After his retirement in 2017, Dale Earnhardt Jr. took a liking to cycling through the intervention of his former teammate and friend Jimmie Johnson. Johnson was quite the cycling enthusiast and believed Junior could garner the same popularity he did behind the wheel, on a cycle. But unfortunately, that did not turn out to be the case.
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Talking on the ‘Dale Jr. Download’ podcast regarding his initial days on a bike, Junior revealed how he’d been flipped off by a stranger during one of his cycling sessions. Junior had taken notice of how his fellow drivers in the Cup Series were joining Johnson to cycle before their races and had wanted to join them. And so, he’d flown his bike down to the Atlanta Motor Speedway where he joined Johnson, Matt Kenseth, and Alan Gustafson to ride outside the track when the incident occurred.
He said, “I’m wobbling all over the damn road, and this guy goes by and flips me off. I guess I kind of kicked him off. But anyway, I was surprised at how rude drivers are on the road.” Junior had not been able to be stable on his bike for some reason on the day. He wondered on the podcast if being in the midst of his experienced cyclist friends had made him nervous.
One other problem that Junior had was with his spandex. He admitted, “I am still not quite over the self-consciousness of wearing the spandex. I don’t know – I’ll get there.” The racing icon’s tryst with his spandex had gone to the length of drawing a jab from cycling legend Lance Armstrong.
When Lance Armstrong trolled Dale Jr. publicly for his cycling attire
Following his dislike for the spandex, Junior posted on social media complaining about them. This caught the eye of Armstrong who sent a message to Jimmie Johnson about how Junior needed to get some socks first. He’d written, “Dude, seriously? Your boy gotta get some taller (expletive) socks.”
Armstrong had then posted his exchange with Johnson on his social media handle and captioned it, “So I see this tweet from @dalejr and he’s whinin’ about having to wear spandex since he’s taken up #cycling recently. Then I spot these super low socks he’s rockin’ and I’m like, ‘c’mon bro.’ Despite the funny onslaught, Junior took it in a good stride and sent Johnson his shoe sizes for Armstrong to send him some free goods.
