I’m not breaking any news here nor is it really important to begin with. However, I think Lance is an interesting guy and did some investigative journalism on google to find out some facts on his nicknames that I’ve been wondering about.
First, the easy one: Mellow Johnny’s, Lance’s bikeshop in Austin, TX.
Mellow Johnny’s is simply a play on the French words “maillot jeune,” meaning “yellow jersey”, and “Mellow Johnny” being the bastardized French words for what Lance dominated 7 times.
Another one of Lance’s nicknames is Juan Pelota, or JP for short.
A few weeks ago Lance tried to post a couple of videos of his latest training ride, but they came back with an error message that included Armstrong’s private email jp@livestrong.org.
When he started getting thousands of emails from fans, he quizzed them about what the “JP” stood for. He’s done this before with the numbers “1274″ and “27.5″ on his racing bike (1274 is days without a pro race and 27.5 is how many million people worldwide died of cancer in that time).
In the video below, Lance revealed JP stood for Juan Pelota, which is the name of the coffee shop in Armstrong’s Mellow Johnny’s bike shop in Austin. It’s a name he uses to register in hotels to keep a low profile.
The name refers to the surgery Armstrong had for testicular cancer when one of his testes was removed. “Juan” sounds like “one” with a Mexican accent, and of course “Pelota” is ball in Spanish…hence Juan Pelota = one ball.
Think this is funny? Lance Armstrong’s sperm from one ball can still penetrate 13 condoms, the birth control pill, a brick wall, and the 1975 Pittsburgh Steelers offensive line in order to impregnate Anna Hansen.
Of course now he’s changed his email address but you can always follow him on Twitter.
