EXCLUSIVE! Seven time Tour de France champ vs the five time Leadville 100 winner. Who will be victorious? Witness the race blow by blow!
This is the sixth win in a row for Wiens at Leadville.
The pack of 10 or so stayed together until about halfway up the Columbine climb — which reaches 12,600 ft and is the halfway point of the race's out and back course. As the climb steepened, Armstrong pushed the pace. Only Wiens could hang. Soon the two had a five minute gap over third place Manuel Prado. The gap grew to more than 20 minutes after 80 miles, and by the finish, the gap was over 30 minutes.
For 50 miles, the two stuck together. Wiens said he was taking the downhills easy, while Armstrong was pushing the pace on the descents.
Wiens put a gap on Armstrong in the last off-road section.
"He said,'I'm done, go," Wiens said. Wiens tried to urge the 7 time Tour de France winner to stay with him briefly, but Lance still got dropped. "It wasn't like he just stopped pedaling, though," Wiens said. "I'd look back and he'd still be there."
"At the end I realized I was totally cooked ... I haven't done a 7-hour ride in four and half years."
Armstrong said he had a great time. Even though he had a little skin loss on his left arm from a fall in the last few remaining miles.
"I just overcooked it into a soft corner," he said.
Manuel Prado of Lake Forest, California, was third about a half hour behind Armstrong.
