Cycling on the Joe Rogan Experience

“I mean, you look at Trek Bicycles, for example. I mean, before the first tour, I think we did $125 million in sales. We do a billion now.”

Armstrong claims Trek Bicycle Corporation's annual sales went from about $125 million before his first Tour de France win to about a billion dollars by 2015, implying his sponsorship drove that growth.

“Those seven years were, the green jersey was won by Zabel, who admitted to having doped all seven of those years. The polka dot jersey was won by Varenque from…”

Armstrong states that Erik Zabel (green jersey) and Richard Virenque (polka dot jersey) each admitted to doping in all seven years that Armstrong's Tour titles were later stripped, yet their jersey wins were never revoked.

“which is really, I think, bothered a lot of people that, that this person being me forced young impressionable young men to put dangerous substances into their…”

Armstrong denies that he forced younger teammates to dope, calling that characterization from the doping scandal coverage untrue.

“But I can't take, when I hear that this program or this particular athlete being me was the greatest fraud in the history of sport, you know, I can't. That's j…”

Armstrong disputes the characterization, attributed to USADA's findings, that his doping program was 'the greatest fraud in the history of sport.'

“But I mean, if you go back to the 84 games right here in Los Angeles, that was really the first major exposure you had for transfusions, which the American tea…”

Armstrong claims the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics was the first major public exposure of blood transfusion doping, done by the American cycling team and exposed by Rolling Stone.

“It's not, there was, out of all the people that won the Tour de France and all the years that you did it. If you go back to people that either weren't implicat…”

Rogan claims that going back through Tour de France results to find a winner who was never implicated in doping or never tested positive, you'd have to drop down to roughly 18th place.

“the Tour de France is 100 years old, right? So doping is cheating.”

Armstrong states that the Tour de France is 100 years old.

“Right, so they won $100 million. Yeah, that's a lot of money.”

Rogan states that the U.S. government/whistleblower plaintiffs won a $100 million judgment against Armstrong in the federal fraud lawsuit over U.S. Postal Service sponsorship.

“So then they started testing the viscosity or the thickness of people's bloods, otherwise known as hematocrit, right? And so they would use that as a screen. A…”

Armstrong describes cycling's hematocrit test as a 50% health-based cutoff that riders could legally push right up to, framing it as a benign screening measure rather than a doping deterrent.

“Did anybody that was on the tour ever drop dead from EPO? Well there's, there, there was, you know, look, there, there, I don't know, I mean there are a lot of…”

Armstrong claims there was a documented wave of Dutch cyclists who died in their sleep in the 1980s from EPO use, then immediately hedges that it was never actually proven.