When you have more than 2 million Twitter followers, it’s no surprise that you can get a few thousand of them to show up in the middle of a Wednesday morning for a bike ride.
Oh and it doesn’t hurt if you’re Lance Armstrong either. Lance was in Denver to announce that a pro cycling race, the Quizno’s Pro Tour, is scheduled to take place in Colorado Aug. 22-28, 2011.
This is huge news, not only for the cycling community, but also for the state in general. I imagine that just feeding and sheltering all the teams and race support personnel will bring a nice boost to the economies of the towns the race will be going through. Then there’s the tourists. I know I will be standing on the side of as many road as I can during the race.
The press conference was well attended thanks to this Tweet that Lance sent out the day before the event: Denver! Join me & Gov Ritter @ the Capitol 4 an exciting announcement Wed @ 10am. Bring ur bike because we're ALL going for a ride after..
The only noticeable mishap occurred when Quiznos Pro Challenge General Manager Joe Moller accidentally referred to Colorado as California. The crowd didn’t exactly like that, and Lance had to step in and remind them that even Bruce Springsteen made that mistake.
After the press conference, all of the cyclists gathered in front of the original Quizno’s restaurant on 13th and Grant. A few minutes later, Lance showed up and we all took off towards Washington Park. The Denver Police Department blocked all the streets (including Speer!) so we had an unobstructed ride.
When we made it back to the Capitol, there was a bit of a mob scene as Lance signed autographs.
It was definitely a fun ride and a testament to the power of social media.
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