Donald Trump, who once sponsored the biggest bike race in America, took a shot at John Kerry for cycling

Donald Trump, who on Tuesday announced that he's running for president of the United States, attacked US Secretary of State John Kerry for going "into a bicycle race at 72 years old" and saying that he himself "will never be in a bicycle race."

Here's the quote, via a transcript from The Wall Street Journal (emphasis added):

I will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. And we won't be using a man like Secretary Kerry that has absolutely no concept of negotiation, who's making a horrible and laughable deal, who's just being tapped along as they make weapons right now, and then goes into a bicycle race at 72 years old, and falls and breaks his leg. I won't be doing that. And I promise I will never be in a bicycle race. That I can tell you.

But Kerry wasn't racing; he was riding his bike. There's a big difference.

What exactly does Trump mean by saying "at 72"? His words suggest he thinks one shouldn't be cycling or "racing" at 72. But recent precedent defies that logic. Did you hear about Robert Marchand, who at 102 can't stop setting world cycling records? (I wrote about him here.)

Trump's comments about cycling are odd, especially considering that Trump once sponsored the biggest bicycle race in America - the Tour de Trump, which went on for two years before being taken over by DuPont.

Talking to NBC in 1989 before the start of the inaugural race, Trump said, "I really look to the future. I always do with investments, with deals, with anything, and I think this is an event that can be tremendous in the future, and it can very much rival the Tour de France."

When Trump was asked where he saw the Tour de Trump in 10 years, he said:

"I would like to make this the equivalent of the Tour de France."

Trump's race lasted two years.

In the same interview, Trump was also asked if he'd ever go into politics, to which he said:

"I don't see myself as a politician. I think I speak my mind perhaps too bluntly. I like to tell the truth. I am not sure a great politician can always tell the truth."

Asked when was the last time he rode a bike, Trump said it was when he was 7 or 8 years old.

As Jason Gay of The Wall Street Journal recently reported, Kerry is an "incredible" athlete. He quoted former pro cyclist Jonathan Vaughters as saying:

"A lot of times, you go on rides with executives or dignitaries or VIPs and it's a very, very casually paced ride," Vaughters said Sunday. "But Kerry is the real deal-fit, fast, confident. If he raced in his age category, he'd be one of the top riders in the U.S."

The secretary of state recently spent a week in the hospital after breaking his leg while riding his bike in France.

Kerry tweeted from his hospital room:

He was out in a week:

Watch this video below to hear Trump talk about his short-lived bicycle race, the Tour de Trump, in 1989 :