Aspen Police respond to complaint about Lance Armstrong vs George Hincapie bike race (+ video)

A resident of Aspen, Colorado, lodged a complaint with police about the filming of a mountain bike race between Lance Armstrong and his former US Postal Service team-mate George Hincapie, prompting officers to launch an investigation.

On the same day the Tour de France was concluding in Paris, the pair raced each other on the route of the Aspen Fifty, the annual mountain bike race launched in 2016 by Armstrong, who has a home in Aspen and spends much of his time there, some of which takes place on public roads.

The Aspen Times reports Assistant Police Chief Bill Linn as saying that a complaint was made about a camera truck that was filming the two riders by a resident of Hopkins Avenue.

He added that the driver of the truck subsequently apologised to police, and that officers had not spoken to either Armstrong or Hincapie.

Yesterday, Armstrong said that the truck had been some distance in front of himself and Hincapie as it filmed them, but he did not notice anything untoward.

“If something inappropriate happened, I would be apologising profoundly,” he said Armstrong. “I got no idea.”

The newspaper said that it had received an email from a resident who claimed – without mentioning the camera truck – that the race “almost took out my twin dogs and houseguests.” It added that it had been unable to obtain further comment.  

Armstrong has tweeted a brief trailer for the race, which will be made available to subscribers to his podcast channel in the coming days.

A little tease: The Melee in the Mountains. #ElPatronFIFTY. Me vs @ghincapie . @wedusport Season Pass Members will get the full cut of the race video AND find out who won. Coming soon. Grab your pass: https://t.co/o4Ty1f6ssT pic.twitter.com/8sFmy290SD

— Lance Armstrong (@lancearmstrong) July 29, 2019

Hincapie rode alongside Armstrong in all seven editions of the Tour de France that the Texan won between 1999 and 2005, and has been a guest over the past three weeks on his ex-team leader’s The Move podcast, which has provided daily coverage of this year’s 106th edition of the race.

In October 2012, Armstrong was stripped of those seven victories and handed a lifetime ban by the United States Anti-doping Agency (USADA). Hincapie, who gave evidence to the investigation, was himself banned for six months, although he had retired in August of that year.

Three months earlier, Hincapie had been given the honour of leading the peloton onto the Champs-Elysées during the final stage of the Tour de France, ahead of Team Sky and overall winner Sir Bradley Wiggins, to mark his record-breaking 17th participation in the race.

His appearance record was subsequently matched by Stuart O’Grady and Jens Voigt before being broken last year by Sylvain Chavanel.