Click here.
Greg Lemond was my hero growing up.
I watched and re-watched the 1989 Tour until the video tape was worn out.
He now faces a bigger battle with cancer than with Laurent Fignon and I want to wish him well in that.
All the best Greg.
Tag: greg lemond
Two part Lemond podcast hits the spot…
If you have been with Fendrien since the outset you will know that 1989 was the second Tour de Francce I followed and its conculsion was enough to ensure my love for the sport would remain undiminshed (to date) over the decades.
Greg LeMond came back from incredible adversity to win the race by a mere 8 seconds from the late Laurent Fignon.
That summer seemed to be warmer and sunnier than any other I can remember and it made me save up for some Oakley’s and a Dawes Impulse road bike.
It’s fair to say Greg has had an interesting and not altogether positive experience with the sport since he retired in the early 1990’s. He incurred the wrath of Lance Armstrong amongst others but is making a comeback.
He has been a Eurosport pundit and has relaunched his own label bike brand after it had been dumped by Trek.
Imagine my delight then when Cyclist magazine recently uploaded a two part podcast with the great man covering all manner of topics, not just ’89.
Click here to go through to their site and enjoy it.
Great to have you back Greg.
Tour ’20 – Stages 20 and 21 – Roglic folds under pressure from Pogacar
Regular readers of this website will remember that my preview of this years race was based around my memories of 1989. Something that hindsight has proved to be good punditry!
There was little sign of what happened on stage 20 coming to pass, even as the two main protagonists, Tadej Pogacar and yellow jersey Primoz Roglic warmed up ahead of the start of their time trials.
But Pogacar was gaining time from the start and at the first unofficial GPS tracking check was already 12 seconds closer to his Slovenian counterpart.
This fast start from his opponent seemed to freak Roglic out and he was starting to fold before our very eyes.
As they both started to climb the Planch des Belles Filles and swapped bikes there was very little to choose between them on GC time. This was pheomenal as Pogacar had had to go a minute quicker to that point to get back level.
Once the guy in 2nd had overhauled the erstwhile yellow jersey to take the race lead he kept that pace up and stretched out almost another minute which was enough to leave him a comfortable winner in GC.
Maybe it wasn’t as close as the 1989 finish as I led you to believe then!
The pictures of Roglic struggling up the 20% gradient to the finish line with his face all sunken in and his crash helmet wonky to the point of looking comical was sad to see.
He rolled alone over the finish line before Tom Dumoulin and Wout Van Aert tried to comfort him. Just along the road from this sad sight Pogacar also has his head in his hands, but in disbelief and joy.
I feel a mighty amount of sympathy for Roglic to lose in this way and for him to go to bed without his yellow jersey, but with a broken heart. It was wretched for him and I wonder where he goes from here.
It says a lot about him as a man though, that he congratulated the man who beat him so soundly and that he was front and centre riding into Paris on Sunday. A much lesser man would have hid.
The final stage was less about drinking booze on the run in to Paris, another feature of this Covid world. Sam Bennett was the winner proving that his green jersey was thoroughly deserved (as if we doubted him!) and that he was the fastest man of the race.
Sorry Caleb and Wout!
So that’s it for the 2020 Tour de France, thanks very much for sticking with my coverage of the race. I really hoped you enjoyed reading how I saw it, please tell your friends and buy a Beers of Belgium CC jersey (using the store password of “FENDRIEN” ahead of the classics !
Here is the final top 10 on GC from www.procyclingstats.com
| Rnk | Rider | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | POGAČAR Tadej | UAE-Team Emirates | 87:20:05 |
| 2 | ROGLIČ Primož | Team Jumbo-Visma | 0:59 |
| 3 | DOOR Richie | Trek – Segafredo | 3:30 |
| 4 | LANDA Mikel | Bahrain – McLaren | 5:58 |
| 5 | MAS Enric | Movistar Team | 6:07 |
| 6 | LÓPEZ Miguel Ángel | Astana Pro Team | 6:47 |
| 7 | DUMOULIN Tom | Team Jumbo-Visma | 7:48 |
| 8 | URÁN Rigoberto | EF Pro Cycling | 8:02 |
| 9 | YATES Adam | Mitchelton-Scott | 9:25 |
| 10 | CARUSO Damiano | Bahrain – McLaren | 14:03 |
Tour preview – memories of the 1980’s
The strange timing of the Tour de France this year means that in England the first week of the race coincides with the return of children into schools (covid permitting).
Teenage me would have been horrified at this thought having dedicated half of the 6 week holidays from the late 80’s onwards enjoying the big race on television before recreating the stages on the roads of Huntingdonshire the next day.
The 1987 race is the first one I remember following with any degree of genuine interest. 1988 was the first where I recorded each day’s channel 4 highlights and watched and re-watched until the VHS was worn. This was somewhere around the middle of that November.
The voices of Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett were the sound of summer in our house evolving into the Eurosport team as the years rolled on. David Duffield took over that mantle with his insightful appraisal of whatever local area the race was and its appropriate local produce.
Having not even left England let alone visited France back in 1987, the Tour seemed to be taking place in a wonderful far off land with sunflowers and high mountains. It was broadcast in grainy low res adding to the air of mystique and drama.
Steven Rooks of Holland was my first real favourite rider and his win at Alpe D’Huez in 1988 started my obsession with that particular stretch of road. His style on the bike was so neat and efficient that I always aspired to look at one with my bike like Rooks did. I also wanted a mullet but my Mum said no.
As I started riding and racing myself that desire to tweak and adjust my position to look like a pro cyclist meant my Falcon team Banana frame was never far away from an allen key in the garage when not out of the road.
Despite Jean Paul Van Poppel being the dominant sprinter of those late 80’s Tours, Soren Lilholt and Dag Otto Lauritzen came into my thinking as riders to aspire to. That rouleurs desire to hang off the front of the peloton in the last few KMs of a Tour stage really appealed to me as a rider from the fens.
I even had the mirrored Bolle shades like Lauritzen and the pony tail like Lilholt which made me think I looked pro. The people of my home village of Yaxley may have thought otherwise.
The final tour of the eighties was the best in the race’s history and to this day whenever people ask me which celebrity or famous historical person I would most like to have a drink with I answer Greg LeMond!
As much as it was trendy to watch the Australian soap opera Neighbours at that time, in terms of daily drama the ‘89 Tour was way beyond anything Joe Mangel and Paul Robinson could produce.
First it was LeMond in the yellow jersey, then it was Fignon, then LeMond again, then Fignon… it looked like the Frenchman had got the jersey back for good before his last day collapse in the Paris time-trial.
It was a one in a million race and the memories I have of it are as fresh as the day that Tour finished. Only Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour in 2012 has come anywhere close to equalling that feeling.
Let’s see what the 2020 race has in store.
Rouleur podcast: Greg LeMond – Journal
It’s always career suicide to advertise a rival podcast.
But Greg is my hero and this is a great insight into the life Kathy and he have led in the sport.
Fendrien 