycling is on a mountain bike.”

So, the best tip for staying safe on the road as a cyclist… is to not ride on the road at all. Cheers for that, Lance.

After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.

Add new comment

37 comments

Avatar
CeeBee | 3 days ago
0 likes

What does he know about keeping safe? He had little regard for his own, his team's or opponents health.

Btw, He went down Luz Ardiden like a bat out of hell after winning the stage, risking his and spectators lives who were across the road making their way home. He is an dangerous selfish man.

Avatar
leedorney | 3 days ago
1 like

This self driving car thing or generally, I don't know why a gadget can't be invented whereby a car will see a cycle in the vicinity in the road they're driving sending an alert to the car display or say 'cyclist' thru the speakers, pretty much all cars have a display nowadays so I can't see why something can't get invented like a beacon from a cycle computer ??

Avatar
chrisonabike replied to leedorney | 3 days ago
2 likes

Currently drivers are already fitted with a remote-sensing system called "eyes" but it turns out that despite several hundred million years of development not all the bugs have been worked out.

As for systems to improve on those I guess we can always have more sprinkles on top, but these tend to be limited ultimately by other design quirks in the brain, attention and reward systems.

The same goes for those who design autonomous vehicles particularly because eventually they want to sell them.

Tech solutions always have the potential to change the problem landscape (thus simply bypass some previous ones).  But they always come with their own - ultimately "because humans".

Avatar
Secret_squirrel replied to leedorney | 3 days ago
2 likes

leedorney wrote:

This self driving car thing or generally, I don't know why a gadget can't be invented whereby a car will see a cycle in the vicinity in the road they're driving sending an alert to the car display or say 'cyclist' thru the speakers, pretty much all cars have a display nowadays so I can't see why something can't get invented like a beacon from a cycle computer ??

https://bikebiz.com/all-cyclists-will-need-to-fit-detection-beacons-says...

It already exists, at least as a prototype, and causes fury because it ultimately just another variation of the helmet debate.   Any cyclist who is injured when not using one is deemed to have contributed to their own situation - regardless of the actual facts of the case.    About the only way I see it coming close to actually working is if its built into all phones or something else which people carry as a matter of habit.   Even then it doesnt address the actual issue - poor driving standards.

Avatar
froze | 5 days ago
0 likes

Motorists have always been unkind to cyclists, but distracted driving is adding to the problem.

I ride all the time on surface streets and county roads, but I run a 330 lumen strobing tailight in the daytime in hopes that people will see it from far away and start to think about what that flashing light might mean.

I also run a dimmer flashing white front light, but I'm not as concerned about the front as I am with the rear; with the front I can see people doing stupid stuff and can prepare.

Those radar rear tailights do not do a darn thing at protecting you from being hit anymore than just a simple tailight will do. 

 

Avatar
Hirsute replied to froze | 4 days ago
4 likes

Radar lights do more than an ordinary light as they change pattern when a driver approaches. Also they tell you how fast and fat away a driver is, so if you see no change in speed, then you know you have to do something. Also gives you a chance to change road position or even do a few  curves to attract the driver's attention.

Avatar
wtjs replied to Hirsute | 3 days ago
1 like

Radar lights do more than an ordinary light as they change pattern when a driver approaches

Unfortunately, what they don't do is convert Audi and BMW (other nutter marques are available) drivers into people who could give a toss about anybody else and who don't think they are ace-driving masters of the road. I'm not condemning these radars and I'm pleased that others find them useful, but I won't be getting one because it would be no use at all around here.

I don't know why a gadget can't be invented whereby a car will see a cycle in the vicinity in the road they're driving sending an alert to the car display or say 'cyclist' 

Ho! Ho! Because they don't care. 

What would I have been told by radar in these cases, and what action would I take other than staying off the road entirely- which is what the police and Lance would wish all cyclists to do?

https://upride.cc/incident/cd10wer_audiq7_closerpass/

https://upride.cc/incident/yn67mvj_sainsburys44tonner_closepass/

https://upride.cc/incident/du61vhj_stuartbraithwaitebuilders_dwlcrossclosepass/

https://upride.cc/incident/ca70mkc_citroenvan_closepass/

This morning's attacker was going even faster than that Citroen- it's Golf YR08 RZP

Avatar
Hirsute replied to wtjs | 3 days ago
0 likes

Nothing you can do about the nutters but the second part of my post applies. If you see no change in speed as they approach you could hug the kerb or abandon into the hedge.

Avatar
mark1a replied to froze | 4 days ago
2 likes

froze wrote:

Those radar rear tailights do not do a darn thing at protecting you from being hit anymore than just a simple tailight will do. 

This simply isn't true. I've been running radar lights for 10 years now. I cycle mostly on rural roads, I get notified of approaching vehicles up to 140m (488ft) behind, with their closing speed. As Hirsute says, the change in intensity and flash pattern can draw the driver's attention to you, and there is a definite and noticeable change in engine sound once you've been seen. 

Avatar
Hirsute replied to mark1a | 4 days ago
2 likes

137m is the farthest I have observed when quickly looking at the Garmin unit.
If there is incoming traffic I tend to move to take the lane and see if they slow.
It's very helpful on rural roads I have found.

Avatar
stonojnr replied to mark1a | 3 days ago
0 likes

But you'd have to prove both the positive & negative test cases to see if the radar changing the light flash frequency made the difference.

Avatar
mark1a replied to stonojnr | 3 days ago
2 likes

stonojnr wrote:

But you'd have to prove both the positive & negative test cases to see if the radar changing the light flash frequency made the difference.

I'm just someone on the internet with an opinion like everyone else here!

I've ridden with and without radar and I prefer riding with on country lanes where people in cars are usually approaching at 60mph. 

Avatar
stonojnr replied to mark1a | 3 days ago
0 likes

it might give you more comfort, in which case good for you, but its not proof that actually it has had any effect on the driver.

I ride with a pass pixi, it was only £10 so whats the worse it can do right, but I still get close passes like this frequently. Did they see it and just ignore it?, just didnt care anyway ?

Avatar
Secret_squirrel replied to froze | 3 days ago
2 likes

Agree with everything everyone has said about the usefulness of radar lights - here are a couple more, admittedly niche ones.

  • It puts close passes into perspective.  A simple tweak on the Garmin models records the number of passes and the closing speed of those passes.   It basically tells you the percentage of dicks on the road.  Which is nearly always less than it feels like after your emotions have been triggered by a close pass.
  • I have the Garmin radar camera model.  It records the speed of the motorist on each frame of the footage.   Great for trolling petrosexuals on social media about speeding drivers.  I can trigger them from Zero to Rage-gasm with just one picture of drivers overtaking me whilst I do 19 mph in a 20 limit, and tell them the NIP is in the post.  It was my most liked and retweeted posts before I deleted my content from the Hellsite.

 

Avatar
stonojnr replied to Secret_squirrel | 3 days ago
0 likes

How does the perspective shift if its just counting passes & the speed ?

If it was measuring the sideways gap left by the driver, that would be useful, and I suspect the reality is the percentage of dicks is variable, depending on the locality and the roads you ride on.

And I don't need 130quid worth of more tech on my bike radar to tell me most people who drive around me are idiots.

Avatar
Secret_squirrel replied to stonojnr | 3 days ago
0 likes

stonojnr wrote:

And I don't need 130quid worth of more tech on my bike radar to tell me most people who drive around me are idiots.

Yet you clearly do need perspective - its all over your response.   It tells you that 40 cars passed you safely but yet you've been triggered by the one or two that didnt.  Hence... perspective.

Avatar
Hirsute replied to Secret_squirrel | 3 days ago
2 likes

I don't think stonojnr is that fussed about the speed of a pass but the closeness, so the speed doesn't alleviate the stress of being on the end of poor driving.

Avatar
Secret_squirrel replied to Hirsute | 3 days ago
0 likes

The speed bit is incidental to my first point which is more about how 1 close pass "poisons" a ride that maybe had 20 or 40 reasonable passes.

Its more relevant to my second point - its informative (but not definitive) for the cops and enrages the drivists when I post them on SoMe.

Avatar
Hirsute replied to Secret_squirrel | 3 days ago
1 like

You are going to have to post a ride chart that shows this because I'm not seeing how you get from speed to close pass.

Avatar
stonojnr replied to Hirsute | 2 days ago
0 likes

exactly, thats my issue, how does knowing the speed, then change the perspective of a close pass ?

if it was just 1 bad pass on a ride,  yep so what theres always the 1 isnt there.

but I counted a sample commute from last week, its not a long ride 20-25mins, around about 48 vehicles passed me, and I could have easily have submitted 8 of those to the police to deal with, one was a learner with a driving instructor, and this is with a 10x10 cm bright yellow speed camera sign on my bike.

thats basically 1 in 6 of all drivers I meet are total tools, which is roughly what Id have guesstimated based on the averages of incidents Ive experienced from best part of 20 years riding this route.

 

Avatar
ubercurmudgeon | 5 days ago
2 likes

Even a stopped clock, etc, etc...

Avatar
ktache | 6 days ago
1 like

Only reading the headline on the homepage, not the rest of the article, but I only ride mountain bikes and I still get close passed...

Avatar
Rendel Harris replied to ktache | 6 days ago
3 likes

ktache wrote:

Only reading the headline on the homepage, not the rest of the article, but I only ride mountain bikes and I still get close passed...

He advocates only riding mountainbikes solely offroad for ultimate safety, which is great if you're a millionaire of leisure living in Colorado riding for leisure, not so practical if you're trying to commute across London...

Avatar
Webstaff replied to Rendel Harris | 5 days ago
2 likes

My advice here is to ride around in a face mask with a large plastic sword on your back.
You get noticed and avoid far more often and you'll find the police much more responsive if anything happens.

Avatar
chrisonabike replied to Webstaff | 5 days ago
2 likes

Just as long as they're not "armed response"-ive...

Avatar
cmedred | 6 days ago
2 likes

Self-driving cars are far from perfect now and might never be perfect, but there would seem to come a point where there should be a public discussion as to whether the imperfections of robot drivers are worse or better than the imperfections of human drivers, which seem to be unfortunately increasing  by the year. 

On a ride today, I did a random count of 100 cars that passed me to see how many stayed between the center line and the white-stripe of the bike lane on the road ahead. Nineteen - or 19 percent - couldn't manage to stay between the lines. And since it was 10 a.m., I doubt it was because those 19 percent were over the drink-driving limit. 

Avatar
snooks | 6 days ago
1 like

I'm not a Lance fan at all but the snarky tone of this is just dumb.

Avatar
wtjs replied to snooks | 6 days ago
1 like

I'm not a Lance fan at all but the snarky tone of this is just dumb.

Can't agree. I thought the tone was just right!

disgraced former seven-time Tour de France winner also shared his own unique set of tips for staying safe while cycling, including seeking out traffic-free routes on Strava and even avoiding roads altogether by riding a gravel or mountain bike

Avatar
mdavidford | 6 days ago
1 like

Quote:

Another Armstrong-patented road safety tip focused on using modern technology to seek out the most bike-friendly routes

I know he's been famously arrogant and litigious, but surely even he doesn't have the gall to attempt to patent that?

Avatar
Miller | 6 days ago
4 likes

Armstrong for once sounding a bit more human. His advice can be debated but for myself, recently with a new commute, I am using an off-road section and a short, very quiet pavement section to get me away from traffic. So I don't think he's far off the mark.

Pages

Latest Comments

 
Logo

Looks like your ad blocker is on.

×

We rely on ads to keep creating quality content for you to enjoy for free.

You can subscribe to road.cc to support us and turn off ads for good

Continue without supporting us

Choose your Ad Blocker

  • Adblock Plus
  • Adblock
  • Adguard
  • Ad Remover
  • Brave
  • Ghostery
  • uBlock Origin
  • uBlock
  • UltraBlock
  • Other
  1. In the extension bar, click the AdBlock Plus icon
  2. Click the large blue toggle for this website
  3. Click refresh
  1. In the extension bar, click the AdBlock icon
  2. Under "Pause on this site" click "Always"
  1. In the extension bar, click on the Adguard icon
  2. Click on the large green toggle for this website
  1. In the extension bar, click on the Ad Remover icon
  2. Click "Disable on This Website"
  1. In the extension bar, click on the orange lion icon
  2. Click the toggle on the top right, shifting from "Up" to "Down"
  1. In the extension bar, click on the Ghostery icon
  2. Click the "Anti-Tracking" shield so it says "Off"
  3. Click the "Ad-Blocking" stop sign so it says "Off"
  4. Refresh the page
  1. In the extension bar, click on the uBlock Origin icon
  2. Click on the big, blue power button
  3. Refresh the page
  1. In the extension bar, click on the uBlock icon
  2. Click on the big, blue power button
  3. Refresh the page
  1. In the extension bar, click on the UltraBlock icon
  2. Check the "Disable UltraBlock" checkbox
  1. Please disable your Ad Blocker
  2. Disable any DNS blocking tools such as AdGuardDNS or NextDNS

If the prompt is still appearing, please disable any tools or services you are using that block internet ads (e.g. DNS Servers).

Logo