Not bothering with Lance to show up

I know this person who posted this comment on cycling forum elsewhere. She is a generous person and has been a cyclist but due to a surgical malpractice situation she can no longer cycle.

The post is in response to a Lance Armstrong's celebrity show/ride for Livestrong /cancer charity rides.

Most recently, a local area in southern Ontario no longer wants Lance to be there:

would you pay $20,000 to ride with lance?

guys i know paid that much and more.. to raise money for a cancer charity.. a ride with about18-22 guys( all local businessmen) pay lance 400,000 to do this..
this year he was not asked to come.. not because of the allegations.. he is a superstar of cycling no matter what..
but as i was told , because the first years he would arrive the night before and have a dinner with the guys, be put in a big hotel.. etc. all expected..
and he would ride the first 20 or so kms with the guys at a good pace.. but it was after that he would say.. who can keep up with me? and buzz off..
so the next 80 kms were trying to catch him
this is not the tour de france, it was a charity ride.
then he would leave to go to montreal for a bigger charity ride.. for 600,000.
over the years he would start arriving in the am of the ride.. and then say i am only signing two articles, you have to add another charity( livestrong ) to the ride, and then he screwed off on them ... it got to be too much and the guys lost the shine they had for lance.
so this year they had steve bauer, freaking awesome cyclist who i have had an opportunity to ride with. steve will even have a beer with you.. but then.. he is canadian


Guess for Lance Livestrong becomes ...a job or whatever. Anyway it's not really classy behaviour from Armstrong for people who admire him and prepared/trained weeks to ride with him.

I wouldn't pay 2 cents to ride with Lance.

There's probably another side to that story.

But I'm with Malkin, I have no desire to meet or ride with Mr. Armstrong.

I was an Interbike one year many years ago, and of course, Lance was at a booth. He was being paid like many athletes to sign posters etc... There was a shop owner in front of me that wanted Lance to sign an older TRek poster that he had framed and hung in his shop. Lance threw an absolute fit, started yelling at the guy and continued ranting that he was only signing the new posters....ummm both were Trek posters?? At any rate, even though the shop owner was polite and simply explained what he wanted, Lance had him removed with security from the line. When I saw that happen, I and some others simply moved to another line by choice... I don't need or want to have a poster signed by someone with such a large ego and throwing a fit for no apparent reason other than to throw his ego around. The ironic thing was that Eddy Merckx was in the area, saw what was happening, and had a strange look on his face like the rest of us. I got a poster signed by him and his son Axel, and it still hangs in the shop.

I would NEVER pay to ride with Lance, nor buy his book(s) etc... but that's up to everyone else as well.

What I will say that bothers me is Nike has chosen to stand by many athletes that have been in trouble... Lance, Michael Vick etc... it just goes to show that money is worth more than credibility. And even bigger than that since I work in the bike industry is TREK! But again, choices for people to make...

I'm sure Lance has done some nice things for individual fans. But he seems to have some simple judgement problems in certain areas.

I understand that Axel lives somewhere in central British Columbia (or has a 2nd home). He gets on well with the community in his area and have heard positive things in general.

Ryan Leech, a completely different type of pro cyclist is the sort of personnae that I prefer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc0Xf...layer_embedded
Have seen him "perform" and interact with crowds /individuals in person.

The year Greg LeMond won both the Tour and the Worlds, he came to do a roadrace that my LBS was helping out with. He signed a photo for me that was on an inside page of a magazine. No charge.

At every (?) MotoGP event there's a big charity auction for Riders for Health. Various items of riders' autographed memorabilia are auctioned off, the riders make personal appearances to introduce their items, and in most countries the auction brings tens of thousands of dollars. And you know what? After their appearance, almost all the riders come down from the stage and sign autographs for fans. No donation, no charge.

I don't know much about LiveStrong, but I have to think that Lance would do the charity a favor by stepping away from it. Personally, I'm with ridebikeme. Maybe I'd ride with Lance if HE made a donation to MY favorite charity ... certainly not vice versa.