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The Comeback: Greg LeMond, the True King of American Cycling, and a Legendary Tour de France
In July 1986, Greg LeMond stunned the sporting world by becoming the first American to win the Tour de France, the world's pre-eminent bicycle race, defeating French cycling legend Bernard Hinault. Nine months later, LeMond lay in a hospital bed, his life in peril after a hunting accident, his career as a bicycle racer seemingly over. And yet, barely two years after this crisis, LeMond mounted a comeback almost without parallel in professional sports. In summer 1989, he again won the Tour--arguably the world's most grueling athletic contest--by the almost impossibly narrow margin of 8 seconds over another French legend, Laurent Fignon. It remains the closest Tour de France in history.
The Comeback chronicles the life of one of America's greatest athletes, from his roots in Nevada and California to the heights of global fame, to a falling out with his own family and a calamitous confrontation with Lance Armstrong over allegations the latter was doping--a campaign LeMond would wage on principle for more than a decade before Armstrong was finally stripped of his own Tour titles. With the kind of narrative drive that propels books like Moneyball, and a fierce attention to detail, Daniel de Vise reveals the dramatic, ultra-competitive inner world of a sport rarely glimpsed up close, and builds a compelling case for LeMond as its great American hero.
The Comeback chronicles the life of one of America's greatest athletes, from his roots in Nevada and California to the heights of global fame, to a falling out with his own family and a calamitous confrontation with Lance Armstrong over allegations the latter was doping--a campaign LeMond would wage on principle for more than a decade before Armstrong was finally stripped of his own Tour titles. With the kind of narrative drive that propels books like Moneyball, and a fierce attention to detail, Daniel de Vise reveals the dramatic, ultra-competitive inner world of a sport rarely glimpsed up close, and builds a compelling case for LeMond as its great American hero.
514 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 5, 2018
127 people are currently reading
379 people want to read
About the author
Daniel de Visé
7 books63 followersDaniel de Visé is a writer and journalist. His books have been translated into Spanish, German, Dutch, Italian, and Estonian. A graduate of Wesleyan and Northwestern universities, he has worked at The Washington Post, USA Today, the Miami Herald and four other newspapers. He shared a 2001 team Pulitzer Prize and garnered more than two dozen other national and regional journalism awards. His investigative reporting twice led to the release of wrongly convicted men from life terms in prison. His first book, I Forgot To Remember (with Su Meck, Simon & Schuster, 2014), began as a front-page article de Visé wrote for the Washington Post in 2011. His second book, Andy & Don (Simon & Schuster, 2015), began as a journalistic exploration into the storied career of his late brother-in-law, Don Knotts. Andy & Don is now in its eleventh paperback printing. His third book, The Comeback (Grove Atlantic, 2018), rekindled a childhood obsession with professional cycling and the sport's forgotten hero, Greg LeMond. The Comeback inspired Congress to award LeMond its highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, in December 2020. His fourth book, King of the Blues, honors a lifelong passion for collecting, performing and writing about music. King of the Blues was longlisted for the 2022 PEN America award in biography. King of the Blues inspired his fifth book, The Blues Brothers, a jubilant return to his hometown of Chicago.
Daniel is married to Sophie Yarborough, an editor at The Washington Post. They and their children live in Maryland. Contact Daniel at ddevise [at] gmail.com
Daniel is married to Sophie Yarborough, an editor at The Washington Post. They and their children live in Maryland. Contact Daniel at ddevise [at] gmail.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
August 8, 2025
I’ve long been a fan of professional road race cycling and have particularly enjoyed following the Grand Tours (the three multi-stage road races that run annually across and around France, Italy and Spain). Most notably, from the 1980’s I'd sit transfixed watching the daily television updates from Le Tour with commentators Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen gabbling in animated fashion as they covered the key events of the day. The mountain stages, in particular, were amazing, with crowds two or three deep lining what looked like virtually vertical climbs up and over the mountains roads of the Alps and Pyrenees. So close were the spectators to the riders that physical contact was not unusual. I was then and remain still, convinced that these three week long races are the most physically demanding events in any sport I've followed.
If one race in particular grabbed me and made me a life long fan it was the 1989 Tour de France, won after an immense battle by only 8 seconds - this after something over two thousand miles of racing. Its two major protagonists – American Greg LeMond and Frenchman Laurent Fignon – passed the overall race lead back and forth until the final dramatic (and desperate) time trial crowned an overall winner. It was an immensely exciting but, at the same time, a horribly cruel way to end such an epic contest.
This book takes the final time trial as it’s start point before slipping back in time to tell the story of not only Greg’s life but also that of Laurent, too. We learn that though the two grew up in very different environments, their stories share many similarities. The same age, they both became noticed as strong riders in their teenage years. Their paths were destined to cross often, and at one point, they were even part of the same racing team. It seems that they were never close friends – there was too much rivalry for that – but in time, they did share a mutual respect for the other’s ability.
Aside from this racing rivalry, the other key theme here is the drug culture that has long plagued this sport. It’s clear that riders had pretty much always used a variety of substances to aid them in surviving the sheer brutality of professional road racing, but from the early 1990’s the introduction of erythropoietin (EPO) brought about the spectacle of average riders lifting their ability to that of the acknowledged elite. Suddenly, it seemed, if you didn't take EPO you couldn't win. Greg always claimed (and there’s no evidence to refute this claim) that he raced clean. Laurent admitted that he had used substances, but this only in the years before EPO, when the drugs couldn't make a champion out of an also ran. The biggest scandal to hit the sport was, of course, that involving the multi-winner of the Tour de France (1999 – 2005), Lance Armstrong.
After his racing career ended, Greg became an outspoken advocate, speaking out in an effort to help clean up cycling, and in this respect, he clashed with Armstrong, whom he'd fingered as a ‘doper’. This was to have a significant impact on LeMond’s life as increasingly dirty tactics were used to try to discredit or gag him. Greg’s most guarded secret, that of his childhood abuse at the hands of a family friend, was even used as a weapon in this battle.
I was familiar with some of the ground covered in this book, having previously read Fignon’s autobiography We Were Young and Carefree and also an exposé on the drug taking by Lance Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Service team by teammate Tyler Hamilton in The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs. However, there was a good deal of new information for me to digest here, too. I really enjoyed the way the author drew parallels between the lives and careers of LeMond and Fignon, and though I recall previously reading that Greg had been the victim of a shooting accident, shortly after he’d seemingly reached the peak of his career, I hadn't before gleaned the detail of this event and the long road to recovery that followed. Fignon had had his years in the wilderness too, courtesy of a serious injury he'd struggled for years to overcome. The story of the 1989 race is really the tale of two vanquished riders coming back for one last contest, a duel (in my opinion) as mighty as anything in the history of sport - it's truly enthralling.
This is a thoroughly researched account, mainly focused on what was, for me, the heyday of competitive road racing. It's written in an engaging and even handed way, and that drew me in almost as though it were an enthralling piece of fiction. It's a book that shouldn't be missed by any fan of bike racing or, in fact, any sports fan.
My sincere thanks to the author, NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for supplying an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
If one race in particular grabbed me and made me a life long fan it was the 1989 Tour de France, won after an immense battle by only 8 seconds - this after something over two thousand miles of racing. Its two major protagonists – American Greg LeMond and Frenchman Laurent Fignon – passed the overall race lead back and forth until the final dramatic (and desperate) time trial crowned an overall winner. It was an immensely exciting but, at the same time, a horribly cruel way to end such an epic contest.
This book takes the final time trial as it’s start point before slipping back in time to tell the story of not only Greg’s life but also that of Laurent, too. We learn that though the two grew up in very different environments, their stories share many similarities. The same age, they both became noticed as strong riders in their teenage years. Their paths were destined to cross often, and at one point, they were even part of the same racing team. It seems that they were never close friends – there was too much rivalry for that – but in time, they did share a mutual respect for the other’s ability.
Aside from this racing rivalry, the other key theme here is the drug culture that has long plagued this sport. It’s clear that riders had pretty much always used a variety of substances to aid them in surviving the sheer brutality of professional road racing, but from the early 1990’s the introduction of erythropoietin (EPO) brought about the spectacle of average riders lifting their ability to that of the acknowledged elite. Suddenly, it seemed, if you didn't take EPO you couldn't win. Greg always claimed (and there’s no evidence to refute this claim) that he raced clean. Laurent admitted that he had used substances, but this only in the years before EPO, when the drugs couldn't make a champion out of an also ran. The biggest scandal to hit the sport was, of course, that involving the multi-winner of the Tour de France (1999 – 2005), Lance Armstrong.
After his racing career ended, Greg became an outspoken advocate, speaking out in an effort to help clean up cycling, and in this respect, he clashed with Armstrong, whom he'd fingered as a ‘doper’. This was to have a significant impact on LeMond’s life as increasingly dirty tactics were used to try to discredit or gag him. Greg’s most guarded secret, that of his childhood abuse at the hands of a family friend, was even used as a weapon in this battle.
I was familiar with some of the ground covered in this book, having previously read Fignon’s autobiography We Were Young and Carefree and also an exposé on the drug taking by Lance Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Service team by teammate Tyler Hamilton in The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs. However, there was a good deal of new information for me to digest here, too. I really enjoyed the way the author drew parallels between the lives and careers of LeMond and Fignon, and though I recall previously reading that Greg had been the victim of a shooting accident, shortly after he’d seemingly reached the peak of his career, I hadn't before gleaned the detail of this event and the long road to recovery that followed. Fignon had had his years in the wilderness too, courtesy of a serious injury he'd struggled for years to overcome. The story of the 1989 race is really the tale of two vanquished riders coming back for one last contest, a duel (in my opinion) as mighty as anything in the history of sport - it's truly enthralling.
This is a thoroughly researched account, mainly focused on what was, for me, the heyday of competitive road racing. It's written in an engaging and even handed way, and that drew me in almost as though it were an enthralling piece of fiction. It's a book that shouldn't be missed by any fan of bike racing or, in fact, any sports fan.
My sincere thanks to the author, NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for supplying an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
August 2, 2019
Saw this at my local (independent) book shop, and (duh) I had to have it. The GOOD news is that it was a (legitimately) good book - a relatively quick and easy read - and a nice piece of history (which, of course, on this topic, is increasingly revisionist or, should we say, corrective history). And, if you care about this stuff, it's well sourced, and there's even a helpful index. Indeed, my biggest (albeit modest) gripe with the book is that I would have loved more (and maybe some different) pictures, but that's life...
How fascinated by, and obsessed with, Greg LeMond was I in the 1980's? A lot doesn't do it justice. For cyclists of a certain age, he was our guy, our muse, our cult hero, and ... at least initially ... our little (insiders') secret. [OK, OK, for whatever reason, my personal favorite was probably Andy Hampston, who features prominently in the book, (but he won my allegiance, because, after his stint with Greg, he rode for 7-11, something Greg never did), but Greg, was, well, Greg! and he was the guy ... the show ... the beacon ... the man! [Oh, and, yes, if you're a cyclist from that era, and you haven't read Geoff Drake's Team 7-11 book, I recommend that one too, primarily for the nostalgia, although this is, in many ways, a much better book...]
OK, a personal anecdote. In one of the domestic races featured in the book - one of the Tour duPont/Trumps - that came thru DC, when Greg was riding for Z!, we were there. Oh, yeah, and we were there early! ... heck, we rode our tandem down that morning, and, well, ... bicycle racing just ... wasn't ... that ... big ... of .. a ... deal at the time in the States, so there we were, in among the team cars, taking pictures and mixing with the riders as they stuffed sandwiches into the back pockets of their cycling jerseys.... No ropes, no security, no crowd control, no ... distance. It was just professional cyclists and the groupies.... OK, OK, in our family scrapbook from that year, I've got my 8 x 12 picture of Greg on the page next to one of Greg's cover photos from Bicycling magazine, ... and, after all these years, it still give me great joy. But I digress.
How many books can I read (let alone enjoy) about the same topic? Apparently, quite a few. Does it matter that I scrupulously followed the story in real time, and read innumerable articles about the events soon after? Nah... Is it nostalgia? Lack of intellectual curiosity? Single minded-ness? Dunno. Don't really care, either.... Particularly, because, in this instance, history is literally being rewritten (and that's a good thing).... I can't say I've read all of the books (let alone articles) that the author references, but I've read more of them than not. Still, reading ... experiencing ... reliving the events described in ... the book was a pleasurable, gratifying experience. Most importantly, however, I thought de Vise improved (dramatically, as in ... not just a little bit) on both Slaying the Badger and We Were Young and Carefree, both of which I felt compelled to read, but both of which, ultimately, I found as frustrating as I found gratifying
Let's also be clear: hero worship is a fool's errand, particularly when you're dealing with athletes. Greg's life spans a messy, painful arc, and I'm glad it ... mostly .. seems headed in the right direction now. As for Lance ... and Floyd ... well, I long ago moved their books/biographies from the non-fiction to the fiction shelf. But, hey, Lance probably saved my life (and, to me, that's no small thing) ... and he did great things for the post-cancer survivor community ... so it'll always be a complex love-hate thing for me.... It is what it is...
Reader's note: I'm intensely curious to know ... indeed, as soon as I post this review, I'm going to start news surfing to find out ... what Greg and Kathy LeMond think about this book. I hope they appreciate it. To my mind, it's a wonderful, fitting, and, OK, well deserved career tribute.
Final tip: If this kind of stuff interests you, consider the more recently published The World's Fastest Man, by Michael Kranish (about America's global cycling superstar from the turn of the century, Major Taylor).
How fascinated by, and obsessed with, Greg LeMond was I in the 1980's? A lot doesn't do it justice. For cyclists of a certain age, he was our guy, our muse, our cult hero, and ... at least initially ... our little (insiders') secret. [OK, OK, for whatever reason, my personal favorite was probably Andy Hampston, who features prominently in the book, (but he won my allegiance, because, after his stint with Greg, he rode for 7-11, something Greg never did), but Greg, was, well, Greg! and he was the guy ... the show ... the beacon ... the man! [Oh, and, yes, if you're a cyclist from that era, and you haven't read Geoff Drake's Team 7-11 book, I recommend that one too, primarily for the nostalgia, although this is, in many ways, a much better book...]
OK, a personal anecdote. In one of the domestic races featured in the book - one of the Tour duPont/Trumps - that came thru DC, when Greg was riding for Z!, we were there. Oh, yeah, and we were there early! ... heck, we rode our tandem down that morning, and, well, ... bicycle racing just ... wasn't ... that ... big ... of .. a ... deal at the time in the States, so there we were, in among the team cars, taking pictures and mixing with the riders as they stuffed sandwiches into the back pockets of their cycling jerseys.... No ropes, no security, no crowd control, no ... distance. It was just professional cyclists and the groupies.... OK, OK, in our family scrapbook from that year, I've got my 8 x 12 picture of Greg on the page next to one of Greg's cover photos from Bicycling magazine, ... and, after all these years, it still give me great joy. But I digress.
How many books can I read (let alone enjoy) about the same topic? Apparently, quite a few. Does it matter that I scrupulously followed the story in real time, and read innumerable articles about the events soon after? Nah... Is it nostalgia? Lack of intellectual curiosity? Single minded-ness? Dunno. Don't really care, either.... Particularly, because, in this instance, history is literally being rewritten (and that's a good thing).... I can't say I've read all of the books (let alone articles) that the author references, but I've read more of them than not. Still, reading ... experiencing ... reliving the events described in ... the book was a pleasurable, gratifying experience. Most importantly, however, I thought de Vise improved (dramatically, as in ... not just a little bit) on both Slaying the Badger and We Were Young and Carefree, both of which I felt compelled to read, but both of which, ultimately, I found as frustrating as I found gratifying
Let's also be clear: hero worship is a fool's errand, particularly when you're dealing with athletes. Greg's life spans a messy, painful arc, and I'm glad it ... mostly .. seems headed in the right direction now. As for Lance ... and Floyd ... well, I long ago moved their books/biographies from the non-fiction to the fiction shelf. But, hey, Lance probably saved my life (and, to me, that's no small thing) ... and he did great things for the post-cancer survivor community ... so it'll always be a complex love-hate thing for me.... It is what it is...
Reader's note: I'm intensely curious to know ... indeed, as soon as I post this review, I'm going to start news surfing to find out ... what Greg and Kathy LeMond think about this book. I hope they appreciate it. To my mind, it's a wonderful, fitting, and, OK, well deserved career tribute.
Final tip: If this kind of stuff interests you, consider the more recently published The World's Fastest Man, by Michael Kranish (about America's global cycling superstar from the turn of the century, Major Taylor).
July 13, 2018
It’s always a wonderful surprise to read a book about a subject you are not intimately familiar with and find that the storytelling pulls you in. Beginning with a wonderfully tense race and then returning to the start of Greg LeMond’s fascination with cycling, this is a story very well-told and enticing. Certainly will be a must-read for cyclists — and a great choice for non-riders like me, too. Recommended!
July 29, 2018
It's odd, but the title on the hardcover version I have is "The Comeback: Greg LeMond, the True King of American Cycling, and a Legendary Tour de France" which is quite different from "30 Shotgun Pellets, and the World's Greatest Bicycle Race."
The central event of the book is, as the title (on the copy I read) suggests, on LeMond's amazing win over Laurent Fignon in the 1989 Tour de France after recovering from being shot in a hunting accident. But to describe this properly, the author presents a reasonably complete biography of LeMond and narrative description of his career both before and after that Tour.
Perhaps of equal importance, this book is about the transition from the LeMond era of professional cycling, when racers could win without doping, to the Lance Armstrong era, when the could not. For the author, then, LeMond is "the true king" of American professional bicycle road racing and Armstrong is not.
After the detailed description of LeMond's second tour victory and a shorter description of his third victory the following year, the book becomes tendentious. The tone changes since for the most part, it is no longer build around bicycle races but instead focusing on who-did-what-to-whom-and-why. Armstrong is the villain while LeMond is a tragic hero. I don't disagree (not that I'm an expert) on anything said here but my sense was that the author ends up launching a discussion of the EPO era in cycling to end his book that is less than convincing because it is so much less detailed and nuanced than what came before - and yet is hardly just a few pages in closing.
One problem for me with some of this is that two different issues are mixed together. One is simply that EPO was so much better a substance when used for doping than all the preceding ones (from strychnine to amphetamines) that it allowed mediocre racers to become winners. The other is that Lance Armstrong in particular was an evil person who orchestrated a successful campaign to discredit and demean LeMond. This is true not just of this book, but other discussions of this time that one reads.
Perhaps a problem is simply my own shame since I was one of many who began to follow the Tour de France mostly thanks to Armstrong's success. This coincided with my own developing interest in cycling (of a far more utilitarian nature). With the complete discrediting of Armstrong I lost interest in bicycle racing generally and the Tour de France in particular. (It is July and I have no idea who any of the leaders are and have not watched one second of footage.) Still, I have found I am still willing to read some books about road racing history, such as this one. And to be clear, I think this is mostly very well done.
This book complements rather nicely "Slaying the Badger: LeMond, Hinault and the Greatest Ever Tour de France" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11435656-slaying-the-badger published in 2011 that centers on the 1986 Tour de France that LeMond won over Hinault.
The central event of the book is, as the title (on the copy I read) suggests, on LeMond's amazing win over Laurent Fignon in the 1989 Tour de France after recovering from being shot in a hunting accident. But to describe this properly, the author presents a reasonably complete biography of LeMond and narrative description of his career both before and after that Tour.
Perhaps of equal importance, this book is about the transition from the LeMond era of professional cycling, when racers could win without doping, to the Lance Armstrong era, when the could not. For the author, then, LeMond is "the true king" of American professional bicycle road racing and Armstrong is not.
After the detailed description of LeMond's second tour victory and a shorter description of his third victory the following year, the book becomes tendentious. The tone changes since for the most part, it is no longer build around bicycle races but instead focusing on who-did-what-to-whom-and-why. Armstrong is the villain while LeMond is a tragic hero. I don't disagree (not that I'm an expert) on anything said here but my sense was that the author ends up launching a discussion of the EPO era in cycling to end his book that is less than convincing because it is so much less detailed and nuanced than what came before - and yet is hardly just a few pages in closing.
One problem for me with some of this is that two different issues are mixed together. One is simply that EPO was so much better a substance when used for doping than all the preceding ones (from strychnine to amphetamines) that it allowed mediocre racers to become winners. The other is that Lance Armstrong in particular was an evil person who orchestrated a successful campaign to discredit and demean LeMond. This is true not just of this book, but other discussions of this time that one reads.
Perhaps a problem is simply my own shame since I was one of many who began to follow the Tour de France mostly thanks to Armstrong's success. This coincided with my own developing interest in cycling (of a far more utilitarian nature). With the complete discrediting of Armstrong I lost interest in bicycle racing generally and the Tour de France in particular. (It is July and I have no idea who any of the leaders are and have not watched one second of footage.) Still, I have found I am still willing to read some books about road racing history, such as this one. And to be clear, I think this is mostly very well done.
This book complements rather nicely "Slaying the Badger: LeMond, Hinault and the Greatest Ever Tour de France" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11435656-slaying-the-badger published in 2011 that centers on the 1986 Tour de France that LeMond won over Hinault.
January 3, 2021
One of the best cycling books I’ve read.
January 16, 2021
This was great. Loved the easy to read writing style, and all the narratives about the history of cycling pre-Lance.
March 7, 2018
Greg LeMond woke up the American sporting public to the Tour de France with his upset victory in the 1896 race. Three years later, after his career nearly ended due to injuries suffered in a shooting accident during a hunting trip, he again won the race by eight seconds over Frenchman Laurent Fignon. The final stage of the race is the starting point of this terrific book by Daniel de Visè.
While the book primarily tells the story of LeMond’s life and career, the reader will learn much about other prominent cycling athletes. The reader will learn why LeMond chose cycling for his sport (he wanted to compete in sports where “I could accomplish something myself without having to depend on others”), the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a family member and how he became the voice of “clean” racers when the doping culture of the sport became more prominent in the age of erythropoietin (EPO) and later “mechanical doping” in which a small machine would aid a cyclist with his speed.
Of course, the book delves into the fall of Lance Armstrong and Greg’s interactions, both the good and the bad, with the fallen star. It made for great reading, as it almost felt like a soap opera, as Armstrong first was counting on LeMond’s advice on the life of a professional cyclist, then later as the doping accusations became louder, Armstrong nearly destroyed LeMond’s life, including the public revelation of Greg being a victim of abuse. While much of this material is available in other books, this account felt like a very intimate and personal version. This was just one example of the outstanding writing that was on display throughout the book.
The story of Fignon is just as compelling in this book as is LeMond’s as their lives seemed to move along parallel paths. Like Greg, Laurent had his own demons and had to come back from a serious injury. The 1989 Tour de France was the signature race of his comeback, just like LeMond, only with a different result. The reader feels both LeMond’s joy and Fignon’s agony in this result throughout the book as the results affected both men for the rest of their lives.
The strategy of tour racing, how teams work to ensure that their strongest rider will have a chance for victory and the cutthroat nature of the sport are all on display in sections about the races. The description of the peloton, or pack of riders, and what goes on in that mass of bikes and humans, was very compelling and I enjoyed learning just how important a role the peloton plays in the strategy for riders during a race.
No matter the level of knowledge or interest the reader has in cycling, this book is a must read for all sports fans who love a good story of a classic comeback and of the adventures of athletes, both “good” and “bad”. I have been enjoying books on the sport and this one is certainly one of the best.
I wish to thank Atlantic Monthly Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/201...
While the book primarily tells the story of LeMond’s life and career, the reader will learn much about other prominent cycling athletes. The reader will learn why LeMond chose cycling for his sport (he wanted to compete in sports where “I could accomplish something myself without having to depend on others”), the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a family member and how he became the voice of “clean” racers when the doping culture of the sport became more prominent in the age of erythropoietin (EPO) and later “mechanical doping” in which a small machine would aid a cyclist with his speed.
Of course, the book delves into the fall of Lance Armstrong and Greg’s interactions, both the good and the bad, with the fallen star. It made for great reading, as it almost felt like a soap opera, as Armstrong first was counting on LeMond’s advice on the life of a professional cyclist, then later as the doping accusations became louder, Armstrong nearly destroyed LeMond’s life, including the public revelation of Greg being a victim of abuse. While much of this material is available in other books, this account felt like a very intimate and personal version. This was just one example of the outstanding writing that was on display throughout the book.
The story of Fignon is just as compelling in this book as is LeMond’s as their lives seemed to move along parallel paths. Like Greg, Laurent had his own demons and had to come back from a serious injury. The 1989 Tour de France was the signature race of his comeback, just like LeMond, only with a different result. The reader feels both LeMond’s joy and Fignon’s agony in this result throughout the book as the results affected both men for the rest of their lives.
The strategy of tour racing, how teams work to ensure that their strongest rider will have a chance for victory and the cutthroat nature of the sport are all on display in sections about the races. The description of the peloton, or pack of riders, and what goes on in that mass of bikes and humans, was very compelling and I enjoyed learning just how important a role the peloton plays in the strategy for riders during a race.
No matter the level of knowledge or interest the reader has in cycling, this book is a must read for all sports fans who love a good story of a classic comeback and of the adventures of athletes, both “good” and “bad”. I have been enjoying books on the sport and this one is certainly one of the best.
I wish to thank Atlantic Monthly Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/201...
June 7, 2021
The bets sports book I’ve read. The writing is terrific and the subject matter is one of the most lovable athletes of our time.
August 5, 2018
Just a fun book .. .I enjoyed learning about cycling history, Greg Lemond and his family, and the problems of doping in the competetive cycling community. I read an article about the book because the author was speaking at a local bookstore, so I picked it up and read it in a few days. I got so intrigued I watched the move "The Lie" about Lance Armstrong and his denial of doping.
I was at a bit of a disadvantage because I did not understand the strategy of bike racing and the importance of the Pelaton. I went to hear the author speak and a bike racer was there and explained to me the importance of sticking with the pack to draft and save energy.
I was at a bit of a disadvantage because I did not understand the strategy of bike racing and the importance of the Pelaton. I went to hear the author speak and a bike racer was there and explained to me the importance of sticking with the pack to draft and save energy.
May 28, 2018
The compelling story of cycling champion Greg LeMond and his extraordinary showdown against French cyclist Larent Fignon in the 1989 Tour de France. DeVise does a great job of allowing the reader to root both for LeMond and for his rival. The final section details the long feud between LeMond and Lance Armstrong, when LeMond became convinced that Armstrong was doping and (unlike just about everyone else in the world of cycling) had the guts to say so. Armstrong comes across as a petty, evil tyrant in contrast to LeMond. I enjoyed it tremendously.
August 22, 2018
This book is for you if you were ever interested in the LeMond/Fignon rivalry, and bitterly disappointed by Lance Armstrong and his string of lies.
Thanks to LA, I'm no longer interested in the slough of drugs known as professional bicycle racing or the Tour de France.
This book is a very readable exposition of bike racing when Greg LeMond was its champion. The author is careful to describe the history of the Tour, and how it pretty much always was a drug cesspool.
The author's descriptions of the rivalries, and how men and teams win races was clear and exciting to read.
Thanks to LA, I'm no longer interested in the slough of drugs known as professional bicycle racing or the Tour de France.
This book is a very readable exposition of bike racing when Greg LeMond was its champion. The author is careful to describe the history of the Tour, and how it pretty much always was a drug cesspool.
The author's descriptions of the rivalries, and how men and teams win races was clear and exciting to read.
September 17, 2018
I've always admired Greg LeMond. His life roughly parallels my own and his prowess on the bike was impressive. His victories were entertaining because he seemed to face one setback after another before ultimately triumphing. His races in the Tour de France were always high drama— when he argued with his directeur sportif as he rode away from Bernard Hinault on a mountain stage in 1985. He surely could have won the tour that year. 1986 when Hinault broke away and took five minutes out of him, betraying his promise to ride for Greg, and then Greg taking most of it back the very next day. His 1989 race with Laurent Fignon is surely the most exciting tour in history and leave it to Greg to triumph over impossible odds on the very last day, an amazing, unbelievable finish to what is still the closest Tour de France in history (as well as my favorite).
This book does an excellent job of following Greg's life. It is also a sort of mini-biography of his main rival, Laurent Fignon, who was a fascinating, complex character in his own right, bouncing back and forth between humility and extreme arrogance.
Lance Armstrong comes across as the arrogant person that he was and has been so widely documented. He set out to personally destroy Greg LeMond and almost succeeded. It was nice to see Lance finally busted and Greg's reputation repaired. The book does a good, though quick job of recounting their relationship.
All in all an very good read. I'm happy to see Greg with his reputation fully restored. He always seemed like an "every man" when he was racing who was on the verge of completely blowing up, but then he'd have an amazing day and find a way to win during his three tour victories.
A good guy. A good read.
This book does an excellent job of following Greg's life. It is also a sort of mini-biography of his main rival, Laurent Fignon, who was a fascinating, complex character in his own right, bouncing back and forth between humility and extreme arrogance.
Lance Armstrong comes across as the arrogant person that he was and has been so widely documented. He set out to personally destroy Greg LeMond and almost succeeded. It was nice to see Lance finally busted and Greg's reputation repaired. The book does a good, though quick job of recounting their relationship.
All in all an very good read. I'm happy to see Greg with his reputation fully restored. He always seemed like an "every man" when he was racing who was on the verge of completely blowing up, but then he'd have an amazing day and find a way to win during his three tour victories.
A good guy. A good read.
August 8, 2018
I really enjoyed most aspects of this book, especially the history of cycling, Tour history, other cycling races and racers in addition to everything on LeMond. Interesting to hear all the anecdotes about wife Kathy's hometown which is the same small Wisconsin town I grew up in. I'd love to believe that this is just a great inspirational story of 'the last clean tour champion' but maybe cycling has jaded me into questioning everything. LeMond miraculously finding his form only in the days leading up to his Tour wins, his rebound from the hunting accident and even his comebacks in late stages of those tours just makes me question the validity of it all. I hope I'm wrong.
May 5, 2023
Excellent book for those who love cycling. Before the sport became tarnished in the 90's with EPO doping, it truly was a beautiful thing. Greg has always been a hero of mine, but to learn how he never cheated and still won the Tour de France (and after being shot on a hunting trip) three times was incredibly inspiring. On top of that he was just a good guy. Kind, patient, conflict averse, and loved people. His integrity, morals, and strength of character in the face of massive adversity was awe inspiring. Super fun and just riveting to revisit and learn new stories of cycling culture of the 70's, 80's & 90's. Also very motivating for me as well as I attempt a PR at 54 years of age in my favorite road race coming up!
January 2, 2023
Daniel de Visén "The Comeback" päätti lukuvuoteni komealla tavalla osoittautuen yhdeksi parhaista lukemistani urheilijaelämäkerroista.
Ja kyllähän Lemondin elämästä riittääkin kirjoitettavaa. Lemond voitti Tour de Francen kolme kertaa. Taistelu Bernard Hinaultin kanssa ja kahdeksan sekunnin marginaalila voitettu kisa Laurent Fignonia vastaan ovat jääneet maantiepyöräilyn historiaan.
Kovimmat kamppailunsa Lemond saattoi kuitenkin käydä muualla kuin pyörän selässä. Lapsuudessa koettu seksuaalinen väkivalta varjosti mieltä pitkään ja metsästysonnettomuus oli lähellä viedä uran lisäksi myös hengen. Aktiiviuran jälkeen ajautuminen vastakkaiseen leiriin doping-kuningas Lance Armstrongin kanssa ei ollut sekään helppo rasti selvitettäväksi.
Melkoisia elämän etappeja, siis! Jos kyseessä olisi jonkun amerikkalaisia enemmän koskettavan lajin edustaja, olisi hänen tarinastaan tehty Hollywood-elokuva.
Ja kyllähän Lemondin elämästä riittääkin kirjoitettavaa. Lemond voitti Tour de Francen kolme kertaa. Taistelu Bernard Hinaultin kanssa ja kahdeksan sekunnin marginaalila voitettu kisa Laurent Fignonia vastaan ovat jääneet maantiepyöräilyn historiaan.
Kovimmat kamppailunsa Lemond saattoi kuitenkin käydä muualla kuin pyörän selässä. Lapsuudessa koettu seksuaalinen väkivalta varjosti mieltä pitkään ja metsästysonnettomuus oli lähellä viedä uran lisäksi myös hengen. Aktiiviuran jälkeen ajautuminen vastakkaiseen leiriin doping-kuningas Lance Armstrongin kanssa ei ollut sekään helppo rasti selvitettäväksi.
Melkoisia elämän etappeja, siis! Jos kyseessä olisi jonkun amerikkalaisia enemmän koskettavan lajin edustaja, olisi hänen tarinastaan tehty Hollywood-elokuva.
August 11, 2023
Lance was a total fraud
LeMond is the only true American cycling champion
My first road bike was a LeMond Buenos Aries. I miss that bike.
LeMond is the only true American cycling champion
My first road bike was a LeMond Buenos Aries. I miss that bike.
July 23, 2018
I was never a fan of bike racing but was a fan of the USA. When I first saw the name LeMond it was a small article in a local paper when he won his first Tour De France. Back then in the early 80’s usually a show titled the Wide World of Sports would show just a portion of the last day. It was not until he won that I even paid attention to the sport of bike racing. The next time I heard his name was when he was shot by someone he went hunting with and was struck by multiple shotgun pellets. Then a few years later he would win the Tour again. The author takes you through all of these moments. He also begins with the sport bake at the turn of the century when cycling was all of craze and there was nothing but tournaments and competitions throughout the U.S. and the World. That is until the automobile came. He will give history on the two champions of that aria, and the sport leading up to LeMond becoming the first American to win the Tour De France. He goes in the completion he had against some European riders also. Up to the point where Lance Armstrong begins his second go around in cycling and how after a few tour wins begins to destroy LeMond’s and other people who spoke out that he was taking illegal drugs. You get to see the threats that were made and recorded, lawsuits field and won by the LeMond family in court and how after Greg LeMond was torn down by the cycling World and in this country he was slowly coming back. What always got me was how the press never made a big deal about him winning the first time, when it seems all they were looking for was something to put the U.S. on top. This was a good story and I am glad I was able to read this book. I received this book from Netgalley.com I gave it 5 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com
December 12, 2020
The true, and only, American Tour de France Champ!
A fantastic read that brings to life events 30 years ago through meticulous research, weaving an inspirational story of Greg's achievements inside and outside cycling, overcoming great adversity.
A fantastic read that brings to life events 30 years ago through meticulous research, weaving an inspirational story of Greg's achievements inside and outside cycling, overcoming great adversity.
July 24, 2018
Fun book for a bike junkies. Lance who?
September 27, 2018
I loved this book! Not a subject I knew anything about, but it was fascinating. And suspenseful, too! Very well written.
October 2, 2018
Update:
Thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Tremendously researched yet engagingly written: good story with great details.
If you love cycling, this is a great book. If you are not into cycling, then it is a good book that you might like for the history, biography, and especially for the character of Greg LeMond. He is an American hero.
I plan to give the book to at least two friends and I will personally recommend it to others I know who would care about the topic.
Earlier:
Did not really know if I would like this story or be bored by it. I am 60+ pages in and loving it. Very interesting and well written.
Thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Tremendously researched yet engagingly written: good story with great details.
If you love cycling, this is a great book. If you are not into cycling, then it is a good book that you might like for the history, biography, and especially for the character of Greg LeMond. He is an American hero.
I plan to give the book to at least two friends and I will personally recommend it to others I know who would care about the topic.
Earlier:
Did not really know if I would like this story or be bored by it. I am 60+ pages in and loving it. Very interesting and well written.
July 17, 2018
Simply put, one of the best cycling books I've read.
September 29, 2022
Read for the 2022 PopSugar reading challenge. I'm going to call this one "A book that takes place during your favorite season," even though I don't have a favorite season, because a lot of the narrative revolves around Tour de France races that take place in July and I have been esoterically interested in that race for going on 20 years now. This esoteric interest is strong enough that it has spread to my wife as well - she ended up finding and reading this book even before I did and holding off returning it to the library until I could get around to reading it.
This is kind of like four books in one, loosely linked by centering the biographical parts around Greg LeMond, the first American to win the race and a three-time winner before his career came to a close. It is a general history of cycling in the United States, kind of a "cycling life" biography of LeMond, a laser-focused narrative about the 1989 Tour, which LeMond won by eight seconds after a triumph on the final day, and an exploration of doping in bicycling that exploded after LeMond had retired.
It seems clear to me that the one of these that most engaged the author was the LeMond/Laurent Fignon (himself a two-time champion) battle in 1989, with the personal and professional life arcs that led those two guys to the point where they were the big competitors that year. The other stuff feels like maybe an editor told him nobody in America was going to read a book that was only about the 1989 Tour de France, even though that probably could be its own book, and so could the last couple of chapters that are kind of a denouement with the heroic LeMond in opposition to the dastardly cheater, Lance Armstrong, and the wave of doping cyclists of which Armstrong proved to be the best.
I think this book achieves a good balance of being informative for someone who is already decently familiar with the subject matter, and being accessible for someone who has only the vaguest of ideas that sometimes people have bicycling road races.
I was interested in some of the deeper history like America's pre-car fascination with bicycling, and in the "peloton culture" of the 1970s and 1980s that LeMond and other English speakers had to contend with, when the Tour de France was kind of just one of three big but provincial races, in which each country (Italy, Spain, France) tried to boost some rider from its own nationality to a victory - setting courses that supposedly favored so-and-so's strengths, looking the other way for minor (or even major) rulebreaking, and random spectators who occasionally took it upon themselves to throw stuff at disfavored riders. This stuff was wiped out somewhere along the way, or at least in the French race it was, because there's too much money involved now for that kind of stuff to be what animates the race.
It reads like a wild and untamed frontier compared to how it is now; the race segments are more full of chaos and confusion because of riders and teams not yet having wireless radios to communicate. Even the team organization is chaotic - imagine my shock reading about the early 80s days where the car company Renault not only was the sponsor of a cycling team but literally owned the team. Old superstitions are rampant. LeMond, in this admittedly very sympathetic portrayal, comes in and directly or indirectly changes so much; LeMond's focus on chiefly the Tour de France is credited with elevating that race to prominence on the cycling calendar, LeMond's 1989 victory using a different kind of handlebar spread rapidly, LeMond is even recognized for carving out a new path for cycling spouses to stay with their partners during big races where previously they were banished to stay at home.
Concurrently to my reading this book, in my main sport interest of baseball, New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge hit his 61st home run of this season. This is a number of significance because if you studiously ignore the performance of Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire, three men who never tested positive for anything that was banned but are widely believed to have used a variety of performance-enhancing drugs, then that means Judge is tied with the "true single-season home run king" (Roger Maris, who hit 61 in 1961) and with one more home run will pass him. My feeling about Bonds and the other so-called big PED guys from the late 90s and early 00s is that probably a whole lot of people were cheating, including pitchers he was facing, we don't know who did or didn't do what, so the rush to find reasons not to count records for guys who were the best of the cheaters just seems stupid, to me.
This is directly related to the Armstrong portions of this book, with one passage suggesting as much as 90% of the peloton was doping while Armstrong was ripping off his now-stripped seven straight Tour de France victories. I think it's just not honest for people who keep the records to act like that never happened. They kept the guy's pee in a freezer for almost a decade until they could devise a test that would detect the stuff he was doing! I'm thinking about this kind of thing also because the author's way of marking how drug use seemed to be spreading in the peloton was marking an increase in the average speed of each year's Tour. In the first year LeMond won (1986, an absolutely wild tour with LeMond being continually undermined by fading-but-still-legendary teammate Bernard Hinault), the average speed of the race was 37 kilometers per hour. A decade later, Armstrong led the group to finish with a 40.2km/hour average speed - the first time the 40 barrier had been broken.
In the aftermath of Armstrong there have been various efforts to say they are cleaning up the sport, and indeed some guys have gotten busted, but this average speed is still going up. The 2022 race set a new record with a 42km/hour average speed. It would be naive to assume that this is entirely because of improvements in training regimens and nutrition and data-driven mechanical and bio-mechanical adjustments and the professional cycling circuit doing a better job of getting guys with potentially elite cyclist lung function into cycling rather than any other career they might stumble into.
The book spends a short bit of time on how the next frontier might be "motorized doping" - sneaking little motors into the bikes that can do work at judicious moments and spare the rider having to use so much effort. There were allegations of this in the middle of the last decade, particularly focused on Team Sky/Ineos, which won seven of the races (with four different riders) from 2012-19, supported mostly by this one mystery: During a time trial one year, all riders bikes were supposedly weighed; the Sky bikes all were 800 grams more than other bikes, supposedly the weight of the motor apparatus. It seems almost too outrageous to be true, but then again, so does the blood doping stuff.
My feeling about this is influenced by how I look at the baseball stuff. If a guy didn't get busted during the year whatever happened, then his numbers are the numbers. Barry Bonds is the home run king, no matter how many people want to pretend otherwise. Lance Armstrong is unquestionably a huge asshole but he's the American cycling king also. LeMond is not diminished by saying this - his role as a trailblazer is always going to be huge, and his own comeback story, returning to the pinnacle of the sport after a hunting accident nearly kills him and leaves him with 30 shotgun pellets stuck in his body for good, is remarkable.
The book was certainly in my wheelhouse and I both enjoyed it and was informed by it.
This is kind of like four books in one, loosely linked by centering the biographical parts around Greg LeMond, the first American to win the race and a three-time winner before his career came to a close. It is a general history of cycling in the United States, kind of a "cycling life" biography of LeMond, a laser-focused narrative about the 1989 Tour, which LeMond won by eight seconds after a triumph on the final day, and an exploration of doping in bicycling that exploded after LeMond had retired.
It seems clear to me that the one of these that most engaged the author was the LeMond/Laurent Fignon (himself a two-time champion) battle in 1989, with the personal and professional life arcs that led those two guys to the point where they were the big competitors that year. The other stuff feels like maybe an editor told him nobody in America was going to read a book that was only about the 1989 Tour de France, even though that probably could be its own book, and so could the last couple of chapters that are kind of a denouement with the heroic LeMond in opposition to the dastardly cheater, Lance Armstrong, and the wave of doping cyclists of which Armstrong proved to be the best.
I think this book achieves a good balance of being informative for someone who is already decently familiar with the subject matter, and being accessible for someone who has only the vaguest of ideas that sometimes people have bicycling road races.
I was interested in some of the deeper history like America's pre-car fascination with bicycling, and in the "peloton culture" of the 1970s and 1980s that LeMond and other English speakers had to contend with, when the Tour de France was kind of just one of three big but provincial races, in which each country (Italy, Spain, France) tried to boost some rider from its own nationality to a victory - setting courses that supposedly favored so-and-so's strengths, looking the other way for minor (or even major) rulebreaking, and random spectators who occasionally took it upon themselves to throw stuff at disfavored riders. This stuff was wiped out somewhere along the way, or at least in the French race it was, because there's too much money involved now for that kind of stuff to be what animates the race.
It reads like a wild and untamed frontier compared to how it is now; the race segments are more full of chaos and confusion because of riders and teams not yet having wireless radios to communicate. Even the team organization is chaotic - imagine my shock reading about the early 80s days where the car company Renault not only was the sponsor of a cycling team but literally owned the team. Old superstitions are rampant. LeMond, in this admittedly very sympathetic portrayal, comes in and directly or indirectly changes so much; LeMond's focus on chiefly the Tour de France is credited with elevating that race to prominence on the cycling calendar, LeMond's 1989 victory using a different kind of handlebar spread rapidly, LeMond is even recognized for carving out a new path for cycling spouses to stay with their partners during big races where previously they were banished to stay at home.
Concurrently to my reading this book, in my main sport interest of baseball, New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge hit his 61st home run of this season. This is a number of significance because if you studiously ignore the performance of Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire, three men who never tested positive for anything that was banned but are widely believed to have used a variety of performance-enhancing drugs, then that means Judge is tied with the "true single-season home run king" (Roger Maris, who hit 61 in 1961) and with one more home run will pass him. My feeling about Bonds and the other so-called big PED guys from the late 90s and early 00s is that probably a whole lot of people were cheating, including pitchers he was facing, we don't know who did or didn't do what, so the rush to find reasons not to count records for guys who were the best of the cheaters just seems stupid, to me.
This is directly related to the Armstrong portions of this book, with one passage suggesting as much as 90% of the peloton was doping while Armstrong was ripping off his now-stripped seven straight Tour de France victories. I think it's just not honest for people who keep the records to act like that never happened. They kept the guy's pee in a freezer for almost a decade until they could devise a test that would detect the stuff he was doing! I'm thinking about this kind of thing also because the author's way of marking how drug use seemed to be spreading in the peloton was marking an increase in the average speed of each year's Tour. In the first year LeMond won (1986, an absolutely wild tour with LeMond being continually undermined by fading-but-still-legendary teammate Bernard Hinault), the average speed of the race was 37 kilometers per hour. A decade later, Armstrong led the group to finish with a 40.2km/hour average speed - the first time the 40 barrier had been broken.
In the aftermath of Armstrong there have been various efforts to say they are cleaning up the sport, and indeed some guys have gotten busted, but this average speed is still going up. The 2022 race set a new record with a 42km/hour average speed. It would be naive to assume that this is entirely because of improvements in training regimens and nutrition and data-driven mechanical and bio-mechanical adjustments and the professional cycling circuit doing a better job of getting guys with potentially elite cyclist lung function into cycling rather than any other career they might stumble into.
The book spends a short bit of time on how the next frontier might be "motorized doping" - sneaking little motors into the bikes that can do work at judicious moments and spare the rider having to use so much effort. There were allegations of this in the middle of the last decade, particularly focused on Team Sky/Ineos, which won seven of the races (with four different riders) from 2012-19, supported mostly by this one mystery: During a time trial one year, all riders bikes were supposedly weighed; the Sky bikes all were 800 grams more than other bikes, supposedly the weight of the motor apparatus. It seems almost too outrageous to be true, but then again, so does the blood doping stuff.
My feeling about this is influenced by how I look at the baseball stuff. If a guy didn't get busted during the year whatever happened, then his numbers are the numbers. Barry Bonds is the home run king, no matter how many people want to pretend otherwise. Lance Armstrong is unquestionably a huge asshole but he's the American cycling king also. LeMond is not diminished by saying this - his role as a trailblazer is always going to be huge, and his own comeback story, returning to the pinnacle of the sport after a hunting accident nearly kills him and leaves him with 30 shotgun pellets stuck in his body for good, is remarkable.
The book was certainly in my wheelhouse and I both enjoyed it and was informed by it.
August 1, 2020
What a grueling tale. The lengths these guys go to in order to win is absurd. Doping or no doping, shitting down your legs while riding, pulling out tape worms, and riding on broken bones is madness.
November 11, 2018
Multiple award (including a Pulitzer Prize) investigative journalist, author Daniel de Vise explores the life of Tour de France winner (3 times without cheating), cyclist and previous Minnesota resident Greg LeMond in The Comeback: Greg LeMond, the True King of American Cycling. The jacket cover is an appropriate picture of strength embossed with what else- yellow and black. As someone who prized my own bikes as a kid and relied on them to go everywhere this was a must read. It was the days when we didn't wear helmets and flourished just fine.
Greg LeMond's story is punctuated with his own METOO story of sexual abuse at the hands of a neighbor, a bizarre hunting accident which momentarily derailed his huge success and fighting his own personal demons which often affect all of us as human beings. There is a great deal of content directed at LeMond's rise in the biking world, his races, the diet,the egos and immature behavior of many of these men during the crown jewel of racing; the Tour de France. LeMond's mood may have shifted at times but his integrity remained in tact even when he had to stand alone in his beliefs. His story wouldn't be complete without the introduction of Lance Armstrong who's own biological father abandoned the family which may explain a lot about Armstrong's arrogant behavior. I bought into the fraud like many did and proudly wore my yellow bracelet.
However, the real message of this story is LeMond's mother and father who supported his dreams even in the darkest and doubtful of times and especially his wife, Kathy, who believed in Greg from the very beginning. Complete with pictures, author acknowledgements, notes and index. A side note- the Hoist RT LeMond Series recumbent bike I purchased last year to help my own spouse and to assist in exercising during the winter months here in Minnesota is a first-class, beautiful machine.
Greg LeMond's story is punctuated with his own METOO story of sexual abuse at the hands of a neighbor, a bizarre hunting accident which momentarily derailed his huge success and fighting his own personal demons which often affect all of us as human beings. There is a great deal of content directed at LeMond's rise in the biking world, his races, the diet,the egos and immature behavior of many of these men during the crown jewel of racing; the Tour de France. LeMond's mood may have shifted at times but his integrity remained in tact even when he had to stand alone in his beliefs. His story wouldn't be complete without the introduction of Lance Armstrong who's own biological father abandoned the family which may explain a lot about Armstrong's arrogant behavior. I bought into the fraud like many did and proudly wore my yellow bracelet.
However, the real message of this story is LeMond's mother and father who supported his dreams even in the darkest and doubtful of times and especially his wife, Kathy, who believed in Greg from the very beginning. Complete with pictures, author acknowledgements, notes and index. A side note- the Hoist RT LeMond Series recumbent bike I purchased last year to help my own spouse and to assist in exercising during the winter months here in Minnesota is a first-class, beautiful machine.
January 29, 2019
Good read greatly enjoyed
A good look inside cycling in the golden age for America. Interesting to get a look behind the scenes as I recall not much coverage available at the time.
A good look inside cycling in the golden age for America. Interesting to get a look behind the scenes as I recall not much coverage available at the time.
March 14, 2021
I began riding bicycles in 1985. I never loved doing anything else as much. I built my life around cycling. I have been in the cycling industry in one form or another for 31 years. This book was showcased my own cycling dreams and nightmares. Loving an activity that very few people had heard of, to see it bloom into a recognized sport in the Lemond era. Then explode into the main stream with the Armstrong era. Finally the fall of cycling to the Doping era.
I loved the good guy bad guy of these first Tours that broadcast on CBS. I enjoyed this book for the memories it allowed me to visit. How I spent days try to explain to my best friend, what that crazy beautiful 1989 Tour De France was all about.
I idealized Lemond. I would read every article, set the VCR to watch any race or interview. I had recalled most of what was in the book about him, but it was nice to recount those stories. His story is what made me pick up the book.
As a young kid from Texas, I raced in event with Armstrong. I was in the pack as he lapped the field at the 1990 Cowtown goes green crit in Ft.worth Texas. I saw him be an absolute arrogant jerk and other times lending a helpful hand. Armstrong is as much a victim as he is a scoundrel. As noted in the book EPO use had already exploded in the peloton. He, as very other rider were faced with two options, dope or get a real job.
The surprise of the book for me was Fignon! I had seen him only as the bad guy. From my first time watching Bike races on TV. He was shown yelling and throwing water bottles at the camera. I never wanted to know about him. Now I feel sad to have let his store pass me by.
I had hoped to have a fun read about one of the greatest sports moments of all time. It was that. It is also about the other side, the lowest levels my sport can achieve.
I loved the good guy bad guy of these first Tours that broadcast on CBS. I enjoyed this book for the memories it allowed me to visit. How I spent days try to explain to my best friend, what that crazy beautiful 1989 Tour De France was all about.
I idealized Lemond. I would read every article, set the VCR to watch any race or interview. I had recalled most of what was in the book about him, but it was nice to recount those stories. His story is what made me pick up the book.
As a young kid from Texas, I raced in event with Armstrong. I was in the pack as he lapped the field at the 1990 Cowtown goes green crit in Ft.worth Texas. I saw him be an absolute arrogant jerk and other times lending a helpful hand. Armstrong is as much a victim as he is a scoundrel. As noted in the book EPO use had already exploded in the peloton. He, as very other rider were faced with two options, dope or get a real job.
The surprise of the book for me was Fignon! I had seen him only as the bad guy. From my first time watching Bike races on TV. He was shown yelling and throwing water bottles at the camera. I never wanted to know about him. Now I feel sad to have let his store pass me by.
I had hoped to have a fun read about one of the greatest sports moments of all time. It was that. It is also about the other side, the lowest levels my sport can achieve.
May 23, 2018
4 stars if you like bike racing. 3 stars if you don't. I can't imagine anybody buying or reading this book who's never heard of at least some of the people involved though.
PROS: Thankfully, this isn't a one-sided presentation (at least on all fronts). Roughly half of the book is also about Laurent Fignon, Lemond's former teammate and foil/rival during his comeback tour.
So many historical books jump around the timeline and leave you disoriented on when things happened in relation to each other (maybe this is my own shortcoming?). I didn't feel that in this book at all. With no actual physical timeline, I felt like I grasped the time between events just on the months/years mentioned; probably the seasonal nature of the sport helps with that, but I never really felt like I was just reading a bunch of facts, which has to be hard to avoid in a story like this.
CON: The author repeats himself a few times. A little more judicious editing would have cleaned it up a bit, IMHO, but what are you gonna do.
The author (for better or for worse) brings up Lemond's unfortunate accusations of motor doping, which has yet to be proven beyond the case of one female U23 cyclocross racer. Thankfully only a few pages on this, because it's pretty cringe-worthy (much like Lemond's actual comments on the subject).
PROS: Thankfully, this isn't a one-sided presentation (at least on all fronts). Roughly half of the book is also about Laurent Fignon, Lemond's former teammate and foil/rival during his comeback tour.
So many historical books jump around the timeline and leave you disoriented on when things happened in relation to each other (maybe this is my own shortcoming?). I didn't feel that in this book at all. With no actual physical timeline, I felt like I grasped the time between events just on the months/years mentioned; probably the seasonal nature of the sport helps with that, but I never really felt like I was just reading a bunch of facts, which has to be hard to avoid in a story like this.
CON: The author repeats himself a few times. A little more judicious editing would have cleaned it up a bit, IMHO, but what are you gonna do.
The author (for better or for worse) brings up Lemond's unfortunate accusations of motor doping, which has yet to be proven beyond the case of one female U23 cyclocross racer. Thankfully only a few pages on this, because it's pretty cringe-worthy (much like Lemond's actual comments on the subject).
July 1, 2018
Great summary of LeMond’s career as American cycling true hero.
Enjoyed the summary and additional information about LeMond’s rise and fall, as well as his resurrection as America’s true cycling hero. Bravo!
Enjoyed the summary and additional information about LeMond’s rise and fall, as well as his resurrection as America’s true cycling hero. Bravo!
June 2, 2021
This struck me as a more fair and balanced assessment of LeMond, the wonder and the warts. LeMond's comeback may be, as noted in this book, the greatest sports comeback of all time . . . or is that the comeback of his nemesis, Armstrong? Either way, I enjoyed learning more about LeMond and his triumphs in the tour, before and after getting shot by his BIL.
The book ponders the question of whether LeMond was clean, and amply covers the points in his favor - exceptionally high VO2max, even compared to other professional cyclists, and consistent public and private professions of innocence. Maybe he was innocent, but based on what I know of cycling, I doubt it. This puts his vendetta against Lance in a bad light. Given is interpersonal struggles in the cycling world, i wasn't surprised to hear that he was estranged from both his parents for ten years until his mother's death, at which point he reconciled with his father.
A lot of extraordinary people are troubled, since it takes a type of extremity to be the best in the world at something, not just physically, but also to navigate life in France, competition and backstabbing among cyclists, team dynamics, and so on. LeMond is no exception. I like that this book covered him from start to present, unlike the Chasing the Badger book that covered only his rivalry with Bernard Hinault.
The book ponders the question of whether LeMond was clean, and amply covers the points in his favor - exceptionally high VO2max, even compared to other professional cyclists, and consistent public and private professions of innocence. Maybe he was innocent, but based on what I know of cycling, I doubt it. This puts his vendetta against Lance in a bad light. Given is interpersonal struggles in the cycling world, i wasn't surprised to hear that he was estranged from both his parents for ten years until his mother's death, at which point he reconciled with his father.
A lot of extraordinary people are troubled, since it takes a type of extremity to be the best in the world at something, not just physically, but also to navigate life in France, competition and backstabbing among cyclists, team dynamics, and so on. LeMond is no exception. I like that this book covered him from start to present, unlike the Chasing the Badger book that covered only his rivalry with Bernard Hinault.
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