Patrick Lefevere, boss of Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl, said he quit Twitter because "lazy" people, some of whom had "zero followers", were attacking him.
The Belgian, famed for his boorish comments, has not Tweeted anything from his personal account since the day one of his team's stars, Julian Alaphilippe, won the world title in Leuven last September riding for France.
In the preceding months Lefevere had made appalling comments about Sam Bennett, domestic violence and women's cycling. While the response to him within cycling was very muted, many cycling fans and the cycling media were critical of him and highlighted his remarks.
However, when speaking to members of the European cycling media this week, Lefevere blamed other people for his departure from Twitter, adding it was easy for people to look on and have all the answers in sport.
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“On Mondays, in front of my TV, I win every race I watch. And if I’m in the football stands I’m the best player in the world. It’s too easy,” he said.
He added that sometimes it would have been better for him to "shut up" and also believed some of his past comments had been taken out of context or lost in translation.
“They (controversies) are not pleasant but maybe sometimes I have to shut up because it’s very clear Flemish is not English," he said, before then squarely blaming others.
“But if some people are too lazy to translate what I really said, they don’t exasperate me. If look at these people with zero followers, or 10 or 20, and they attack me like I’m a criminal, they hope I will reply because then they have 100 followers.
“So at one point I said to myself ‘stupid asshole, you are 66, don’t be embarrassed by Twitter, you don’t need Twitter.’ So I stopped. And I didn’t miss it for one second.”
