When President Trump inaugurated the 1989 Tour de Trump

The cover of the 1989 Tour de Trump program (Image credit: Tour de Trump)

Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States, is a controversial figure, but decades ago he put his name behind a professional cycling event.

Riders from more than 12 nations competed in the 837-mile cavalcade through five states in the 1989 Tour de Trump. In this excerpt from the book Hearts of Lions: The History of American Bicycle Racing, second edition (University of Nebraska Press), Peter Joffre Nye describes how the race came to be.

Andy Hampsten's dramatic Giro d'Italia victory that spring, following Greg LeMond's 1986 Tour de France triumph, impressed Packer. Hampsten's 7-Eleven teammate Davis "Cash Register" Phinney had recently won the 1988 Coors International Bicycle Classic, America's national tour in Colorado and western states. The classic's title sponsor, the Coors Brewing Company, announced after Phinney's triumph that it withdrew title sponsorship for 1989, to sponsor a new Coors Light Cycling Team built around LeMond. Packer sought to fill the void by creating a new national tour – what he called the Tour of New Jersey.

Ushered into the Trump's inner sanctum high up in Trump Tower, he asked what the realtor thought about promoting an international bicycle race that could grow to rival the Tour de France. "I said it could start at one of his properties in New York City and end at one of his casinos in Atlantic City," Packer recalled in a press conference before the start of the race. Aware that Trump's name adorned everything from a six-level yacht, Trump Princess, almost as long as a football field, to the 566-luxury-room Trump Plaza Casino and Hotel in Atlantic City, Packer said: "I told him we could call it the Tour de Trump."

Trump winced from behind his desk. "You've got to be kidding," he said. He paused and gazed out his office window, offering a spectacular view of Manhattan Island. Five years earlier he had spent more than $10 million for the New Jersey Generals football team and players in the short-lived United States Football League. He garnered more publicity in the USFL's single season than in a decade in real estate. Ten seconds after Packer's pitch, he said: "It's so wild, it's got to work."

Eight months later, on May 4, 1989, the realtor sat at a table in a hotel conference room in Albany, New York alongside LeMond and a half-dozen other cyclists as brilliant and high-priced as the crystal, marble, and brass adorning Trump's four-star Atlantic City hotel. He faced 120 media filling the room to standing room only from around the United States, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Australia, and Europe.

The realtor had allowed his name to be used in the Tour de Trump without his Trump Organization investing, unlike other sponsors, from Gatorade to Proctor & Gamble, from Oldsmobile to BMW, that wrote six-figure checks. As a result, the Tour de Trump offered a purse topping $200,000 and $50,000 to the winner. The 837-mile itinerary over eleven days, from May 5 to 14, began in Albany, wended south to Richmond, Virginia, then turned north to Atlantic City and concluded on the famed boardwalk in front of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino.

A glossy seventy-two-page Tour de Trump souvenir program featured bright cover art by pop artist Leroy Neiman. It depicted a cyclist modeled after Davis Phinney, in his trademark finishing pose, arms thrust skyward like goalposts, in front of a towering hotel and casino. The glitzy publication opened with a Welcome from Trump, his portrait photo, and his signature writ in a broad nib, vertical strokes sharp like shark teeth.

"My name has turned out to be a great asset," he declared as cameras flashed like an electrical storm trapped inside a conference room. Trump sat by Belgian sprinter Eric Vanderaerden of Panasonic, a team directed by Dutch six-day cycling legend Peter Post. Jan Gispers, director of the Dutch PDM squad, announced that he skipped the Four Days of Dunkirk in France for the Tour de Trump: "We knew this would be a really professional race. In Holland we saw a documentary on television about Donald Trump."

The Coors Light team, captained by LeMond, on a special arrangement for U.S. racing when not in Europe competing for a Belgian team, was among the eight pro squads and eleven amateur crews of six riders each. They composed a field of 114 starters from fifteen countries. A pro team from Italy had racers from the Soviet Union, marking the first time that a Soviet professional squad in any sport competed in the United States. The U.S. Cycling Federation (predecessor to USA Cycling) fielded two USA national teams—one included a triathlete from Texas, Lance Armstrong.

In the race, flu hampered LeMond. He took advantage of the prologue and two more individual time trials to hone an aerodynamic position on an archetype time-trial bike. It featured a down-sloping top tube to lower his center of gravity, a solid-disk rear wheel (less drag than a spoked wheel), and novel aero handlebars narrowing his profile and tucking his arms close to his chest like a downhill skier.

The Tour de Trump rolled over undulating and twisting secondary roads between cities, where crowds were consistently large. Bystanders held up cardboard posters. One said: "Welcome bikers, welcome Donald Trump, welcome NBC." Another read, "Send money, Donald." Giggling school children stood in a line facing the street and held posters, each with one letter, that spelled: "We Are Out Standing in Our Field."

The event drew an audience of more than a million, doubling all cycling events at the LA Olympics combined, and generated unprecedented Northeast and Mid-Atlantic local coverage. Winner of the Tour de Trump was Dag-Otto Lauritzen of Norway on the 7-Eleven team. His team snatched five places in the top ten. For the brass of the Southland Corporation in Dallas, parent company of 7-Eleven, the media splurge of their brand justified eight years of sponsorship.