About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

38 Replies to “Greg Lemond was a baller”

  1. There have been many champions that progressed to make their own frames, but he was racing on a bike with his name on the downtube while wearing the current year’s stripes.

  2. The frame also has TVT logo on it – did he add his name just for the ego or to help him find it in the mornings?

    Never understood the “legend status” associated with Greg – not a hater – but just don’t buy into it as much –

    Anyway – try this on for size – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2oymHHyV1M

    keep the rubber side down and stay safe!!!!

  3. …lest we forget, beyond his palmares, the young mr lemond held his own with the toughest man of his era, his own teammate, bernard hinault…even put ‘the badger’ in his place on occasion…

    …baller & innovative motherfucker…

  4. He was the last true winner of the Tour. As I am sure he would be happy to tell you everyone since Lemond was a doper.

  5. I didn’t watch cycling during this era, but wasn’t Lemond the first of the “Tour Specialists” or was that post Lemond? Even still riding for a team that kind of fought you and still winning is baller thing to do.

  6. I’ve often wondered if people racing against him were thinking, “This fucker’s been SHOT…wtf have I got for him?”

  7. wasn’t Lemond the first of the “Tour Specialists” or was that post Lemond?

    That started with Indurain. Lemond has:

    * 2 rainbow jerseys (and another podium)
    * 2nd place at Milan-San Remo
    * 4th place at Paris-Roubaix (and the Het Volk)
    * Podium at the Giro

    Not exactly a specialist’s resume.

    His run of podiums in the northern classics came the same year he took second at the Tour.

  8. Chasing down the break and then outsprinting Sean Kelly to win the WC’s after winning the Tour, after being shotgunned, in shit conditions,on a highly technical course, pretty much excludes someone from being a “Tour Specialist”

  9. Like I said I didn’t follow road cycling all that much then I was more consumed with football, BMX. Just always seems that when his named is mentioned it’s in connection with TDF and Coors Light Classic.

  10. Gonna Say this and own it.

    Greg Lemond was the greatest cycling talent of our generation. From the Grand Tour to World Champs, to Classics.

    Highest VO2 Max ever recorded, no need to dope. In the imoortal wrods of Cancer Jesus. “PERIOD. END OF STORY. REST MY CASE.”

  11. @Hack

    Great video. 60 miles an hour down a rain slicked hill/mtn on a bicycle ?

    I wouldn’t do that in a fooking car.

    Talk about balls to the wall.

  12. Please sir,could I give my vote for “Baller of the Year”. Jonny Hoogeland Let the nominations begin!

  13. Nice to see the posts on this. A few short years back my bet would be a 50/50 split with LA supporters putting down GL for no other reason than speaking the truth.

  14. Fought off the badger, the shotgun, the dopestrong machine,and some still deny his legend status?. I believe Greg,and George. BALLER!!!

  15. …i’ll admit, that although i had always admired greg lemond, even having met him on numerous occasions at the beginning & end of his illustrious racing career, i was staunch in commenting against him during the ‘trekstrong’ debacle because i foolishly felt that the truth he spoke was damaging the status quo of the sport…

    …cycling was still in denial & i though ‘sleeping dogs’ should be left to lie but not having any real understanding of the armstrong camp’s tactic of both belittling & intimidating people, at that time i chose the wrong side…

    …greg lemond = kick ass american racer & all round good guy…

    …lance armstrong = kick ass american racer with manufactured ‘good guy’ status but with a MAJOR caveat that should forever be attached to his name, beyond the livestrong branding…

  16. …sneggdog…greg’s a good guy but a twisted soul at the same time, ya ???…that whole ‘biting the hand that feeds you’ situation where he was calling out arm-twister for epo use while the two of ’em were owned by trek, just smacked of foolishness & bad business…it was obvious the golden goose was gonna get the company support, so what was he thinking…

    …i gotta say, i still wonder if lemond ‘blood doped’ at some point in his career with the justification being that “…it doesn’t involve drugs so therefor it isn’t doping…”…& that ‘was’ the way to go within that time frame…witness eddy b & the ’84 olympics…

    …the recently departed laurent fignon admitted that he felt his cancer came about through drug use whilst in le peloton & lemond was beating him just like a certain other american was kicking the ass of a ton of known & busted dopers in the world’s biggest race…

    …no matter…lemond might be a little whack but at this point he’s not like the armstrong kinda whack…the kind where the writing is on the wall & he refuses to read the message because he thinks his accomplishments make him better than those pointing out the obvious…

  17. “…so what was he thinking…”

    I believe it’s called, “not giving a fuck”. It’s refreshing to occasionally see someone stand up for what’s right without considering whether or not it’s good business.

  18. BGW, Greg Lemond came from the time when:

    Linemen didn’t weight 350lbs
    Reggie Miller was not abnormal
    Golfers didn’t have muscles
    62 homers was that might never be broken
    Athletes didn’t compete at the top of their sport until 42years old
    Strong muscle were thought to be a hindrance for some sports

    Did GL blood pack? No, imo. I don’t think he needed to. Much like I don’t let people touch my car when it is getting the job done, I don’t think too many people would go through all the trouble and risk if they were already winning (I could be wrong).

    They finally figured out how to make thorough breds from donkeys in the 90’s.

    Anyone else remember the 3 or 4 years when linemen all gained 40 or 50 lbs and they kept saying it was genetics and nutrition…that was funny.

  19. …yoro…dunno what to think…i knew & rode with guys from greg’s earliet club, the ‘reno – cynar wheelmen’, some of whom lived in the tahoe basin…although greg was a few years younger, he was of our generation, so i guess i feel a bit ‘personal’ about it all, having been around to watch ‘the kid’ evolve into such a world class rider…

    …always thought a lot of the guy & honestly still do…greg lemond put (north) american cycling on the map like never before…he validated the effort & hard work put in by others because he rose to the top in europe & the old guard had to take note…he was also responsible for changing the pay structure for cyclists & his grasp of the innovative changed perceptions as regards cycling technology…

    …that said, i willingly castigated him on this site when i felt like he was kinda going cray & pissing on the sport as a whole & i also felt that greg was tarnishing his own good name & reputation, which i saw as a shame…

    …so, anyway, i am in greg’s camp but as i mentioned, just as armstrong beat all the known dopers of his day whist denying but using, as we’ve learned from his ex-teammate, all the latest medical ‘technology’, greg lemond beat a classy rider in laurent fignon (& others) who in the end admitted that he had been a user in his day…

    …if greg says he didn’t use drugs, i believe him but i will always wonder if he, hinault & others were ‘blood packing’…it definitely isn’t drug use but it is a type of enhancement…

    …to paraphrase the elegant 5-time ‘tour’ winner jacques anquetil – “…we ride through the cold, through heatwaves, in the rain and in the mountains & we have the right to treat ourselves as we wish – you’d be crazy to think we could do what we do on nothing but bread & water…leave me in peace; everybody takes dope.”

    …just sayin’…

  20. @YoRo: The Fridge was well over 350. The unnatural thing is that the freaks playing today are a hell of a lot faster.

  21. The fridge was a freak back then, now he’d fit right in.

    “An analysis of league rosters shows the number of 300-pounders has risen dramatically over the decades: From a single player (Gene Ferguson of the Chargers) in 1970, to three in 1980, 94 in 1990, 301 in 2000 and 394 in 2009.”

    “There were 532 players in the 300-pound-plus club heading into the 2010 training camps.”

    from: http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/number-of-300-pound-nfl-linemen-continues-to-increase

  22. @ HOLDEN FLABCOCK V02 claims are just wrong. only a cyclist would think they could have the highest by exercising while seated. Ever heard of Nordic Skiing?

  23. and oh yeah, the 15K winning time at the 2010 Olympics was 37 minutes. Nothing to see here, move along…

  24. …needless to say, world class competitive nordic skiing has suffered from as many doping scandals as cycling…

    …don’t worry, mikey…your name hasn’t come up yet…