Fort Lewis cycling coach helps lift Lance Armstrong to top spot in Leadville 100 mountain bike race
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FLC Cycling Coach Matt Shriver drives the pace up Sugarloaf Pass.
Third place can be pretty sweet — especially when the winner is among the best in the world, and you helped put him on the top spot on the podium.
That’s the situation Fort Lewis Cycling Team coach Matt Shriver found himself in after helping seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong to a record-setting finish in this year’s grueling Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race. Shriver finished third in the race, behind second-place finisher and six-time Leadville 100 winner Dave Wiens, from Gunnison, Colorado.
“I’m beyond wasted!” Shriver wrote on his Twitter site shortly after finishing the race. “Leadville 100 is a true test of your mind and body. So done! Awesome racing with Lance & Wiens. Incredible bike riders!”
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- Shriver crosses the finish line in 3rd place after helping Armstrong make history.
Nearly 1,400 riders, mostly amateurs, competed in this year’s event on Saturday, August 15. The race, which started in a freezing rain, starts and finishes at 10,200 feet in downtown Leadville. The course is more than 90 percent dirt, and gains nearly 14,000 feet over its length, including a seven-mile climb to the 50-mile turn-around point at 12,600 feet.
Armstrong accomplished his feat with the help of Shriver and fellow Durango cyclist Travis Brown, who along with Armstrong rode for the Trek Cycling team. The two riders set a blistering pace to start the first uphill portion of the race. Shriver led the way for the first 40 miles or so of the race, until Armstrong hit his record-setting stride.
“Matt was making everyone suffer except Lance,” Wiens said later, calling the early pace the fastest he’d ever seen.
Despite riding the last 10 miles of the race on a flat tire, Armstrong sliced nearly 15 minutes off the race record in his victory over Wiens, who beat Armstrong by two minutes last year. Armstrong finished at 6:28:51, Wiens at 6:57:02, and Shriver at 7:09:48.
“It was a pretty special day for Durango, for Fort Lewis and for myself,” Shriver said after the race.
Lance Armstong leads FLC Cycling Coach Matt Shriver
Racing — and winning — are not new to Shriver. While a Fort Lewis student from 2001 through 2006, Shriver (’06, Exercise Science) competed on the Fort Lewis Cycling Team. In that time, he himself was a two-time national champion and was part of the teams that won nine national championships in those five years. This is his second year as coach of the team.
Since its beginnings as a club sport 15 years ago, the Fort Lewis College Cycling Team has also been on a roll. In 1994, the new team won the inaugural National Collegiate Cycling Association mountain biking national championships. Since then, the team has won another dozen NCCA Division 1 national championships, 10 total in mountain biking and three in cyclocross. The team has also won a Division 2 road championship.
Last season the team was again one of the top collegiate cycling programs, ranked number two in the country.
After the Leadville race, Shriver and the Fort Lewis team may have another honor yet to come: Armstrong told VeloNews that he is considering coming to Durango to ride with the Fort Lewis Cycling Team as a thanks for Shriver’s help in the race.
