{"id":944263,"date":"2026-10-24T08:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T08:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/944263\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T08:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T08:02:10","slug":"lance-armstrong-has-a-warning-for-the-2027-tour-de-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/944263\/","title":{"rendered":"Lance Armstrong has a warning for the 2027 Tour de France"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lance Armstrong<\/a> himself spent years wondering what the Tour de France route would look like. In his day, it was commonplace for the route to include a fair number of time trial kilometers, but these days that\u2019s quite rare. On his THEMOVE podcast<\/a>, the American shared his thoughts on next year\u2019s Tour de France route<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"tadej-pogacar\"\/<\/p>\n

Lance Armstrong still considers Pogacar the top favourite.<\/p>\n

Lance Armstrong: ‘Get this over with as quickly as possible’<\/p>\n

The stage is set to begin in the United Kingdom. \u201cIt can be rough in northern England in July,\u201d Armstrong points out. \u201cIt can be beautiful there, but it can also be nasty. If I were riding, I\u2019d say to myself: let\u2019s get this over with as quickly as possible and catch the ferry to France.\u201d<\/p>\n

“There\u2019s an awful lot to lose there, and nothing to gain,” Armstrong explains. “Two of those three stages are also more than 200 kilometers long. That\u2019s an X-factor in this Tour de France,” he says, referring to the stages through Scotland, England, and Wales<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll say it now: go watch it\u2014the crowds will be amazing. But I was there in May, and it was so windy. If the weather\u2019s bad there\u2026 some riders won\u2019t make it across the English Channel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"lance-armstrong\"\/<\/p>\n

Lance Armstrong highlights the dangers of the opening stages of the Tour de France.<\/p>\n

Armstrong thinks the Tour de France is pulling some tricks<\/p>\n

Once in France, the \u201clack\u201d of tough mountain stages is striking. \u201cWe\u2019ve talked about it a lot, and we\u2019ve often been frustrated by it: it feels like the Tour falls a little short when it comes to iconic climbs,\u201d says Armstrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to go to Alpe d\u2019Huez every year, but there are about five iconic \u2018Grand Slam\u2019-style climbs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The American thinks that will also limit the attacks. \u201cBack in our day, riders lost four minutes in the team time trial, and we knew they were going to do that. So they had no choice but to go absolutely crazy and stir things up in the mountains. That really livened up the race and made our lives stressful, but it did work for the Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Armstrong says the route won’t matter to Poga\u010dar<\/p>\n

According to Armstrong, the fact that the A.S.O. has mapped out an anti-Pogacar Tour doesn\u2019t matter much.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re trying to change the perception that the race is decided too early.\u201d With this route, I think they\u2019re pulling a bit of a trick: after Stage 7, Remco might have the yellow jersey. Then we get to Stage 18, and Pogacar blows everyone away, and we know it\u2019s over\u2014but at least you\u2019ve waited until that stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"tadej-pogacar\"\/<\/p>\n

Lance Armstrong still considers Pogacar the top favorite.<\/p>\n

Armstrong compares anti-Poga\u010dar sentiment to his era<\/p>\n

“In our day, the route was designed to be ‘Postal-proof.’ You could say that more kilometers of individual time trials are, in theory, better for Remco Evenepoel than for Tadej,” says Armstrong.<\/p>\n

“But people have already tried all those tactics with Tadej; in practice, that theory never works,\u201d he says, referring, among other things, to the 2024 Tour, where Vingegaard was expected to excel on the long, grueling climbs.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Pogacar is, as we’ve said so many times before, the best there’s ever been, and he’s still the best. He\u2019s a five-star favourite, and everyone else is a two-star\u2014maybe Remco is a three. This is Tadej\u2019s race to lose,\u201d said Armstrong,<\/p>\n

The Texan did circle back to his \u201cX-factor\u201d comment about the early stages, though: \u201cI am concerned, though, that bad things could happen in those early stages. It worked out in the past few days, but you still have to get through them.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lance Armstrong himself spent years wondering what the Tour de France route would look like. In his day,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":944264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,71857,225903,82,1422,323280],"class_list":["post-944263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-lance-armstrong","tag-latest-cycling-news","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-tour-de-france-2027"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/944264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}