Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong tested his surgically repaired collarbone yesterday and pronounced himself satisfied with his progress in the wake of a crash last month.
Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong tested his surgically repaired collarbone yesterday and pronounced himself satisfied with his progress in the wake of a crash last month.
"Better than I thought I would be," Armstrong said of where he stands in his recovery, which he hopes will allow him to compete in both the Giro d'Italia - which starts on May 9 - and the Tour of France.
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"I feel strong. I feel like the recovery has been good. Those are the things you need. Getting lighter is another thing you need. It's working out so far."
Armstrong required surgery on his shattered right collarbone after a fall in the Vuelta Castilla y Leon in Spain on March 23.
The Texan had a stainless steel plate and 12 screws inserted to stabilise the bone.
"There's so much hardware in there, it's not going to move," he said.
Armstrong, who resumed training on a stationary bike within days of the operation, said the injury hasn't bothered him for weeks, but that he had work to do to regain race fitness.
"You definitely feel stiff or blocked a little bit," Armstrong said after finishing eighth. "That's to be expected. You can train those intense intervals but it doesn't replicate a race."
Armstrong spent only about 20 miles during the 94-mile stage from Silver City to Mogollon in the lead group as he rode largely in support of Astana teammate and stage winner Levi Leipheimer.
Armstrong, Leipheimer and Chris Horner are riding in the event as independents, although Astana chief Johan Bruyneel made the trip from Europe to assess their performance.
"Getting the rythym, the speed, getting some accelerations in a peleton," Bruyneel said of the goals for Armstrong in the five-day race. "Also, we're looking at how he feels. Today, he felt good. He did some work for Levi until Levi could launch his attack."
Armstrong admitted to a little nervousness early on, especially when two riders crashed.
"Downhill start, everybody's fresh," he said. "I think the race has (had) a lot of attention in the last few days, so guys want to be in the front, want to be competitive. That's to be expected.
"You just try to watch out for those things and anticipate crashes in front of you."
Armstrong, who launched a comeback this year after more than three years in retirement, said he'd been shocked by the crash in Spain.
"Then of course with that you have the obvious side effects - pain, time off the bike and psychologically you're 37 years old, laying in a ditch in Spain. You're going, 'OK, what am I doing?'
"But it has come back pretty good. I'm having fun still."
And Armstrong said he's still focused on the Tour de France. He, Leipheimer and Horner will rejoin the Astana team next week.
"We'll see how it goes here. We'll see how it goes in Italy," he said. "Then the month of June in the states, training and preparing for the Tour. That's the granddaddy of them all. We'll go there and ride as fast as we can."
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