Jeff Pierce At 66: The Paris Tour Stage Winner Is Running The Leadville 100

Of all the successes North American cyclists have earned at the Tour de France, only one US rider has ever won the final road stage on the Champs Elysees. Yes, Greg LeMond famously won an individual time trial that finished on the Champs to win the 1989 Tour by eight seconds over Laurent Fignon, but two years earlier Jeff Pierce soloed away from a breakaway in the closing kilometers to win the final stage of the 1987 Tour de France. Thirty-eight years later, you’re more likely to find Jeff Pierce running rather than riding through the mountains of Colorado. His lifelong journey through endurance sports bears insights for other men and women in their 60s who want to stay fit, active, and healthy.

Fortune Favors The Bold

The 1987 Tour de France had already gone well for the 7-Eleven Pro Cycling Team by the time the final stage rolled around. Davis Phinney won a sprint stage to Bordeaux and Dag Otto Lauritzen won a climbing stage to Luz Ardiden. Two stage wins for a still-upstart team from the US was a solid showing. Nevertheless, Jeff was attentive on the Champs Elysees and rode into a breakaway that swelled to about a dozen riders with just two laps to go.

On the descent down from the Arc de Triomphe on the final lap, a rider attacked and Jeff went with him. Tactically, Jeff recalled to Pezcyclingnews.com, “It was a good place to go because the break was thinking we’d be caught and the peloton eased a little because they thought the catch was made.” A good all-around rider rather than a sprint or climbing specialist, Pierce went all-in on a winner-take-all move with about three kilometers to go. Hugging the barriers along the right side of the road, the American stunned the crowd expecting a bunch sprint by soloing across the finish line several meters ahead of Canadian Steve Bauer.

Going all-in on a risky move is a recurring theme in Jeff Pierce’s life, during and after his professional cycling career. In modern cycling, racers don’t normally step up from the amateur ranks to compete in the Tour de France as their first professional race. Jeff was racing as an amateur for Schwinn – Icy Hot when he got the call to race the 1986 Tour de France. His results before 1986 showed he had the talent and legs to climb with the best, including a photo finish with famed Colombian climber Luis Herrera at the 1983 Coors Classic in Vail, and dropping Bernard Hinault, Greg Lemond, and Andy Hampsten to win Stage 10 of the 1985 Coors Classic. But as a late addition to the 1986 Tour de France squad for 7-Eleven, Jeff was a bit of an unknown quantity. Rather than fear the unknown, Jeff approached the race with naïve confidence. He knew it would be tough but reckoned he was as good as the guys next to him and he’d figure it out. And he did. By the end of the 1986 Tour de France, Jeff was one of only five 7-Eleven riders to reach Paris, where he finished 80^th overall.

Pierce continued as a professional after the 1986 Tour de France and rode for 7-Eleven through the 1990 season. He then switched to the Chevrolet – L.A. Sheriff team for the rest of his career and retired from professional cycling in 1996.

Lost in the Wilderness

In the years after his career as professional athlete, Jeff moved through a number of jobs and locations. He worked in publishing and ad sales for Rodale while living in New York City. He moved back to San Diego while working for GT Bicycles and was responsible for getting GT into the European pro peloton with the Lotto team for 1999. Eventually he made it to Colorado Springs to work for USA Cycling, before leaving for a role at T-Mobile (the telecom folks, not the cycling team they sponsored) and then returning for a second stint at USA Cycling.

Like many adults in the more volatile period of their careers, Jeff didn’t focus too much on training and competition from about 1997 – 2007. But he maintained an athlete’s mindset and couldn’t be still for too long. He took up running, particularly once he got to Colorado Springs, because it was a challenge and because the mountainous trails adjacent to the city were calling. As he had with the Tour de France, he jumped into his first competition – the 2004 Pikes Peak Marathon – with naïve confidence. He set an arbitrary goal to finish the run from Manitou Springs to the 14,115-foot summit of Pikes Peak and back down in less than five hours, and managed to cross the finish in 4:59:54. He ran the marathon five more times, including in 2023 at 65 years old.

From the Tour de France to the Race Across the Sky

Jeff Pierce’s true indoctrination into the world of trail and ultramarathon racing happened around the same time he came on board as the CEO of CTS. Of the two most popular sports that CTS Coaches prepare athletes for, Jeff was thoroughly familiar with cycling and intrigued by challenge and mentality of ultrarunning.

Although he carried his tendency for naïve confidence into ultradistance trail running, his luck finally ran out. He entered the 2023 Leadville 100 Run but didn’t start training early enough and realized, thankfully before the deadline to defer his entry to the following year, that he wasn’t going to be ready in time. A year later, he started focusing on his 2024 Leadville training in May, about four months before the race in August. Although he acknowledged being significantly under-prepared, Jeff finished 5^th in the M60-69 age group in 29:20:03 and was the oldest finisher (male or female) for 2024.

As the Tour de France wraps up this weekend in Paris, Jeff Pierce will watch someone else, perhaps even one of the Americans in the Tour this year, win on the Champs Elysees before he goes for a trail run. He’s getting ready for the 2025 Leadville 100 Run on August 16, and this time he’s not trusting naïve confidence. He’s been working with CTS Ultrarunning Coach Nicole Rassmussen since the beginning of the year and his Chronic Training Load (CTL), which only peaked at about 50 before the 2024 LT100, peaked this year at just over 100. Although not a perfect representation of fitness, a higher CTL reflects greater training consistency and an ability to sustain higher training workloads for longer periods of time.

At nearly 67 years old, and 38 years after winning the final stage of perhaps the hardest bike race on the planet, Jeff Pierce is still drawn to the hardest challenges he can find. Whereas some people find a particular sport and stick with it for a lifetime, Jeff is more attracted to the physical, emotional, and intellectual challenges of an event or sport.

From a longevity standpoint, athletic curiosity serves aging athletes better than single-sport dogma. Incorporating multiple modes of exercise, both weight bearing (e.g., running) and non-weight bearing (e.g., cycling, swimming), and strength training creates a well-rounded base of fitness, preserves muscle mass, and helps to retain bone density. Participating in different sports, whether competitively or recreationally, widens an athlete’s community and develops deeper social connections. So, even if you didn’t win a Tour de France stage and you’re not aiming to be the oldest finisher of the Leadville 100 Run, we hope you’ll follow in Jeff’s footsteps and find the challenges that inspire you to stay in the game!