Cycling: Honest Tour Analysis From a Familiar, Though Hardly Trusted, Voice

If NBC’s broadcast of the Tour de France isn’t making the three-week race must-see TV for you, there’s an online recap show that might be a perfect alternative.

It’s a podcast called “Stages,” and its host is a former Tour rider with years of experience in the race — and an intimate, insider’s knowledge of what unfolds behind the Tour’s closed doors. His analysis is informed and honest and sometimes witty. Often, it is self-deprecating, which might come as a surprise.

The host is Lance Armstrong.

That’s right, the best commentator about the Tour this year might be Armstrong, a hero turned pariah who, for years, denied doping and targeted anyone who accused him of it. But he’s not on the defensive anymore, at least during his audio and video podcasts. He has, at least in cycling terms, absolutely nothing to lose.

In 2012, Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour titles for doping and was barred for life from competing in Olympic sports. He admitted doping and lost his sponsors and his livelihood. But this summer, at 45, he took a giant step back into the public eye — and into his sport — by starting a podcast about this year’s Tour and agreeing to write an accompanying blog for Outside magazine.

In some ways, though, it’s the same old Armstrong: He has not arrived on his knees, begging for acceptance or forgiveness from a sport he sent into turmoil, especially here in the United States, where he brought cycling into the mainstream. He curses and criticizes and challenges old enemies, like longtime Tour director Christian Prudhomme, and he isn’t afraid to say things that other commentators might be too timid to say.

While it can make for interesting listening, not everyone is celebrating his return.

As soon as the podcast appeared online, I received a text from one of his former teammates with a link to “Stages,” with the words: “Less of this.” Some people in cycling just don’t want to talk about Armstrong, or even to see his face anymore. And I agree that it is too soon for Armstrong to march back into the sport as if he and his lies didn’t nearly strangle it.

It’s hard to say, though, what the majority of cycling fans think about Armstrong’s podcast and blog. Commenters on Outside’s Facebook page are overwhelmingly anti-Armstrong, saying they are disappointed that the magazine gave Armstrong a platform. More than a few people said they were canceling their subscriptions. Still, lots of people gave the podcast post a Facebook thumbs-up.

Christopher Keyes, vice president and editor of Outside, told me last week that he and his fellow editors expected their choice to be controversial, but he said they partnered with Armstrong anyway after hearing his weekly podcast, “The Forward,” in which Armstrong interviews guests about music, politics and other subjects unrelated to cycling. Outside is not paying Armstrong for his blogging, Keyes said.

“To be honest with you, we just fundamentally believed that he would have some really great insights about the Tour just based on his own experiences,” Keyes said, explaining that this wasn’t the first time a disgraced figure returned to the spotlight to speak publicly about an area of expertise.

“Even Nixon became a valuable talking head on NBC talking about foreign policy,” Keyes said.

In sports, though, forgiveness seems to come especially easy these days. Fallen heroes like Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire are back in the embrace of the major leagues. The luckiest of the bunch, inexplicably, are rewarded for their insolence with high-profile TV jobs.

Alex Rodriguez, a player who sullied baseball by lying about his performance-enhancing drug use, is now a network analyst. During the playoffs last year, he had a role alongside Pete Rose. And it turns out, no matter their baggage, both are pretty great at chatting about baseball.

So Armstrong fits right in. And some people love that.

Over the past few weeks, a lot of people have listened to “Stages,” so many that the podcast made its debut this month on the U.S. iTunes charts at No. 10. Keyes said that Armstrong’s blog had been good enough and that he would consider inviting him back for next year’s Tour.

By then, though, Armstrong may need to ask for a paycheck.

Armstrong, who didn’t respond to several interview requests over the past week, is scheduled to go to court in November in a federal whistleblower lawsuit that could cost him as much as $100 million. The government contends Armstrong and his team defrauded the government in signing a sponsorship contract with the U.S. Postal Service that included an anti-doping clause when they knew the team was doping.

If nothing else, Armstrong seems to be trying very hard to reconnect with the public. It could be an effort to redefine himself, if he has finally figured out that it’s necessary, or at least to humanize himself before his trial.

Or maybe he does just want to leave the past behind, for himself and for his family. He’s a father of five, and in May he proposed to the mother of his two youngest children. If he promotes this new Armstrong, maybe someday people will stop commenting on the Instagram photos he posts of his children’s athletic successes with “They’re probably doping.”

In an interview with Bicycling magazine this month, Armstrong acknowledged that some people would always think that he has no right to insert himself back into cycling.

“I don’t fight that,” he said. “For me to move forward, I have to say, ‘I’m sorry, I understand, but I’m moving on.’”

But the sport has moved on, too, no more weighed down by his negativity and rancor that overshadowed the peloton’s amazing athletic performances. In that way, at least, cycling has been better without him.