Greg LeMond Has Left My Basement

For the past 15 years, I’ve had a Greg LeMond Digital G-Force trainer in my basement. It is an incredible piece of exercise equipment with an internal flywheel and a digital screen offering a handful of workouts for the indoor cyclist. It requires no electrical hookup, as the computer screen is powered by pedaling.  Riders can select the workout’s duration and level of difficulty, and its computer tracks distance, speed, cadence, heartrate, calories, and watts. After sitting idle during each year’s outdoor biking season, its computer would power back up with my first pedal stroke each winter, and over its 15 years of use, I never performed any maintenance on it.

I replaced my LeMond last week, and that got me thinking about the legendary cyclist who started the fitness equipment company that bears his name. Greg LeMond is the only American to win the Tour de France, and he did so three times. I became fascinated with him because he’s about my age, about my height, and about my weight. How could he win three Tours? Before reviewing that accomplishment, my non-cyclist readers should have some appreciation of what it means to win the Tour.

The Tour de France occurs each July, and its current version consists of 198 cyclists on 22 teams riding approximately 2,200 miles in 21 racing stages over 23 days (that’s right, only two rest days). There are four types of stages – flat, hilly, mountain, and time trial. Except for time trials, a stage is typically around 100 miles. For example, the 2022 Tour’s stages will range from 93 to 124 miles in length.

The Tour’s mountain stages are noteworthy because elite riders are able to build time gaps over their competitors in these stages that are difficult to overcome in other stages. The mountain stages traverse both the Pyrenees, on France’s Spanish border, and the Alps on the Italian and Swiss borders. This year’s Tour includes six mountain stages, and Stage 12, which is the second consecutive stage in the Alps, offers some indication of what it takes to compete in the Tour. Starting in Briancon, at an elevation of 4,400 feet, riders will climb to three summits over the course of 103 miles, concluding the stage atop Alpe D’Huez at an elevation of 6,070 feet. The stage includes climbs of 4,282 feet over 21 miles with a grade of 5.1%, 5,023 feet over 19 miles with a grade of 5.2%, and 3,714 feet over 10 miles with a grade of 8.1%. After the first and second summits, riders must navigate descents of 6,910 feet, over 30 miles, and 4,426 feet, over 23 miles. Downhill speeds exceeding 50 mph are common.

The Tour employs both individual and team time trials where a rider or a team enters the course without other competitors and rides against the clock. Time trials employ staggered starts with an individual or team entering the course at 1 ½ minute intervals. Distances are shorter than on the mountain, hilly, or flat stages. For example, the 2022 Tour will feature two individual time trials of just under 10 and 25 miles (Stages 1 and 20), but no team time trials.

French riders have won more Tours than riders of any other nationality, and the period from 1975 to 1985 was a “golden” era for French cyclists on the Tour, winning nine of the 11 competitions. In 1985, 24-year-old Greg LeMond was lured away from Team Renault to ride for Team La Vie Claire in support of Frenchman Bernard Hinault, who was vying for his fifth Tour de France win. When Hinault broke his nose in a Stage 14 crash, his breathing became labored, and he began to struggle when the Tour entered the Pyrenees. When a racer in third place behind Hinault broke away on Stage 17, LeMond’s team told him to “mark” the rival, which he did. Later in the stage, LeMond was told to drop off the rival and slow his ascent. He was to wait for Hinault because LeMond was told the Frenchman was only 40 to 45 seconds back. Actually, the spread was three to four minutes.

Hinault went on to win the 1985 Tour, and LeMond finished second, 1 minute and 42 seconds back. However, LeMond believed that the team’s directive on Stage 17 cost him the victory, and to mollify him, Hinault promised to ride in support of LeMond in the 1986 Tour. Both riders remained with Team La Vie Claire.

The 1986 Tour opened with 10 flat or hilly stages and one team time trial. At that point, Hinault was in fourth place, 1 minute and 10 seconds behind the leader, and LeMond was eighth, another 43 seconds back. Two days in the Pyrenees awaited, and on the first mountain stage, which included four ascents, Hinault forsook his word to support LeMond and attacked, winning Stage 12 and increasing the margin over his teammate to 5 minutes and 25 seconds. The second day in the Pyrenees also included four major climbs, and LeMond responded, finishing 4 minutes and 39 seconds ahead of Hinault and winning Stage 13. The win eroded Hinault’s lead to just 40 seconds. While Hinault was able to hold the overall lead in Stages 12 through 16, LeMond had shown himself to be the stronger rider, as the Tour was poised to begin three days in the Alps. LeMond tied for second in the first Alps stage and captured the Tour’s overall lead, finishing over 3 minutes ahead of Hinault, who fell to third overall. After Hinault improved to second place after Stage 18, he remarked, “The race isn’t over.” This proved an empty threat as LeMond held the overall lead from Stage 17 on, winning his first Tour de France. Hinault finished second, 3 minutes and 10 seconds back. His 1985 win remains the last for a French rider to this day.

In the two following years, LeMond missed the Tour, after being shot in a 1987 hunting accident. His doctor reported that he was within 20 minutes of death after losing 65% of his blood and suffering a pneumothorax, the collection of air between the lung and the chest wall, sometimes called a collapsed lung. Approximately 60 shotgun pellets penetrated his body, and surgery removed less than half. Of the remaining 35, three pellets are lodged in the lining of LeMond’s heart, and five pellets are embedded in his liver.

LeMond returned to professional racing in 1989 on Team ADR, but his fitness was in question. In May, he entered the Giro d’Italia, which is often used as a tune up for the Tour de France, but he struggled in the mountains and considered withdrawing from the race. However, he felt his “legs returning” late in the Giro, which concluded with a 33-mile individual time trial into Florence. He finished 2nd in the time trial, but more important, his time for that segment was more than a minute better than that of Laurent Fignon, the Giro’s overall winner. In the overall standings, LeMond finished 39th, an hour behind Fignon.

LeMond began the 1989 Tour de France with low expectations, but the strength he experienced near the Giro’s conclusion carried over to the Tour. Upon winning Stage 5, a 45-mile individual time trial, he vaulted into the overall lead, 5 seconds ahead of Laurent Fignon. LeMond maintained that gap, as well as the overall lead, through the next four stages. Stage 10 marked the second day in the Pyrenees and featured four climbs, including 6,900 feet to the top of the Col du Tourmalet, which boasts a 7.7% average gradient. After almost four and a half hours of racing, Fignon finished 12 seconds ahead of LeMond, capturing the overall lead and establishing a 5-second gap. Fignon maintained that gap and the overall lead for five stages, until LeMond regained the overall lead in a 24.3-mile individual time trial. Two stages later, Fignon recaptured the overall lead, holding it for Stages 17 through 20.

Fignon held a 50 second lead entering the Tour’s final stage, an individual time trial from Versailles to Paris’ Champs-Elysees. As the overall leader, Fignon would start the stage last, a minute and a half after LeMond entered the course. Believing the spread between the two riders was insurmountable, Fignon congratulated LeMond on his second-place finish in the Tour prior to the time trial’s start. Incredulous to such arrogance, LeMond rode the 15.2-mile course at an average speed of 33.89 miles per hour, finishing 58 seconds faster than Fignon. That left an 8-second gap for LeMond over Fignon in the final standings, which is the narrowest gap in Tour history – two riders pedaling for more than 87 hours over 21 stages and 2,041 miles, and they finish separated by 8 seconds!

LeMond’s victories in the time trials are noteworthy because his use of aerobars, an aerodynamic (sperm) helmet, and a carbon fiber bike frame marked this equipment’s introduction to the Tour. Later, Fignon’s manager remarked that he should have challenged LeMond’s victory based on unsanctioned equipment. These features are standard equipment today.

The 1990 Tour de France may be the least dramatic of LeMond’s three victories, as LeMond did not win a single stage. After eight opening stages, followed by three days in the Alps and an individual time trial, LeMond found himself in fourth place, 7 ½ minutes behind Italian Claudio Chiapucci. Five mountain stages awaited the Tour, with three in south central France, followed by two in the Pyrenees. In Stage 13, LeMond made up almost five minutes on the Italian, leaving him about 2 ½ minutes behind Chiapucci, who maintained that lead over the two following stages.

Riders faced three climbs in Stage 16, their first day in the Pyrenees, and wasting no time, Chiapucci attacked on the first climb, breaking away from LeMond. When Chiapucci summited Col du Tourmalet on the second climb and still had the lead, LeMond went “all-in” on the descent and caught Chiapucci. On the day’s third ascent, LeMond joined two other riders in an attack, and Chiapucci’s early aggression left him without the legs to respond. Although Chiapucci retained the overall lead at the end of the stage, his advantage had shrunk to only five seconds. He maintained that margin in the final day in the Pyrenees, as well as Stages 18 and 19, leaving only an individual time trial and the ride into Paris to complete the Tour.

In the Stage 20-time trial, LeMond finished fifth on the 28.3 mile course, but he was 2 minutes and 21 seconds faster than Chiapucci’s 17th place finish. That put LeMond in the overall lead, 2 minutes and 16 seconds ahead of Chiapucci, making the Stage 21 ride into Paris the next day a fait accompli for LeMond.

When I started this posting, I intended to transition from replacing my trainer to blood doping and performance enhancing drugs, as well as Greg LeMond’s crusade against them. So what if I went down a different rabbit hole; I can cover those topics in March. In the meantime, you were probably expecting my musical connection to be a song by Queen. Sorry to disappoint.

There is a song that I associate with biking because I heard it sitting on the lawn at Tyranena Brewery after completing the brewery’s Oktoberfest Bike Ride. The band entertaining us was from Oshkosh, and it (Copper Box) played a lot of covers, along with a smattering of original compositions. Copper Box concluded their set with a very Wisconsin version of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb.

Thanks to the website Bike Race Info, which I used to compose LeMond’s Tour history.