During the 1999 Tour de France, Bassons wrote a newspaper column questioning the suspiciously high speeds of the supposedly 'renewed' post-Festina peloton. The average speed reached approximately 40.6 kilometers per hour, faster than any previous Tour, and Bassons believed doping had not disappeared despite the public promises of reform. His criticism made him a pariah. Before the 14 July stage from Sestrières to Alpe d'Huez, the peloton reportedly planned to ride slowly for the opening 100 kilometers without informing him. When Bassons attacked from the start after learning of the plan, the teams collectively chased him down.
Bassons later said that Lance Armstrong reached him during the move, grabbed him by the shoulder, and told him that his statements were bad for cycling and that he had no right to continue as a professional rider. Armstrong ended the exchange with an obscenity. Armstrong subsequently confirmed the confrontation and said on French television that Bassons would be better off going home if he believed cycling worked that way. Bassons was then shunned by riders, criticized by Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc, and condemned by officials within his own team. He abandoned the Tour after Stage 10 or shortly afterward, describing a collapse brought on by the isolation and pressure; he later said he was depressed and cried constantly for six months. The episode became a defining example of the peloton's code of silence, and Tyler Hamilton later apologized for having been part of the group that ostracized him after the USADA investigation exposed the scale of doping on Armstrong's United States Postal Service team.
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