This Armstrong Is Taking the Indoor Route

Kristin Armstrong has met Lance Armstrong once.

Lance was surrounded by a group of autograph seekers and Kristin shouted, “Lance, Lance,” a cry the seven-time Tour de France champion hears hundreds of times a day.

Finally, Kristin changed her words. “Lance, it’s Kristin,” she said. That’s when Lance’s head jerked up.

Kristin is also the name of Lance’s former wife. But this Kristin Armstrong, who is at the Home Depot Center in Carson this week to compete in the USA Cycling Elite National Championships, had not been married to Lance Armstrong.

She did get his autograph, though. “He said to me, ‘So you’re her,’ ” Kristin said. “And he told me to ride fast.”

Kristin Armstrong turns 32 today and is trying to make a career adjustment.

At the request of USA Cycling, which was disappointed over the poor showing made by the United States in the world championships at Carson in March -- Jennie Reed’s sixth in women’s keirin was the best showing -- top-ranked road racers such as Armstrong and Christine Thorburn, who finished fourth in the time-trial event at the 2004 Olympics, are trying their legs on the banked, wooden tracks of indoor velodromes.

Thorburn, 37, a doctor working on a research grant in rheumatology, and Armstrong offer the same answer when asked about the difference in riding outdoors on roads versus indoors on wood.

“No brakes,” they say of indoor bikes.

The first time Armstrong tried riding indoors on the high-banked wooden oval, she almost immediately fell down. “First thing you learn,” Armstrong said, “is that you don’t slow down. Not ever.”

In the individual pursuit, two cyclists at a time start at opposite ends of the track and ride for time. There are other strangely named events that will be contested during the four days of the championships.

For example, there’s the keirin, an event in which cyclists draft behind a motorized bike for more than half the race. When the motorized bike leaves the track, the riders surge into an all-out sprint.

And the madison is a bit like tag-team wrestling -- one partner races, the other rests. In the sprint, cyclists can reach speeds of 45 mph in a three-lap contest where the riders go slow for two laps while fighting for position, then go as fast as they can for one lap.

But most American cycling fans know only about road racing a la Lance.

There is no Tour de France for female cyclists, no singular event that draws fans and viewers into its grueling plot lines for three weeks every summer. So female cyclists are mostly an anonymous bunch, and it didn’t take much prodding for Armstrong and Thorburn to agree to this track experiment.

They chose the individual pursuit because the event rewards endurance as well as strategy. Both are coming off a summer of road racing, and Thorburn said, “We’re both hoping our fitness can help make up for our lack of experience.”

Pat McDonough, director of track programs for USA Cycling, said the idea of asking road riders to move indoors had a simple point.

“We want to get our best athletes involved in more events before the Beijing Olympics,” he said. “We don’t expect riders like Chris and Kristin to be good immediately. But by 2008, I hope we see a difference. Frankly, we were disappointed in our performance at the worlds. But where we had 85 riders at last year’s nationals, we have 190 here now. So we’re making progress.”

Although McDonough called the Tour de France the Super Bowl of cycling and considers Lance Armstrong’s seven championships an “amazing” record, he also said that Armstrong’s success and the growing attention he brought to the sport of road racing have not helped the rest of USA Cycling.

“Track racing is so different; there is no carry-over,” he said. “If anything, we’ve gotten less attention because it all has gone to Lance.”

Kristin Armstrong, from Boise, Idaho, got into the sport after being diagnosed with two arthritic knees, a result of her involvement with triathlons and too much running. Thorburn became interested in the sport while attending medical school at Stanford.

“The university had a club cycling team,” Thorburn said, “and I was fascinated.”

In Wednesday morning’s preliminary competition, Armstrong finished third in a time of 3:48.25 and Thorburn was fourth in 3:49.81.

Sarah Hammer of Temecula finished first in 3:41.08, the second-fastest time in the women’s three-kilometer pursuit in track history. Erin Mirabella of La Habra, who won a bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics, was second.

Armstrong and Thorburn qualified for the USA Cycling world championship team talent pool by finishing third and fourth, respectively, Wednesday night in the individual pursuit.

Hammer won the gold medal in 3:41.77, and Mirabella -- a bronze medalist at the 2004 Olympics -- won the silver medal in 3:46.119.

*

Going for a ride

The USA Cycling Elite National Championships are taking place at the ADT Center velodrome within the Home Depot Center in Carson:

TODAY’S MORNING SESSION

* 10 a.m.: Women’s sprint qualifying; men’s points race heats; women’s 1/4 final ride.

EVENING SESSION

* 7 p.m.: Women’s sprint semifinal ride No. 1; women’s sprint final; women’s sprint semifinal ride No. 2; men’s points race final; women’s sprint semifinal ride No. 3; women’s sprint final ride No. 1; women’s scratch final; women’s sprint final ride No. 2; men’s kilometer TT final; women’s sprint final ride No. 3.

ELITE WOMEN COMPETING

* Seven members of the 2004 U.S. Olympic team will compete: Erin Mirabella, Colby Pearce, Giddeon Massie, Christian Stahl, Kristin Armstrong, Christine Thorburn and Jennie Reed.