The Day I Beat Lance Armstrong
The “photo” that launched a classroom legend.
After surviving one of the wettest, coldest, most miserable 100-mile rides of my life at the Ride for the Roses, I returned to my job as a 6th-grade geography teacher — tired, sore, and a little proud.
Naturally, the students were curious.
“How’d you do?” one asked.
Without missing a beat, I said:
“I beat Lance Armstrong.”
That’s when a spunky girl in the back — the kind every teacher remembers — shot back:
“Prove it.”
Now, keep in mind, this was the early 2000s. You couldn’t just whip up an AI photo or use Photoshop on your phone.
But I had an idea.
Here’s what I did:
- A friend of mine had taken a picture of Armstrong early in the ride.
- I also had a photo of myself crossing the finish line.
- So I got to work and merged the two images, aligning them just right so it looked like I was beating him by about a foot.
I had the picture printed and framed. Then I hung it in my classroom — right next to the map of Europe I used for teaching about the Tour de France.
On that ride — the one where I felt like I beat Lance — these bib shorts felt like performance gear. Breathable, padded, and built for long miles. Comfortable enough I barely noticed them… until I looked back and saw everyone behind me.
Check Out These Bib Shorts
Most of the kids could tell it was fake…
That wasn’t the point.
The joke took off. For the rest of the school year, the running gag was that I was faster than Lance Armstrong — and that I should try the Tour de France next summer.
It became one of those goofy classroom legends that made the year more fun — and one of my favorite teaching memories.
I gave the photo away to the student at the end of the year. (And yes — the image shown here is AI generated.)
On that very same day, I met Robin Williams (sort of). Read this funny story.
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