Lance Armstrong, 7 times consecutive Tour de France winner in cyclocross? That Lance Armstrong? Yes, it's true, but if you're under the age of, say, 35, or you weren't involved in cycling 20 years ago, you may have missed Armstrong's brief foray into the world of 'cross. Let's time travel back to 2008 and re-visit the time Lance Armstrong raced CrossVegas, the biggest cyclocross race in North America at the time.
The "Lance effect", then retirement
Armstrong won the first of 7 consecutive Tour de France titles in 1999, and brands like Trek, Giro, and Oakley enjoyed huge growth and popularity. His inspiring story as a cancer survivor and Tour de France winner directly caused a huge boom in road cycling around the world, but perhaps especially so in the United States, where American brands and bike shops really benefited. Armstrong was a celebrity outside cycling too, dating an Olsen twin and musician Sheryl Crow for a time.
If you were riding regularly in this era, you surely noticed the huge boom in road cycling, because it was impossible to miss - suddenly the Saturday morning shop ride in every community had 100 riders instead of the usual 20 or 30, and United States Postal Service kit and yellow "LIVESTRONG" bracelets were everywhere. Trek's OCLV bikes became a popular choice and everyone wanted Armstrong's sunglasses or helmet.
It came to an initial end when Armstrong announced his retirement following the 2005 Tour de France, and the bicycle industry, which had been red-hot for half a decade, needed new ideas. Some brands attempted to pivot, looking for the next big thing, and began promoting other American athletes like Floyd Landis in hopes to extend the boom in interest in road cycling.
CrossVegas is born
Following the Lance-driven bike boom, cyclocross was picking up in Las Vegas. The first CrossVegas was held in 2007 and what a spectacle it was! It was held at night under lights, after the Interbike trade show had concluded for the day - perfect for brands, manufacturers, shop employees, and consumers to eat, drink, network, and unwind, and they were bought in, with 10,000+ paying customers buying tickets. There was even a "Wheelers and Dealers" race category exclusively for bicycle industry employees, held in the afternoon before the pros raced in the evening - still the largest, highest energy course I have ever raced on, even though only a fraction of the "nighttime" crowd had yet arrived.
At the trade show during the day, a cyclocross bike was the "it" flavor to have in your booth, too, with brands creating special one-off display models or prototypes to draw interest. Cyclocross bikes and races was a popular conversation topic of the day during Interbike, which was special for this niche segment.
Interbike and CrossVegas
To understand what prompted Lance Armstrong to turn up at a cyclocross race in the Southwestern desert of the United States, you first need to understand how important Las Vegas was in the bicycle industry at the time.
Interbike - for decades the largest and most important trade show in the bicycle industry - found a permanent home in Las Vegas in 1998, after hopping around from Anaheim, Long Beach, and a couple other locations throughout the 1980's and early-to-mid 1990's. From about 2000 - 2012 the show was at the Sands Convention Center, attached to the Venetian hotel, before later moving to the Mandalay Bay. It was the largest gathering, with almost every brand represented, and industry staff looked forward to re-connecting with friends and business associates every September.
In the early 2000's, recall Lance Armstrong was hot and Tour de France related marketing was everywhere at Interbike. Sponsors had blown up thanks to their marketing arrangements with Armstrong and teams like the United States Postal Service. It was inescapable. Pros like Tyler Hamilton and others made "celebrity" appearances too.
The Lance Armstrong "comeback"
After a few years off, in early September 2008 Armstrong announced his return to professional cycling and future plans to compete in the 2009 Tour de France. After ending retirement, Armstrong went on to race for Astana and Radio Shack before ultimately retiring for a second time a few years later.
So, what was happening in Las Vegas in September 2008 when Armstrong announced his comeback? Just the media capital of the entire cycling world, Interbike, with every brand, journalist, and cycling celebrity in town, and CrossVegas.
Thus, a plan was hatched for Armstrong to race at CrossVegas, in front of 10,000+ spectators as his formal return to competitive cycling.
Lance Armstrong at CrossVegas 2008
So Armstrong, always the media master, needs a compelling way to re-introduce himself to the cycling industry, and chooses Interbike and CrossVegas as the venue to announce that he's coming out of retirement. I recall several "can he win?" conversations. In hindsight, that was completely unrealistic, but reflects Armstrong's godlike status at the time. Keep in mind the field had world-class riders like Jeremy Powers, Tim Johnson, Adam Craig, Jonathan Page and Thomas Frischknecht.
Predictably, the announcing team made a huge deal of Armstrong's presence and he drew a massive cheer during call-ups, but he didn't factor in the race, finishing a little more than two minutes down in 22nd place out of 69 finishers. Pretty good performance, actually, given his poor gridding position behind those with ranking points and getting caught behind a crash. After the hype, the actual race itself was fairly forgettable as far as Armstrong was concerned. The 2008 CrossVegas edition was won by Ryan Trebon and Katie Compton.
Keep in mind this race happened largely before the proliferation of smart phones. The iPhone 3G had only been released a couple months prior, and before that there was no "App Store" - Instagram wasn't created until 2010! As a result, there is much less of a photo and video record of this event than there could be if it had happened today.
Most of what exists is from journalists as opposed to the public, such as this gallery from Cyclocross Magazine:
There's also some nice coverage from the local media, such as this piece in the Las Vegas Sun.
Here's a little video from some footage that made it to YouTube. Kudos to that guy:
Keep in mind this was also before CrossVegas became a UCI World Cup, so it was primarily a USA affair at the time. European stars like Lars van der Haar (winner, 2011) Sven Nys (winner, 2013 and 2014), and a very young Wout van Aert (winner, 2015 and 2016) would come later.
What bike did he ride?
From the sparse photos and little video available, it looks like Armstrong used a sponsor-correct Trek X0, the predecessor of bikes like the Boone and Crockett, and it features the predictable features (or lack thereof) of bikes from that period - round aluminum tubes, external cable routing and cantilever brakes, with tires I can't identify based on the limited photos.
After Lance, the end of CrossVegas, and the end of Interbike
Sadly, the Lance Armstrong experiment in cyclocross ended as quickly as it began. There was never a return to CrossVegas, or any other cyclocross races as far as I'm aware of. In January, 2013, Armstrong chose another venue for his next big career announcement - admitting to taking performance enhancing drugs throughout his career to Oprah Winfrey on TV.
Interbike moved from the Sands to the Mandalay Bay in 2013, and that was the beginning of the end. In a connected world driven by blogs and social media shared on smartphones, news travels fast. Somehow the upcoming products shown to retailers for the first time during the show weren't "secrets" until their eventual public release next Spring anymore, the way they used to be. Interbike eventually pulled the plug on Vegas and moved to Reno for 2018, but despite the change in scenery, it failed to garner enough interest from the industry. Interbike cancelled the show entirely in 2019, leaving a void yet to be filled.
CrossVegas ran from 2007 to 2018, and followed the Interbike show to Reno in 2018, briefly running under the name "RenoCross", before stopping along with Interbike in 2019.
Perhaps that's not the end for the bicycle industry in Las Vegas, though. In 2024, the CABDA show announced a move from Ontario, California to Las Vegas, Nevada for their 2025 show. Will we ever see a nighttime 'cross race packed with industry people again? We can hope.