133. Levi Leipheimer: dark years, redemption and The Growler

0:00Now, I've always found the hardest thing about filming rides on an action cam is the stopping, starting and the not knowing of recording. Pulling over on a climb to position the camera, you're fiddling with those tiny little buttons and you get to the top and you realise all you've filmed is 90 seconds of your left foot. It's why the Insta360 GO 3S action cam is so good. It's 39 grams, it's thumb size, and it magnetically clips point of view style to your jersey. And it shoots with a bunch of foolproof settings. You can set the Go3S to turn on and record at intervals during a ride. There are a ton of modes, including 4K and super wide angle.

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2:08Welcome back to the Cyclist Magazine podcast. I'm your host, James Spender, and joining me, as ever, down that wire, which is currently going straight into his Bluetooth headphones, completely negating the Bluetooth element of those headphones. It's Mr. Will Strixon. Will, how are you? I'm good. And I will make a disclaimer that that is not for reasons of conspiracy. What? The Bluetooth thing? Yes. Why? Because you're worried about getting hacked by the Chinese? No, I don't mind the Chinese. I tend to think that you get some lag on Bluetooth sometimes, and I want to hear your voice. As I see your mouth moving.

2:45Fair enough. But as you know, Will, the word is not lag. It's latency. And Will knows that because Will is an audiophile and music tech and also musician. And you can find Will on Spotify. And I'm not saying that because he's recently released any music. He hasn't for a long time. But you were nearly signed, weren't you, at one point? There was no signatures, but I had something released by a minor management company record label. Wow. Well, if you write to Will, handwrite that is, if you can track him down, he will give you the name of him, the artist, and you can listen to his tune. Or maybe we'll just play it on here one day.

3:22My latest release is actually the 21st of March, 2025. Wow. Okay. So Will is still banging out those tunes. Dip my toes back into the game. Do you still hope that you'll break through? Well, the problem is that when no one listens to it, I think that would be a bit naive to think that anything would break through of the 10 all-time listens that happen. But, you know, you never know. Fair enough. Fair enough. And don't you get sort of like 0.001 pence for a play on Spotify? It's very, very small. So I think last year, so 2024, I think maybe I made three pounds. Three quid. That's not bad. That's a half pint in some pubs up north.

4:02The year before, actually, I made 30 quid because I think one of them got some kind of radio play in Sweden somehow. Wow. Which was, yeah, it was a really exciting day when I found that I had 30 quid. So you're big in Stockholm. That's kind of cool. Anyway, we should probably move on to our guest. And that guest is none other than Levi Leipheimer. That's a name you will know, I think, for a mixture of reasons. But first off, Levi's kind of Levi facts. He was born in Montana, 24th of October, 1973. Now lives in California, but he turned pro in 1997 for that huge team, Comptel Data Systems. I think we all remember them.

4:44But then he joined US Postal, that seriously big team, or became pretty big deal for, again, a mixture of reasons, where he spent two seasons racing with none other than Lance Armstrong, as well as George Hincapie, Tyler Hamilton and Frankie Andreu and headed up by Johan Bruniel. Again, that is a cast of people with interesting histories in cycling and that interesting history eventually caught up with Levi and what we're talking about is doping and Levi was part of the investigation by USADA which led to Armstrong ultimately admitting that he had been doping for his broadly all of his career that was a difficult time um i think for all of those riders uh from that team and around that era and we talked to levi really candidly about that he is very open uh it's a difficult subject and i'm not saying that because we should try and tread lightly around people who have cheated but i'm saying it as you know he's a human being and that was a dark time and he's come through it and i think he's come through it by being honest and transparent and stuff.

5:49So got to really rate that. And yeah, like it or hate it, it is a very interesting time for cycling, the late 90s, early 2000s. Anyway, let's not get too dark about it. We can do that later. Levi had also an amazing career, US national champ in 1999 as a time trialist. And then in 2000 on the road, he rode to bronze at the 2008 Beijing Games in the time trial, won the Tour of California, three years on the trot, the Tour de Suisse in 2011, plus a team time trial stage. Yeah, I can't even say that one. That's why they don't do it anymore. The team time trial stage of the Tour de France and two Veltra Espana stages.

6:30So Levi's still got his hand in the game and his big contribution cycling at the moment is Levi's Gran Fondo. And there's a pro race attached to that, the Gran Fondo itself, which is the amateur event that's been running for 16 years and counting. The pro race is more recent. That's called the Growler. You might have seen that advertised on Instagram. It had really good coverage on YouTube. And it's touted as the toughest one-day race in North America. 220 kilometers, 4 ,200 meters of climbing. And it took place this year on the 19th of April and was won in the men's category by Keegan Swenson and in the women's Laura Stevens.

7:10And they get 25 grand each,$25 ,000, which is twice what you get for winning a Tour de France stage. So well done, Levi. Well done, organizers, for actually remunerating the riders. And that's his big thing. We talk about it as well, which is there was the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, similar races like that in America. There is just not anymore. So Levi is trying to put some pro races back on the calendar and actually give people a decent chunk of money if they win them. So for the Growler, there was a$156 ,000 prize purse, which is massive. And it was also, I think, the first long-distance race broadcast in the States since the Tour of California, which stopped in, I'm going to say, 2019.

7:53So there we go. We can look that one up afterwards. So it's been a long time since there's been that level of pro-race coverage in the States. So long way that continue. But before we find out about future plans for that race, Let's welcome Levi to the show and he can tell us himself.

8:14Levi's Gran Fondo. Tell us more about that. That's something that's been going for, I think, 16 years as a kind of amateur event. And then this year, the first year that you've had a pro race with huge prize pot as well called the Growler. How did you manage to get that off the ground? Because I'm assuming, as you just said, money and the funding is difficult. And therefore, what drove you to do it? Because again, I guess it wasn't a walk in the park. You had to really work at it. So you must have been very passionate for a reason. Well, yeah, I've been very passionate about the Grandfather from day one.

8:51I guess I would have to start from the beginning to put it all into context. So it was one week after I won the Tour of California for the third time, I had this idea to bring a grand fondos, you know, the popular grand fondos in Italy to bring one to the US. Because I was always mesmerized when I saw the photos of the Maratona Dolomiti, I think it is called, where it's 10 ,000 people climbing this sinuous switchbacky pass and the Dolomites. I just thought it was so cool to have that many people on the road. It was really electric. And when we started the grand fondo, it just was an instant success because it was a new format, shiny new event in the US.

9:32We're in Sonoma County, which is an hour north of San Francisco and the Bay Area, big metropolitan area. Tons of people ride bikes there. Northern California is one of the best places to ride a road bike. And we just have this amazing route. We actually have, we kind of have endless options in Sonoma County. There's tons of roads. And that's why I moved there to become a professional. It was just the ultimate playground for training. Just beautiful, you know, small routes through the redwoods and the rolling oaks and the vineyards and steep, gnarly climbs and really long climbs. The ocean, Highway 1, we just have it all.

10:08So it was an instant success. And my motivation was to sort of pay it back slash forward for all of the people that helped me in my career as a professional athlete. You know, you're pretty like self-centered and you're focused on yourself and it takes a village. Like so many people helped me in my path to success. And I was kind of always looking for ways to pay it forward to others who didn't have those opportunities like I did. I always felt pretty lucky in life. So my idea was let's create this, you know, like really well-produced mass participation cycling event that was, it kind of blurred the lines between competition and recreation.

10:49People could approach the Grand Fondo in any way they wanted. You see it in Italy. There's professional teams built around Gran Fondos and competing in Gran Fondos at that level. And that's all they do. And then there's people, they just want to finish the route. It's the biggest, hardest day they've ever had on a bike. And it's all great. And it's all equally worthy. And everybody has an amazing experience. And starting everyone together is just a really great feeling. For me, it's not the typical high-pressured race scenario. It was just a day to really enjoy the best day on the bike with thousands of people.

11:27And like I said, we had instant success. We had first year was 3 ,500 people. Second year was 5 ,000. Third year was 7 ,500 people. It just, it kind of really blew up. And it started a wave of Gran Fondas in the United States, which, you know, we're pretty proud of that fact. So like I said, it was this mixture of competition and recreation. And we did that until 2023, actually 2022. And then 2023, we realized like, let's start to lean into the creating a sharper, pointier end of this event. And we started with the growler route, which is the biggest route. It's 220 kilometers, 4 ,200 meters of climbing, really tough climbs that are kind of sandwiched in the middle.

12:17The first hour is flat. The last hour is pretty flat. So really tough middle section. So yeah. And then in 2024, last year, we actually had a prize list. We had a big one. We had$56 ,000. So the men, the both men's and women's winner got$10 ,000 each and it went all the way down, I think to fifth or sixth place. And it just sort of picked up momentum. And the thing I would say that I would point to is to why that happened is the first 14 years of putting on this event, imagine 7 ,500 people. We really had to work on our logistics. We work closely with California Highway Patrol, with our county, with the state.

13:00We have moto marshals. We have on-bike marshals. The residents and the private landowners, they know the deal after 15 years of this event going on. And that's what those participants have allowed us to create this race. It really doesn't cost any more to put on the race now than it did before. In fact, we're not, just to be clear, the participants, they're not subsidizing the race. What they're doing by, I mean, the subsidization part is that they have helped us create these processes in order to make it happen. So it just sort of came into existence in that sense. We didn't really envision it from day one.

13:41It's just sort of evolved and we're leaning really hard into it. And one of the things that we realized is we got to get this thing live streamed and we got to live stream it well, because for me, that's what brings the most attention to the event, to our sponsors and our partners and to the athletes. And I really believe that this is a great model to reinvigorate road racing in the US. How, because obviously the time when it started, gravel wasn't what it is now, but it sort of seemed that that format came from the idea of Gran Fondo. So do you think that sort of reverberated in a sense? Because you mentioned that the field this year and last year has been, well, the front of the field, there's a lot of the gravel pros or the mountain bike gravel adjacent kind of people.

14:28So do you think it's sort of the old grandfather that influenced the way that gravel developed and showed that it could be a thing that was successful in America? And then you brought that back with the proof of what gravel has become. Yeah, that's a great question. Recently, I've actually been crediting gravel and giving props to gravel for helping us envision what we're doing now. But I suppose, you know, by you pointing that out, I do realize that that mass participation model, you know, I think maybe gravel, it started as like basically it was a grand fondo on dirt roads, right? Like gravel roads.

15:06but something happened where you saw a lot of retired road pros and probably guys who leaned more on the off-road endurance side like mountain bike marathon. They all kind of came together to start putting a focus on gravel and making a career out of it. And that has definitely progressed the sport and matured the sport. Now we have a UCI Gravel World Championships. Matthew Vanderpoel is a world champion. and it's obviously become a legitimate discipline of cycling. So I do think you're right. I think that that mass participation model was just moved from road fondos to basically gravel fondos.

15:47But that shift in focus at the time when some of the elite riders got involved, I think that created a model, a different kind of model that then we were inspired from because these athletes have learned to be self-sufficient. there's not a lot of team tactics involved because there aren't teams i think i think you'll see that change i think that you will see a lot more teams involved in gravel i think that's just a natural progression man i think it's great so yeah we were able to like hey let's let's apply that back to the fondo with an elite uh level or elite field for the road race and yeah there's some small teams but this this route is like so hard and so technical it almost negates some team tactics do you feel like there's um a kind of wonderful synergy symbiosis parallel whatever the word is with this type of racing which one of the key standout things is that self-reliance of the rider so with the growler there's one supported stop but ultimately you're carrying your own spares.

16:54I don't know how that affected racers. I suspect some people just went, if I flat, I'm out because I'm either at the sharp end or I'm not. But probably for a lot of people, they kept on racing and they fixed stuff on the fly. That's very much like those early Tours de France and World Tours where you have privateer racers, didn't have team tactics. You had people in a way different. You've maybe got someone who's a retired road pro still needing to make a living and they're coming over into gravel and they're looking at big, big purse, other races, if you like, Gran Fondos. Back in those days, you had people trying to, Maurice Garand, first win of the Tour de France.

17:34He was trying to escape being a chimney sweep. So you have people doing it for the money, but they're also people doing it in a real hard roadman style way. And is that something that we should be somehow managing to put more races on like that because it harks back and doing more of that on the road, I'm thinking. Because it harks back to the real roots of the sport, whereas now it's much more a team juggernaut endeavor, isn't it? And budgets win races for teams, as opposed to perhaps individual grit and steel and determination. Well, just to address the last part of what you said, I think the big budgets buy that.

18:12They buy the talent, which, you know, talent's not enough on its own. You have to have talent. You have to have grit, determination. And so that's, you know, the budgets, they get that automatically. But I think when it comes to this self-supported model where, you know, my goal is to make it equal for, for example, you know, Keegan won last year and this year. He's got a teammate. He's got a mechanic. He's got support. You know, there's a bit of a team built there. But then you had Marcus Shelton who he had no teammates. Maybe he had somebody at the neutral zone. I don't know. If he didn't, then we had neutral bottles there for him to grab, maybe carried all of his own nutrition.

18:53I'm trying to level the playing field because when I see a rider like Marcus Shelton, 20 years old, just fantastic ride, like blew everyone away. For me, that makes it all worth it because the point is it lowers the barrier. So we don't have a caravan. You don't have to be on a team, especially if it's registered with the UCI, USA Sideling. and nothing, I don't have anything personal against them. I'm just trying to lower the barrier, lower the cost, and let's shine a light on this talent who has been working hard, has a great day, and then he gets picked up by a team. Like if he goes on to be picked up by EF or Trek, like that just makes it all worthwhile.

19:37And I would be happy if we just stay right there in that level and provide that springboard for the next generation. so yeah for me the gravel model of self being self-reliant that's all about lowering the barrier and leveling the playing field so for you when you were a young rider so you turned pro in 97 i think is that right and you were racing a couple of seasons as an amateur from about 95 what was the springboard that got you into the pro scene which would have been very european centric back then and who were the people that helped who was a levi leapheimer for you or what was a levi's gran fondo style event for you that helped you made those jumps or did they just not exist i mean it was totally different like domestic professional road racing you know which what we'll call like pro continental level or continental level was pretty healthy in the late 90s you know i was on a team called colorado cyclist and then the two years after was on the Saturn team and there was LA sheriffs and, uh, you know, Shackley, a lot of these teams, you know, that are back in the day, it was, it was very competitive.

20:51And that was this, you know, that was the step for me to get to the, to the world tour. So, you know, that level in the U S is, it's just really, it's a shadow of what it used to be. So the growler road race, I can't really think of anything like that in my day. Everything was a USA Cycling or UCI registered race. And you had to be on a team and the team had to find the sponsors. And cycling was much healthier back then. Road cycling was much healthier back then in the US. So how did you manage to break into being a pro? What did you have to do? And when did you sort of do it to get there in those early years?

21:34i'd like to well i kind of did it i guess you could say it was the hard way i don't know it's just the way i did it i i graduated high school in salt lake city utah and there was a pretty decent road scene there and a friend of mine had been to belgium before he was a racer not not like super high level but he'd been there before and he was going back and i was like can i come with you because I want to go to Belgium and just base myself and do as many races as I can because traveling around the US was expensive. And it's like fly to the East Coast, fly back to the West Coast. And I was an amateur.

22:12And I really didn't know what I was doing. But something inside me was like, just go to Belgium and you'll progress the quickest there. And so I spent three seasons. I was living in a hostel, like$7 a day. I didn't have a car. I'd ride my bike to the grocery store. I ride my bike to the bike races and back, but I could race, you know, I mean, termesses in Belgium are like every day of the week and it made me strong. And then I, I got noticed by what was then a brand new U23 program that the UCI had introduced and was on the U23 national team. You know, they took me around the world to some races for a year.

22:53And And then I went to Colorado Cyclists, which was my first, like I said, continental level pro team. So yeah, I didn't really have an amateur team in the US that I rode for. I just went straight to Belgium and kind of dove into the deep end. And I'm really glad I did. Obviously, that was a pretty good, solid time for American cyclists. Obviously, a lot of you joined the peloton. There was obviously a lot in the late 90s, early 2000s. What was the inspiration that got you there in the first place? Was that a family thing or was it, you know, Great Glamond, obviously, pretty big name? Yeah. First and foremost, I think it was my older brother.

23:30I was like 12 years old and I went to watch. He was riding a road bike at the time with his friends. I grew up in Montana, which is just not a popular place to ride a road bike. Now, many people come from Montana who are proficient road cyclists. But for some reason, my older brother at the time and his group of friends, they were like early 20s. They were riding around and I watched him race. And I remember jumping on his road bike after the race. And I'd never ridden a road bike before. I was just blown away how fast that thing was. So fast forward a year later, I got my own road bike, tennis shoes and old Varney sunglasses, but an old bell helmet.

24:12And after two weeks of riding, I was dropping them up the climbs. So I just kind of found what I was good at. I was super passionate about it. And to this day, I still remember exactly where I was sitting when I watched Le Mans win on the Champs -Élysées. So yeah, that was my inspiration. And what was the sort of reception for you in your 20s, an American, rocking up to these Kermesses in Belgium, these really quite brutal races where people were scratching a living as well as trying to win the race, right? You had lots, almost like a version of, I imagine it's like a much more hardcore version of being a waiter.

24:51in Hollywood. You're doing this thing just to keep alive, hoping that you're going to break through, but only a small number of people actually do. There must therefore be a sense of like, you're not really welcome here because it's hard enough for us, let alone you coming all the way over from your country to try and take whatever the tiniest slice of this already quite small pie with not that much future for a lot of people, I'm guessing. I really love the waiter in Hollywood analogy. I'm going to have to steal that. Yeah. You know, I never really thought about it that way. But you're right.

25:27I think, you know, it just comes down to like, how bad you want it? How big is your heart? And I guess I really wanted it because, you know, I was 19, I think the first time I went to Belgium. And, you know, that's, it's, it's kind of a, that's a big deal to go on your own to Belgium and live in a hostel and... Not speak the language, I guess, as well. Yeah, not speak the language. I mean, Belgium, they all speak English. So that was hard. But to credit the wonderful people of Belgium, a lot of people helped me out. They really did. I think they recognized how big of a sacrifice it was, how much courage that took, and how much I loved racing my bike and cycling.

26:08And they appreciated that. And I got a lot of help from people over there. And it was tough. Those Kermess races are almost a different sport. It's not really my my physical capacities aren't really meant for that but you know i figured it out and it the physical aspect and how hard the racing was but then when you start to be competitive and in for the win then you have to figure out the whole game around it you know people would uh they would form alliances or make deals and you had to figure out how to play that game because it's not just the case of you win if you ride fast there's a slight kind of pro wrestling as in ww wcw whatever they call it now element to it isn't there the right rider has to win yeah yeah absolutely i remember the first time that i was like the strongest guy in this kermess and should have won but i clearly got uh ganged up on and i remember the next time i was like feeling super strong and i was like you know what that's not gonna happen again so i attacked like super early and they just couldn't catch me you probably felt pretty good pretty good being in the system at that point are you You were already pro for a couple of years.

27:17I think you won the national time trial in 1999, didn't you? But then you joined US Postal in 2000, which was the year after Armstrong's first sort of runs. That must have felt like, as an American going into US Postal at that time, pretty big. What was that feeling like for you in that environment of cycling at that time? It was a big step up. Mostly just mentally, it was such a big step up. You're like, do I really belong here or not? and just working super hard and like kind of feeling like you're treading water. But the first year, my first year was 2000 with US Postal and it went pretty well.

27:55I remember I got like seventh in the old Midi-Leib stage race, Languedoc-Roussillon, I think it is still around, if I'm not mistaken. And then by the end of the year, I won a time trial, Franco-Belge time trial. So yeah, I just kept my head above water. And it was overwhelming because Lance was, he won the tour the second time and just all, everything revolved around him. And it's almost like I was on a separate team really, because it was like a secondary program. But I made the best of it. And I remember I had a one-year contract and the end of that year, I guess I, after that year, I found my footing and I was pretty confident of my abilities.

28:39even though I had far from shown myself, I could feel inside like, I think I can achieve this. I remember when it came time to sign a new contract that year, the end of 2000, Tyler Hamilton had won the Dauphiné that year in 2000. He and Lance were first and second. And I don't know what it was, but I went into the room with the manager at the time and we were negotiating, not really negotiating because I didn't really have much to stand on, but I was in there to sign a new contract. And I remember telling him, I think I can win races like the Dauphiné someday. And his response was, he later admits this, that it was less than ideal.

29:21He tried to put me in my place and that only fueled the fire that much more. And I think it was a year later where they sent me to the Vuelta and Roberto Jarras was on the team and he had won in 2000 on a different team, but he came to US Postal in 2001. We went there and fast forward, I land on the podium in Madrid. It was a time trial last day and I bumped him off the podium and I jumped to third. And I signed a contract with Robobank for a couple of years after that. And I remember the manager came to me and he apologized. He said, I shouldn't have said what I did. And I was like, it has been really inspirational to watch my vision be carried through, I guess.

30:05Was that manager, Johan Brunel, Is that what you're talking about? No, it was not. Care to deliver the name to us or will they forever remain the manager? I don't think he would mind. I mean, as long as I tell the story that he came and recognized that he was wrong in what he said, and he was very happy for me and my success, and it was Mark Gorski. Okay. So in a weird way, that was actually, this put down was your fire, or one of many fires, I'm sure, lit underneath you, but you've now got a reason to prove people wrong and to go and podium at the Velta, get a bigger and better contract at Rabobank.

30:45And I'm assuming at that point, so that's 2002 season, you start racing with Rabobank, then you're thinking, you're looking at GC, which is something that you go on to. I think you end up with four top tens at the Tour de France. including a third finish. And you're on the trajectory, right? You're on that course. Did you feel that you were supported in doing that at Rabobank? Did you feel like you got, in the subsequent teams, you really got bites of that cherry? Oh, absolutely. I mean, from day one, Rabobank was like super supportive. You know, it felt like, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's a lot of pressure.

31:28Compared to feeling like you're sort of secondary to another team with the postal situation. Exactly, exactly. And I'd never done the Tour de France, but they were like, we're going to ride for you at the Tour de France. Eric Decker, Michael Bogert, these people that I've looked up to before I even got to Europe, all of a sudden they're riding for me. And Michael Bogert was super supportive and really sacrificed himself in the Tour de France for me. And it was just, it was surreal. but you know you just like i have to do this i have to do the best i can and i got eighth in my first tour and they were happy about that and i was obviously happy about that i think for your first tour of france that's pretty great so yeah rob bank was super supportive and how did it feel leaving sort of that american team that one that you know you said it was such a that big moment how did it feel going and then opposing them and was there any sort of feeling from the riders that you were riding with like the american guys you're with on u.s postal now that you were racing against them no it it was it was all good in fact um johan you know he was he was there in that 2001 vuelta when i got third and he helped facilitate the move to robobank because he had ridden for robobank in his career was great friends with uh i think at the time i was teo de roy was the team director of robobank and he was super supportive of me leaving you know lance was just starting his domination.

32:54It was pretty clear that they had their program and it just all made sense. It was a much better path for me to go there. And then when you're doing so well at the Vuelta, you said that your line was you could win races like the Dauphiné. Do you sort of feel like you're surpassing even your own dreams at that point? What do your own expectations and goals move to? Yeah, I mean, that was a big step up to be third in the Vuelta. and it would take me, I think, a couple of years to repeat that level of success. I mean, eighth in the tour is, we could argue about what third Nebuelta is as compared to the Tour de France, but I think eighth in my first tour was in that zone, maybe not quite the same level, but I definitely feel like, okay, I proved myself that I can repeat this.

33:47And then I had a couple of difficult years. Well, yeah, 2003, I crashed out. 2004, I came back and I think I was eighth or ninth. I can't remember. Then I moved on to Gerolsteiner where then I was in fifth, literally, as we came to the line at the Champs -Élysées, but Vinny Vunokurov won the stage and got a time bonus and moved me to six. So it's difficult when you have success, a big jump in success. Usually, and I see it a lot with riders, it takes time to be able to repeat that every time. And you went on to Astana a couple of years later. Did you have any beef with Vunokurov then? I mean, you took my top five.

34:31What are we doing? No. You may have forgotten, but in 2007 is when Astana imploded in the 2007 tour and he and Kosheshkin were kicked out. It was the following year when Johan and the management took over the sponsorship from Astana. So Vino wasn't part of the team when I went there.

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37:06So when you do go to Astana, and then not too long after, your Earthwell teammate Lance Armstrong shows up coming out of retirement, what's going through your head at that point? And what's the buzz in the peloton? Are you thinking, this guy's crazy? what's his justification for it what what was what was the feeling around that at the time for you in your new team seeing this guy come back yeah i remember um i don't know which day it was but i remember it was a day in the 2008 vuelta and alberto and i were we were dominating first and second we ended up first and second i won two stages i think he won two stages and um there all of a sudden there was this rumor that lance was coming back and i remember both alberto and i went to johan and we're like what's going on and johan was he was uh he didn't give us a clear answer which then right then and there i knew like okay he must be coming back if he if he's not going to say no and i i don't think alberto was happy about it and then i was like kind of wondering, how is this going to work?

38:14Alberto and I, we just got first and third in the tour the year before. He wins the Giro. Now we're first and second in the Vuelta. This seems kind of crowded is what I was thinking. And here's the guy who won the tour seven years in a row coming back. I definitely felt like, okay, Alberto, he was obviously better than I was. His track record, his resume, I felt like I was going to get bumped. And then we had Andreas Clodin as well. So it was really complicated. And in 2009, things did get complicated in the Tour de France. And what did Armstrong say to you when you said, dude, what are you doing here?

38:52What was his rationale for coming back? So I've heard there's various stories, one of them being that he was so apoplectic with rage that Carlos Sastra could possibly win Grand Tours that he just said, I have to come and sort this lot out. Yeah, that's true. He did say that. I don't know if it's, you know, I wouldn't label it as rage, but he was definitely like, come on, really? Sastra wins a tour? I mean, Sastra's a great bike rider. I'm not going to agree with him on that. But I do remember, you know, meeting him later in 2008 and he was kind of grilling me about Alberto. Like, you know, what's this guy like?

39:29And how good is he? And I remember saying something like, Like, yeah, Alberto's got, you know, he's obviously a huge engine, really talented, had a lot of fire, like really just a lot of grit. And Lance just was like, oh, we'll see, you know. Which, I mean, obviously that's not great to have within the team, but, you know, Lance, he's maybe the fiercest competitor that I've ever seen, so it is what it is. How does that feel for you then? And you say it's get crowded and you'd had your chances over the years. Did you feel again that you were maybe slipping back down to a B team? Or do you think, no, this guy's retired.

40:08I can, you know, brush him off. I mean, I was in the middle of a contract. So just the only thing I could do was focus on myself and work as hard as I could. And, you know, 2009, both Alberto and I started the year off flying. He wins Peronis. I went tour of California. I won Castile-Leon. I was fourth in the Giro. things looked really good. And then we went into tour and yeah, it was complicated. We won the team time trial. Alberto smashed the first mountain stage. We were sitting first, third, fourth, fifth between Alberto, Lance, myself, and Cloden. I ended up crashing out. I was actually trying to help Alberto move up on a flat stage in the last 5K.

40:54And I looked behind to see if he was still on my wheel and all of a sudden there was a turn coming. and I missed it and I hit the curve and broke my wrist. But I think as everyone knows or remembers from that tour, things got complicated between Lance and Alberto. And how did the team, and particularly team management, handle that? Because I imagine that Armstrong at that point in his life kind of almost figured himself to be a manager of sorts too, despite the fact he's under contract. Or was he competing for free at that point? I forget. But he's ostensibly in an employee situation, but I rather suspect he feels like he kind of runs the show.

41:31How does that all work out politics-wise? It was ambiguous. I actually think... I mean, technically, I think he was an owner in the team. Okay. So, you know, salary or not, that didn't really matter. It was the fact that, you know, he's won the Tour de France the most. He was obviously still physically really strong. But in the end, you know, Alberto, he was better. I think that the few years that Lance took off the bike, it's just a lot to come back from. If you're not on top of it, training and racing, it's really hard to come back from that, even for the guy who's won the tour the most. And obviously, there's that big elephant in the room, which is what Lance was doing at US Postal and had been doing for a large part of his career, doping, which you knew about and other people in the peloton would have known about too what's that other feeling when he comes back is everyone just like you are just putting yourself in the firing line ready to be actually finally caught did he think you think everyone think he's got away with it and then he comes back and go and then you kind of think this guy is really chancing his arm here yeah i mean it's easy to um look back on with 2020 hindsight i don't know if we really thought that at the time you know he wasn't around when obviously the doping existed.

42:56It was very prevalent in the 90s and 2000s. Well, throughout this history of cycling. But in 2008, when the biological passport was introduced, from my experience, I think that had a big effect on cycling. And he was retired at the time. And I don't know. I can't really answer that question for him. But I saw things change from 2007 started to 2008. so i actually don't i don't personally know anything of what he did like i didn't see anything he never really told me anything concrete we obviously know he did i mean you know i still maintain that doping aside he you know that's that was part of it then and he still won those tour de frances so after that i can't really comment on what's happened and i i believe that cycling is a lot cleaner these days i i you know in my day there was like there was smoke everywhere and obviously there were big fires as well when it came to doping and i think the science was behind the eight ball then and it's just you know cycling has had this hundred year history of of quote-unquote doping when even when it wasn't even considered doping it was like part of it openly discussed you know what products that people were taking that's before my time but it was just so ingrained in the sport and it was this it's like this huge titanic of a ship that has to course correct and it it takes time and uh nowadays you don't you don't even see any smoke so i hope that you know the fires that my generation had to go through i hope that has helped course correct that ship i was wondering because we've um had tyler hamilton on the podcast before and his situation with so i'm sure lots of listeners are aware but Tyler Hamilton, writer of The Secret Race, a book that effectively reopened the Armstrong case in a big way, directly pointing many fingers at everything that was going on.

45:01And then that spills into lots of investigations that ends up with Armstrong being banned and ejected from the sport in the way he was. Talking to Tyler, that was such a mental toll for him. And he didn't offer it up as like, you know, pity me. He's just saying it was a shit time. Because I came into the sport, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, wanting to be the best that I could be. And then found out this is what everyone was doing and had an option to not do it. But that just didn't seem like an option. Did it. And then had to live with this. Going home and having friends and family congratulate me for race results and feeling kind of, in his words, sort of hollow inside.

45:42And I wonder, yeah, how that played out, those years played out for you. Do you identify with those sorts of feelings? Oh, absolutely. That totally resonates. I like to tell a story, you know, like I told you before when I started riding with my older brother and his friends. The first year I got on a bike was 1987 and I had a VHS tape of the battle between Stephen Roach and Pedro Delgado and I watched that tape every day. Every single day I watched that Tour de France. So much that the tape turned to snow and I couldn't even view it anymore. So I was absolutely just head over heels in love with cycling.

46:16and uh you know fast forward i guess it would be uh that was 87 you fast forward like 10 12 years and i'm starting to make my way up the ranks and about to move to europe with u.s postal and it's become more and more clear to me you know through media and through my own interactions and and talking to other riders what's happening at the top not even the top level of sport really throughout the sport. I mean, you know, I went to Belgium as a, as an amateur racing these and I saw it there. So it takes like years and years where you change your perspective to be like, well, this is just part of it.

46:57And that being in that situation, it's, it's a rock and a hard place because I don't think any 13 year old who watches the tour de France every day on a VHS tape is dreaming about taking performance-enhancing drugs. It's not something you even think about. And it's not a decision that I would want that 13-year-old kid to have to make. But like I said, you're between a rock and a hard place. And it didn't feel like a decision at the time. And so I did the best I could in those circumstances. And it's taken me a long time to be able to say that. After 2012 and the whole you saw it a reasoned decision and that whole, I mean, probably the biggest fire the sport has ever seen.

47:43I felt quite small because the world of cycling and the fans came down pretty hard on us. And I felt like they saw it as black and white and it was definitely not black and white. It was super gray, super complicated. And I really do believe everybody did the best they could from myself to Tyler to Vinokurov to Lance. you know, everybody's different and they're, they've gone through life with a different path. And some of us have tools that others don't, and everybody's just trying to find their way. And, um, that system was bigger than any one rider, that a hundred year history of, of doping and the culture that existed in cycling was so ingrained that it just one rider couldn't do anything about it.

48:29And it just took these outside forces, uh, you know, who knows what to help course correct the sport, which I mean, I have to believe this has happened. When it sort of felt like it was all about to come out or was in the process of coming out, obviously you were probably pretty confident that it was going to seem black and white to the public. Was there any part of you that felt relieved that the truth would finally be known? That's complicated. I mean, I can't even really speak to my emotions at the time because it was overwhelming. And I just didn't have the ability at the time to speak about it the way I do now.

49:10It's taken a long time to process and I guess articulate, for lack of a better word. Words are kind of tough to really give someone else the experience of what all that was like, but super complicated, extremely gray. Nobody's all bad. Nobody's all good. We're a mixture of many experiences and things. And I don't know. That's the best I can explain it. So do you think, obviously, with the stuff that's happened to cycling in America after that, obviously not entirely related to that, but would have had a knock-on effect to how cycling was viewed generally. But do you think the fact that the popularity of the sport re-emerging through gravel makes it easier for people to take it on because it feels so different to what USA Cycling and what it was known for was back then.

50:02I mean, to understand what you're asking, do you think that that whole episode affected road cycling in the US? Do you think that, is that what you're asking? Yeah, and as a result, do you think that it's helped with the re-emerging popularity? That's more because people see it as a separate thing because of gravel emerging on the side, completely unrelated to like road tour de France. I think it's fair to say that that's part of the equation. I don't know if that's everything or even the largest part, but I think it's fair to say that that obviously had an impact on cycling worldwide and definitely cycling in the US because Lance was the poster boy for cycling in the United States.

50:43Everyone walking down the street has heard the name of Lance Armstrong and now they know the story. And so I'm sure that had an effect, yeah. Do you look at riders of that era, particularly teammates, and think there's another, and I'm now massively projecting, I imagine being in your shoes or maybe Christian Vanderbilt's shoes or Dave Zabriskie's shoes, people who testified as part of USADA's court case were handed six-month bans, had retroactive action taken on results that were then annulled. There's that sense of where are those guys now? I'm sure wherever they are, they're doing their thing and I hope they're happy and life continues.

51:29But somehow this Lance Armstrong guy, Teflon coated, runs this huge podcast. He's got George Hincapie and Johan Bruniel with him to George Hincapie, one of his lieutenants and mates. And Bruniel, on some level, massively complicit in all of this, if not orchestrating lots of it, I'm sure he'll have his own reasons. Is there this ongoing injustice where you kind of think like, how have those guys managed to keep high profile careers in cycling? And then the people who those guys in a way kind of kept down because they weren't able to do the winning because it was all done by one bloke. You take the flack.

52:11You get dismantled kind of publicly and have to rebuild yourselves privately. Was there a sense of injustice in that when you think about it? I'd never, I'm not sure. again that's for me that's a little black and white i mean i imagine that lance i mean he he took the most flack of everybody he's the most polarizing there is and the fact that he has a podcast that um is doing well i just shows that people want to hear what he has to say so it is what it is i mean i don't know right i guess i just have to think about that some more and then And conversely, there's this part of me, and I feel as soon as I say this, we're going to get comments saying, how dare you say this, you're a cycling journalist.

52:57But is there something in scandals like Armstrong, like Operation Puerto, like Festina, which somehow cycling needs in a way? It's that, you know, the one thing worse than not being talked about at all. Sorry, than being talked about is not being talked about at all. and cycling has got this cloak and dagger, always has done side of it. It's got suffering out on the road. It's got politics. It's got behind the scenes deals, whether that's a commesses in Belgium or whether it's people trading stages at the Tour de France in the 60s or whatever it is. And in a way, as much as we all hate to say it, scandal is intrigue and intrigue is wider popularity.

53:41I've said this before. My mom knows much more about cycling because of Lance Armstrong being in regular newspapers than she ever would have done if that hadn't have happened. And is there this horrible, icky feeling that it's got this strange overall benefit to put cycling on the map in a way that if it was without it, it just wouldn't have that, I wouldn't say popularity, but that reach? My answer is kind of, I think, would reframe that a little bit. I think that, I mean, there's so many beautiful things about the sport of cycling. The fact that man versus man, man versus nature, I mean, riding up these beautiful roads in the Alps and the Pyrenees, or whether it's in Sonoma County at the Growler, it's just visually stunning, right?

54:27And the multicolored peloton. But then you start to add in tactics, different riders' abilities, and how all that plays into effect in the race and within a team. And then you've got the history of the sport, which is interpersonal, between teams, scandals. And it's so complex and so rich that I think if you were to sort of take that 30 ,000-foot view and step back a little bit, yeah, of course, like if you focus in on certain scandal here and there, it's pretty dirty and pretty murky and you can get lost in that. But if you step back and you look at the sport as a whole and the history and the experience and how it has shaped the sport, I think it becomes quite beautiful because you have to take it all in.

55:14You have to take the good with the bad. We lived through some less than beautiful parts of the sport. But to me, that makes the beautiful parts that much more beautiful. It's contrast. So yeah, cycling, it's all out on the table. I mean, we can talk about the bruises and the flowers all at once. So, you know, it's not tightly controlled as far as what gets shown the world. Like, I think some sports are. Come in, sort of bring it back around on a more sort of lighter note. But what do you think a character and a rider like Keegan Swenson does for the popularity of cycling in America? obviously pretty dominant on the gravel scene a couple of years ago then he comes you know wins a road race levi's do you think he could and should be trying out european world tour racing or do you think him being at the top of u.s gravel is where he's supposed to be yeah it's funny because i just kind of had this conversation with him behind the podium uh last week and i've been wondering that myself i i said to him like do you do you want to don't you want to go to the world tour?

56:25Because I mean, selfishly, I think he's, I think he could be winning races in the world tour. I mean, he's, he's got an engine. He's a smart bike rider. He knows how to be patient and capitalize on the moment. And he's obviously can handle his bike really well. So he has all of the ingredients to be a great world tour rider. You know, and he said to me, he's like, I've looked around. He said, I make a good living here doing what I'm doing in the US. And these teams don't want to pay me what I want. And I can understand, you know, He's got to move to Europe. There's sacrifice involved. And ultimately, I think he would have to sacrifice a bit of a paycheck to get his foot in the door and prove himself over there.

57:05And now I think he's 30. So as we see, World Tour Cycling is really focused on a younger and younger age group. And I think he loves to ride his bike in the dirt. He loves gravel riding. He loves endurance mountain bike races. It's what he's good at. So I think he's great for U.S. cycling because he's someone for the younger generation to look up to. I think he's a good role model. In fact, I know for a fact that he sort of reprimanded a rider for littering at our race last week, which I applaud. That's a great way to be an example. So yeah, he's good for U.S. cycling. It's maybe different than being able to watch somebody compete for victory in the Tour de France.

57:50But we need Keegan Swenson in the U.S. So, yeah, he's great for cycling in the U.S. Yeah, I suppose American cycling the world tour is also in a pretty good place with, you know, Matteo Jorgensen's doing all right, to say the least, and Nielsen Paulus beating, well, Van Aert in the classics. That's a pretty good day out. But also, you know, Keegan, I think he got, was he, sixth in the gravel worlds a couple of years ago when Mohorich won, like, finishing alongside Val Verde, you know. If he can turn up to a UCI World Championship every year and show where his level is. I think that probably legitimizes in the worldview what the level of US gravel is.

58:27Because obviously there's a kind of thing like retired road pros. Is it the same level, but what he kind of shows that it is. I found that quite interesting. I watched Swenson and Alexi Vermeulen's little podcast, The Cool Down, and he did the Gran Fondo on 32 mil tyres, because I was talking about that setup. But I think that's quite interesting having that gravel and off-road mindset going into a road race. Whereas in the World Tour, you ride what you're given by the team, obviously with like Rubez's choices. But having that more of an individualistic, okay, I'm actually, I don't know this descent, so I'm going to go for 32 tyres, still win the race.

59:06I feel like it's quite refreshing from a road point of view to have that freedom. I mean, Keegan, for example, like a lot of the contenders at the Growler last week, Like, you know, they're sponsored athletes. They have their equipment sponsors. I don't see it much different than UAE at the Tour de France, where, you know, they've got a choice of tire size and even different bikes that they can use, different wheels. And it's the same for him. And, you know, he's ridden the Growler two times now. I know he's done a lot of recon on it. And 32 mil tires. I mean, first of all, these roads are really, they have a lot of character.

59:44And something that I really love about Sonoma County is what I like to call a single track for the road bike. So a 32 mil tire with low pressure is the ideal setup because the descents are fast, but they're rough. And you need a lot of rubber on the road. That's what I thought was quite interesting about that, actually. So he obviously was thinking about it just from a list that he's thinking about the roads. but then it sort of seemed like and this might be making assumptions but alexi had gone for narrow a more like classic road race setup and obviously having him having previously raced at that level i wondered whether that was keegan coming from sort of an independent fresh mind think about as a race rather than like this is a road race yeah well and also the fact that you're self-supported i would say you want to err on a bigger tougher tire so you don't flat because if you flat, you're out of it, right?

1:00:39And I don't want anyone to lose the race because of a mechanical or a flat. So that's what makes, for me, it makes it so great is that you better pick your equipment correct. And I would err on the side of durability and whatever is going to get you through without a flat. So 32 millimeter tire that is not a super lightweight casing, that's the way to go. So lastly, thinking about equipment then, ending on a high what's the thing that you would save from a fire memorabilia equipment kit wise from your pro career i'm assuming it's not going to be a 23 mil tub because let's face it they ain't gonna they ain't gonna win you the growler uh that's a good question um i have my olympic medal like next to my bed because beijing yeah from beijing and and specifically it's crazy you asked that question because I had my house burn eight years ago now.

1:01:38I had a house burned down. I wasn't in the house. I was actually out of it. Was this California fires reason? Yeah. Oh, man. Sorry. So I keep my metal next to my bed so that I can grab it. Great stuff. Well, Levi, thank you so much for joining us on the Psychist Magazine podcast. It's been a real pleasure. And also appreciate you talking candidly about some darker times, I know that's not always easy and it's personal stuff and you've been through a lot. So really appreciate that. And loved watching some of the highlights of the Growler. And that'll be back next year. That was on the 19th of April this year.

1:02:18So I'm assuming it'll be on a weekend, not dissimilar, next year, 20th or something. April 25th, 2026. Brilliant. And hopefully more coverage on YouTube, even bigger and better event. And yeah, I hope to see you riding it actually because you've been doing some gravel races, I noticed, on pro cycling stats. So get yourself in there. Get yourself in the mixer. I'm sure you've still got the engine. I would love to, but somebody has to hold down the fort during the day. I mean, I've got a great team to work with, but I'm really enjoying being on this side of this event and curating it to be a bit like a world tour race, but also like a big gravel race.

1:03:00It's fun to create something totally new and innovate for what's going on in the United States right now. Fantastic. Good stuff. And I think we could probably learn a few things over here because, yeah, didn't get onto it, but podcast another day. The dwindling, the sad demise of the British cycling scene. But hey, it all comes around. Nothing new under the sun. Exactly. I think we're just in a – it ebbs and flows. So, yeah. Thanks for having me, you guys. Levi Lightheimer, ladies and gentlemen, like I said at the top of the show, some really candid stuff on his involvement in some of cycling's darkest of times.

1:03:40So I'm really thankful. I think we're really thankful for him sharing that. Like I say, it's not about letting people off the hook or giving people an easy ride, but it is, I think, about respecting people for coming forward and being honest about past misdemeanors. So I point you actually to one of our early episodes, which we might put out again with Tyler Hamilton, where we discussed that same time. Tyler was a teammate of Levi's and Armstrong's. And again, I mean, Tyler was the number one whistleblower, but then people like Levi Leipheimer followed with testimonies that helped convict Armstrong.

1:04:15So, I mean, Will, it's one of those thorny topics. If you're still listening, listeners, why not? Let's go there. Should we forgive ex-dopers? I think it's a difficult one, obviously. I think it's different in, I guess, the time that we're talking about to say you live in a clean era and someone dopes and wins something against clean riders. If you go by the consensus that everyone was doing it, it's a lot more of a gray area, I think. Yes, I think that is true. And as alluded to by Wiggins on this podcast a couple of weeks ago, I think lots of riders of that era who weren't doping look at people who were, and they're not necessarily as quick to condemn as perhaps the press or people condemn in retrospect, which is interesting, because they should, because those people are cheating those other non-dopers out of potential victories.

1:05:15but they're just saying look that was cycling and for most people if you can't beat them join them and join them is exactly what they did so yeah still going to be will it ever not be a thorny subject will it ever not be a subject in cycling that's my other kind of question are we always going to be in this shadow i think part of what makes it difficult is that because of how big armstrong was and how big the fall was and even even before he was he came out cycling became known as the doping sport and I think that's what makes it so difficult for a lot of cycling fans to accept or let back in or acknowledge these riders because that's the sport you love, it's the sport you want to do you want to race and it's become known as a cheater sport and that's not obviously what you want even though doping's been in cycling a lot longer than Lance Armstrong.

1:06:07Indeed, I'm really sorry man, I'm going to have to pause there because there's some wheels coming which I've been waiting for for ages and if the guy goes away I'm screwed so hold that thought

1:06:20it wasn't the wheels at all what was it? there's some coffee, other coffee is available that's moon roasters anyway, little roasters in Hampshire in outer space roasted in outer space, roasted on the Elon Musk's exploding rocket so where were we? we might just leave all of that in for a real sort of breaking of the fourth wall for those and hilarious showreel blooper. Yeah, talking about doping, I think. We were talking about doping and you had said... Well, slightly moving on from that last thing, I think it's one of those things where you have to think about it, like what would you do in that situation?

1:07:00And I think that the majority of people, if you're a turning pro, you're a young person, you're following your dream, you then get told that everyone is doping to continue with this career, to continue with your dream, you're going to have to dope. I think it takes a very strong person to then say no and turn away. It does. I think it probably does. Especially when you're likely, what, 17, 18, 19, 20. You're young. And we are just talking about men at this point in time, really, just because women's cycling is so underrepresented. You're a young bloke. And I think you're literally, your brain hasn't actually formed.

1:07:40There's parts of your brain that don't form until your late 20s. I want to say it's like your amygdala, but it's something to do with your decision-making and impulsiveness. And again, not to excuse anybody, but I don't know, I did stupid stuff when I was a kid. So I could kind of, yeah, I can imagine how that works. I don't know if that would be what one would do, but I can imagine how that works. And also, I guess the scrutiny and the fear that you're really doing something absolutely terrible was different then because it hadn't kind of come out. So therefore, there wasn't so much negativity around it.

1:08:17You were just, you kind of probably knew it wasn't great, but then you're just being told, ah, it's fine. We've done this for donkey's years. Especially if you're riding in a team with Lance Armstrong, knowing that, you know, the best rider in the world, one of the most famous cyclists, maybe of all time, is doing it, not being caught. Yeah. And, you know, and this is conjecture, and maybe it's libelous conjecture. But there was, you know, it was not like people in organisations that, let's say, put on races might not have been aware about certain things going on and might not have had people like Lance Armstrong maybe helping them out with a few quid here and there.

1:08:57At the same time, I'm not going to watch his podcast and I'm quite happy seeing him away from the sport. Cool. Well, I guess what saddens me is somehow all roads still lead back to Lance Armstrong so much of the time. I hope that's not just us being, I don't know, not moving on or, you know, I hope it's not particular to this podcast or to cycling media. And it is just something that will be a natural part of things for a while, or it's been a long while. I think considering the time span I had and the age of most of us and most people listening, you can't just block out 10, 15 year span of pro cycling because of that.

1:09:38It's true. Well, Will, on those sagely notes, thank you for joining me and thank you for joining us. Dear listener, we will be back in a couple of weeks. Who knows what guests we might have in store for you, but I can tell you that one of them could be Stephen Roach. We just don't know. And one of them could be Kim LaCourt. We just don't know. We just don't know. So tune in and listen and watch because we're on YouTube now as well. and you know always write in if you've got anything you want to say then yeah you know you can DM Will on X or you can I'm not on it anymore you'd have to do it to the official account well I mean to site yeah you can DM us Cyclist Magazine but you're the guy behind the curtain email address on our website as well you know always an email address on our website as well or you can write to us at our Fleet Street offices in London you can look that up too yeah physical letters are welcome physical letters are more than welcome we did a piece on a guy who wrote to us of the physical letter.

1:10:36And the physical letter was so endearing that we went around his house in Scotland and we interviewed him and did a profile on him. And it was great. So, you know, if that's you, write to us. Okay. All right. See you later.

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