Lance Armstrong Finds New Gig in Cycling, Sort of

The disgraced cyclist is tapped by Outside magazine for a quirky how-to video.

ByABC News
April 15, 2014, 6:01 PM
Lance Armstrong attends the 2012 Vanity Fair Oscar Party at Sunset Tower, Feb. 26, 2012 in West Hollywood, Calif.
Lance Armstrong attends the 2012 Vanity Fair Oscar Party at Sunset Tower, Feb. 26, 2012 in West Hollywood, Calif.
Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic/Getty Images

April 15, 2014— -- If anyone knows about how tricky it is to find a new job after going down in flames at your old one, it's disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong.

But it seems Armstrong has found a new gig in cycling -- well, at least at a bicycle shop.

Outside magazine tapped Armstrong to make a video on how to fix a flat tire, appropriately set at the Broken Spoke Bicycle Shop.

"Hi, I'm Lance Armstrong, seven-time winner of the Tour de France," a grizzled Armstrong says in the video, wearing a beat up bicycle cap and a mechanic's apron.

And then an asterisk appears on screen, and Armstrong says, "Hey, I didn't write the script."

Armstrong's joke is a reference to the fact that he was stripped of his seven titles in 2012 and banned from professional cycling for life after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency presented evidence that he had used performance-enhancing drugs and methods. For years, Armstrong had denied rumors that he had doped, and waged an intimidation campaign against his accusers, including former teammates. But he finally came clean in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in January 2013.

Armstrong's tarnished rep wasn't lost on Outside magazine. Its description of the video reads: "Cycling’s most infamous rider has been looking for work lately. We caught up with him at his latest bike-shop gig to hear a few pointers about what to do when you break down."

The video is noteworthy for the incongruity of seeing one of the world's most celebrated athletes performing the prosaic task of changing a flat, punctuated with Armstrong's last line: "I broke a sweat doing that."

Check out the video here: How to Fix a Flat: With Lance Armstrong