I got a good laugh out of this, even if I didn't actually hear it in person. My buddy Kirk, who was over at the Tour de France with some pals riding the cols of the Alps and Pyrénées alongside the race, relayed the quote to me. But I think the sentiment was shared by many fans along the roads of the Tour, as well as by a majority of journalists I spoke with during the week I spent in France.

As amazing as Lance Armstrong's feats at the world's biggest bike race have been, the same outcome seven years in a row has grown a bit monotonous, especially in an event that prizes itself on a 100-year legacy of drama and unpredictability. For the past few years, there really have been few heroes at the Tour other than Lance, and a trail of victims a mile long.

I think even Armstrong realized this, hence his retirement. For the past few years, he's found different motivations to return to France in July and resume kicking ass: equaling the all-time record of five wins in 2003, breaking the record last year and going out on top this past weekend. But what, really, was left for Lance to prove? A win at the Amstel Gold Race? Another world championship title? Fully aware that one-day races are, at best, a crapshoot, Armstrong went out on top, and that's the best way he to exit the sport. Bravo, Lance.

That doesn't mean he's immune to the barbs of the late-night talk show hosts, or in the case of Jon Stewart, late-night "fake news" anchors. Stewart and "senior cycling analyst" Rob Corddry took a few parting shots at Armstrong Monday night on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

Under the headline "Quitter!" Stewart opened the show with the top news story, Armstrong's seventh Tour victory. "Making the win all the more remarkable," Stewart quipped, "was Armstrong's decision to ride all o