Speech by Greg Lemond

[BikeCentric]

Having come to Rome from the provincial hell of America, I presume to talk to everyone about Cicero and Goethe. Quite perverse, I told myself. When I take America and the market apart, when I disect, annihilate and extinguish them, I am actually taking myself apart, disecting, annihilating and extinguishing myself. I have to admit that this idea of self-disection and self-extinction appeals to me, as I've told my students. And if I'm not mistaken I will succeed in this self-dissection and self-extinction.

The truth is, I've told my students, that parents shirk from the responsibilty for the children they bring into the world and rather allow the market logic to raise their children in their place. What I'm saying is true of many parents, indeed most parents. But I'm quite alone in saying it! We must keep such thoughts, which are contrary to the market logic, to ourselves and musn't publish them. We must choke down such thoughts in a world that would react to them with revulsion. Were I to publish a piece entitled Parents, it would merely result in me being pronounced a liar or a fool or both. The world wouldn't tolerate such views, because it's accustomed to falsehood and hypocrisy, not to facts. The truth is that in this world governed by the market facts are ignored, while fantastic ideals are proclaimed as facts, because that's politically more expedient and acceptable to the opposite. We have gone from Homo Sapiens to Homo Economicus, with the consequence that reality is passed off as fantasy and vice versa. As a result there is no shame in applauding the indecent sums we pay our athletes, who are mere entertainers! While the rest of the masses have to get by practically on slave wages. But rather than start a revolution because of the gross over earnings we pay our entertainers, to say nothing of our politicians, the logic of the market has beaten everyone into state of servile complacentcy, which the corporate world has known how to exploit through television and the media with devestating results. And even our lovely Tour has been destroyed, as Hinault correctly point out.

Rhubroma,
I have a book for you that you'd like:

http://www.amazon.com/One-Market-Un...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245079041&sr=8-1

 

[Anonymous]

Well anybody who makes this comment: "i've heard the money arguments in american sports too.
my opinion? if the money is there, the performers should get as much of it as they can. " speeks volumes of the uttelry base and vulgur world vision you maintian, which annihilates descency by reducing culture to a pure market value. The logic of the market has replaced culture, because vulgar people like yourself haven't the capacity to go beyond man's own base insticts to earn cash. The world of the markets is choking on it's own excessive wealth, while man's state has been redused to that of a hungry pack of stray dogs. The society of the markets is composed of stray dogs, who think only of themselves and not the collective.

"because vulgar people like yourself haven't the capacity to go beyond man's own base insticts to earn cash"

another lame lame straw man from mister pure as driven snow.

you don't know me. you don't have any knowledge to base a comment like that on, and then you through the insult "vulgar" in.

do you have some socialist vision of how to run the sport? (and i don't use the word socialist as a derogatory). if so let's hear it?

simply put, the money is there, solicited by owners from sponsors. it's just a question of who gets it. evidently your vision is to keep the riders so poor they can't dope. and the money the owners get stays in their pockets.

do you always side on management's side in issues of wages?

 

[Anonymous]

Having come to Rome from the provincial hell of America, I presume to talk to everyone about Cicero and Goethe. Quite perverse, I told myself. When I take America and the market apart, when I disect, annihilate and extinguish them, I am actually taking myself apart, disecting, annihilating and extinguishing myself. I have to admit that this idea of self-disection and self-extinction appeals to me, as I've told my students. And if I'm not mistaken I will succeed in this self-dissection and self-extinction.

The truth is, I've told my students, that parents shirk from the responsibilty for the children they bring into the world and rather allow the market logic to raise their children in their place. What I'm saying is true of many parents, indeed most parents. But I'm quite alone in saying it! We must keep such thoughts, which are contrary to the market logic, to ourselves and musn't publish them. We must choke down such thoughts in a world that would react to them with revulsion. Were I to publish a piece entitled Parents, it would merely result in me being pronounced a liar or a fool or both. The world wouldn't tolerate such views, because it's accustomed to falsehood and hypocrisy, not to facts. The truth is that in this world governed by the market facts are ignored, while fantastic ideals are proclaimed as facts, because that's politically more expedient and acceptable to the opposite. We have gone from Homo Sapiens to Homo Economicus, with the consequence that reality is passed off as fantasy and vice versa. As a result there is no shame in applauding the indecent sums we pay our athletes, who are mere entertainers! While the rest of the masses have to get by practically on slave wages. But rather than start a revolution because of the gross over earnings we pay our entertainers, to say nothing of our politicians, the logic of the market has beaten everyone into state of servile complacentcy, which the corporate world has known how to exploit through television and the media with devestating results. And even our lovely Tour has been destroyed, as Hinault correctly point out.

This brings to mind the fact that every "revolution" is co-opted by the wealthy. (Mao lived in extreme comfort as did every leader of the USSR...and all of their underlings)

One of my favorite quotes:
"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite."
John Kenneth Galbraith

Good luck with the revolution, let us all know how it turns out.

 

[53x11 in DC]

Having come to Rome from the provincial hell of America, I presume to talk to everyone about Cicero and Goethe. Quite perverse, I told myself. When I take America and the market apart, when I disect, annihilate and extinguish them, I am actually taking myself apart, disecting, annihilating and extinguishing myself. I have to admit that this idea of self-disection and self-extinction appeals to me, as I've told my students. And if I'm not mistaken I will succeed in this self-dissection and self-extinction.

The truth is, I've told my students, that parents shirk from the responsibilty for the children they bring into the world and rather allow the market logic to raise their children in their place. What I'm saying is true of many parents, indeed most parents. But I'm quite alone in saying it! We must keep such thoughts, which are contrary to the market logic, to ourselves and musn't publish them. We must choke down such thoughts in a world that would react to them with revulsion. Were I to publish a piece entitled Parents, it would merely result in me being pronounced a liar or a fool or both. The world wouldn't tolerate such views, because it's accustomed to falsehood and hypocrisy, not to facts. The truth is that in this world governed by the market facts are ignored, while fantastic ideals are proclaimed as facts, because that's politically more expedient and acceptable to the opposite. We have gone from Homo Sapiens to Homo Economicus, with the consequence that reality is passed off as fantasy and vice versa. As a result there is no shame in applauding the indecent sums we pay our athletes, who are mere entertainers! While the rest of the masses have to get by practically on slave wages. But rather than start a revolution because of the gross over earnings we pay our entertainers, to say nothing of our politicians, the logic of the market has beaten everyone into state of servile complacentcy, which the corporate world has known how to exploit through television and the media with devestating results. And even our lovely Tour has been destroyed, as Hinault correctly point out.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...... I feel for your students.

 

[rhubroma]

"because vulgar people like yourself haven't the capacity to go beyond man's own base insticts to earn cash"

another lame lame straw man from mister pure as driven snow.

you don't know me. you don't have any knowledge to base a comment like that on, and then you through the insult "vulgar" in.

do you have some socialist vision of how to run the sport? (and i don't use the word socialist as a derogatory). if so let's hear it?

simply put, the money is there, solicited by owners from sponsors. it's just a question of who gets it. evidently your vision is to keep the riders so poor they can't dope. and the money the owners get stays in their pockets.

do you always side on management's side in issues of wages?

No my aim isn't to keep athletes poor, nor to vindicate management. Whereas it is pathetic to even suggest that lowering their wages to something more proportionate to they're real, and not virtual, worth, would be even puting them at the level of doctors and lawyers, let alone into the poor house. But we have crossed that boundry between what is proportionate and what is pure excess. What we have seen developing over the last decade is a loss of all sense of decent measure, above all at Wall Street. And we have achieved this in all the markets which has atrophied democracy, to say nothing of the lethal effects it has upon the environment.

 

[BigBoat]

I dont believe in a socialist set up but I do think people (almost everybody) are far to obsessed with the money world and earning more. Almost nobody is satisfied with what they have. Certainly not pro athletes. The whole world is chasing more more more, lol.

 

[Anonymous]

Having come to Rome from the provincial hell of America, I presume to talk to everyone about Cicero and Goethe. Quite perverse, I told myself. When I take America and the market apart, when I disect, annihilate and extinguish them, I am actually taking myself apart, disecting, annihilating and extinguishing myself. I have to admit that this idea of self-disection and self-extinction appeals to me, as I've told my students. And if I'm not mistaken I will succeed in this self-dissection and self-extinction.

The truth is, I've told my students, that parents shirk from the responsibilty for the children they bring into the world and rather allow the market logic to raise their children in their place. What I'm saying is true of many parents, indeed most parents. But I'm quite alone in saying it! We must keep such thoughts, which are contrary to the market logic, to ourselves and musn't publish them. We must choke down such thoughts in a world that would react to them with revulsion. Were I to publish a piece entitled Parents, it would merely result in me being pronounced a liar or a fool or both. The world wouldn't tolerate such views, because it's accustomed to falsehood and hypocrisy, not to facts. The truth is that in this world governed by the market facts are ignored, while fantastic ideals are proclaimed as facts, because that's politically more expedient and acceptable to the opposite. We have gone from Homo Sapiens to Homo Economicus, with the consequence that reality is passed off as fantasy and vice versa. As a result there is no shame in applauding the indecent sums we pay our athletes, who are mere entertainers! While the rest of the masses have to get by practically on slave wages. But rather than start a revolution because of the gross over earnings we pay our entertainers, to say nothing of our politicians, the logic of the market has beaten everyone into state of servile complacentcy, which the corporate world has known how to exploit through television and the media with devestating results. And even our lovely Tour has been destroyed, as Hinault correctly point out.

My head hurts from reading all this knowledge. Do you post or moderate under a different screen name? Maybe your other name is rational head?

Have fun with your revolution.

 

[Kennf1]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...... I feel for your students.

I just hope he does not teach grammar.

 

[Anonymous]

No my aim isn't to keep athletes poor, nor to vindicate management. Whereas it is pathetic to even suggest that lowering their wages to something more proportionate to they're real, and not virtual, worth, would be even puting them at the level of doctors and lawyers, let alone into the poor house. But we have crossed that boundry between what is proportionate and what is pure excess. What we have seen developing over the last decade is a loss of all sense of decent measure, above all at Wall Street. And we have achieved this in all the markets which has atrophied democracy, to say nothing of the lethal effects it has upon the environment.

well well..

Some things we agree on.

The obscenity of pure capitalistic greed on Wall Street, it's affect on democracy and the environment.

But if paying professional athletes less means professional owners make more, I'm against it.

Again, it looks like a simple management/labor issue with me on the side of labor.

 

[davestoller]

Did you catch his statement at around 8:30 where he said that he recently, through focused training, got his power output close to the levels he had in his last year as a pro? At age 47?

Also, sounds like the Trek v. Lemond is still going full speed ahead.

Who the hell believes that anyway? I ride with some guys who used to race pro...even if they train some year round and then ramp it up in the summer, they come NOWHERE close to their former powers, and these are professional sports trainers now.

In the same speech he said he is still as fat as ever. Which I am assuming means he is not training seriously or riding very much.
So how would his power reach anywhere NEAR what he did as a pro when he trained and raced 9 months a year. In the pro peloton?
He is so full of it. So why then did he SAY it?

Recall, its been twenty years with no high level competition for Greg and he can get HIS power back but Lance is struggling to make it back.
But oh of course, THAT is the point isnt it.
Greg miracle man can come back at age 50 to the same power he had when he raced 20 yearts ago, but Lance at age 38 or 39 out of racing only three years wont get those same power levels back because he was doped back then and cant dope now because of all the tests.

Oh I get it Greg. Thanks for being so subtle. And being si completely off your rocker and full of it.
Zero credibility right now Greg. Zero.

 

[BikeCentric]

Who the hell believes that anyway? I ride with some guys who used to race pro...even if they train some year round and then ramp it up in the summer, they come NOWHERE close to their former powers, and these are professional sports trainers now.

In the same speech he said he is still as fat as ever. Which I am assuming means he is not training seriously or riding very much.
So how would his power reach anywhere NEAR what he did as a pro when he trained and raced 9 months a year. In the pro peloton?
He is so full of it. So why then did he SAY it?

Recall, its been twenty years with no high level competition for Greg and he can get HIS power back but Lance is struggling to make it back.
But oh of course, THAT is the point isnt it.
Greg miracle man can come back at age 50 to the same power he had when he raced 20 yearts ago, but Lance at age 38 or 39 out of racing only three years wont get those same power levels back because he was doped back then and cant dope now because of all the tests.

Oh I get it Greg. Thanks for being so subtle. And being si completely off your rocker and full of it.
Zero credibility right now Greg. Zero.

It's all about power/weight ratio. It's actually pretty easy to get your power back up to former levels, but it's really hard to lose a bunch of weight and get as lean as possible while maintaining said power output. What this means is that Greg would get destroyed going uphill (as he acknowledged, he said his son drops him up hill) but he would be able to absolutely motor on flats.

I saw this personally a few years ago while doing a group ride with Eddy Merckx. He was fat as hell, but his power output was still so high that he had no trouble going fairly fast uphill and he was barely breathing on the flats.

 

[auscyclefan94]

Paul kimmage and L Armstrong

paul kimmage tottally stumped armstrong when he questioned him about "the cancer in cycling has returned". armstrong clearly new what he meant and then armstrong goes on about cancer survivors. it was stupid for armstrong to defend dopers such as landis and basso (plus many over dopers asscoiated with LA) because it would make him look bad for sticking up for cheats. have you wondered how many riders from us postal who have moved on from that team have tested positive. tons of them!! if armstrong got the 1999 tour tests re tested it would have cleared a lot up about him. it is interesting that laurent fignon said that everybody was doping back then. imagine if eddy merckx was in this era of riders and tested positive like he did at the giro. nobody talks about him cheating. the rest of the races he would have won would have been suspicious!

 

[Anonymous]

It's all about power/weight ratio. It's actually pretty easy to get your power back up to former levels, but it's really hard to lose a bunch of weight and get as lean as possible while maintaining said power output. What this means is that Greg would get destroyed going uphill (as he acknowledged, he said his son drops him up hill) but he would be able to absolutely motor on flats.

I saw this personally a few years ago while doing a group ride with Eddy Merckx. He was fat as hell, but his power output was still so high that he had no trouble going fairly fast uphill and he was barely breathing on the flats.

umm me smells BS.
produce same power as 20 years ago.. uh huh....if he's doping maybe!!
let me point out the error in your logic.
power/weight... give you same power but i don't believe it, and more weight... much much more weight.

what happened to his power/weight ration.

did it get better....... or... did ... it ... get ... much ... much worse.

you win the award for having your claim actually turn out to be completely opposite of what you claimed.

congratulations.

 

[BroDeal]

umm me smells BS.
produce same power as 20 years ago.. uh huh....if he's doping maybe!!
let me point out the error in your logic.
power/weight... give you same power but i don't believe it, and more weight... much much more weight.

what happened to his power/weight ration.

did it get better....... or... did ... it ... get ... much ... much worse.

you win the award for having your claim actually turn out to be completely opposite of what you claimed.

congratulations.

My brain hurts. Did you even read what he wrote?

 

[elapid]

power/weight... give you same power but i don't believe it, and more weight... much much more weight.

what happened to his power/weight ration.

I would believe it. Power-to-weight ratio is important when going up hill, but not on the flats. This is why the so-called big boys (Boonen, Cancellara, etc) are so much better on flats or short power hills.

For argument's sake, if LeMond's power output was 300W and he weighed 60 kg when racing and 80 kg now, his power-to-weight ratios would be 5.0 when racing and 3.75 now. He could still hang with everyone on the flats now, fitness not considered, but he would be spat out the back quite quickly on the hills with the lower ratio.

 

[slcbiker]

I'd be somewhat surprised if you could get power output at age 47 up close to what it was in early 30s. Muscle power starts to decrease after age 35 or so, one of the big reasons why you see so few pro athletes in power sports older than 35. It's why Zabel stopped winning. In some cases you can continue on through experience or endurance (which doesn't go downhill as fast). But it was always my understanding that pure power dropped off as you get older.

On the other hand, it's almost like LeMond is shooting many of his own arguments in the foot. If he is claiming such good effects from just training, wouldn't that also say that younger riders might be able to achieve some impressive results just with training rather than dope?

 

[BikeCentric]

umm me smells BS.
produce same power as 20 years ago.. uh huh....if he's doping maybe!!
let me point out the error in your logic.
power/weight... give you same power but i don't believe it, and more weight... much much more weight.

what happened to his power/weight ration.

did it get better....... or... did ... it ... get ... much ... much worse.

you win the award for having your claim actually turn out to be completely opposite of what you claimed.

congratulations.

You're not getting what I'm saying. Yes, you are correct that his power/weight ratio is much worse, that's what I said; that's why I said he'd do poorly on climbs but fine on flats.

What I'm saying is it's not that hard to get your power output back up, but it IS hard to get your power/weight ratio back up by losing weight, getting skinny and maintaing or increasing that power output.

I have a little firsthand experience with this myself. I took 2 years off of racing and gained 15 pounds (of fat), stayed in okay shape but was riding maybe a quarter of what I used to ride and not at all hard or competitively. This year I decided to get back in shape and race again. Only a month after I started riding a lot my FTP was back within 20 watts of where it was before, it was just that I was still fat as hell. 6 months later and I've lost the 15 pounds and gotten those 20 watts back +10, so I'm faster than I ever was before as well as having the best power/weight ratio I've ever had.

Then again, I didn't take 20 years off, and I'm 29. All I'm saying is that what Greg said is not beyond the realm of possibility because he's a known genetic cycling prodigy as well.

Long story short: being fat doesn't have anything to do with your threshold power output. It does have everything to do with how fast that FTP takes you uphill however. Have you ever gone and raced a flat time trial event? Usually the guys setting the best times are fairly hefty Masters 1/2/3 guys; they have monster engines from all their years of racing but they often don't feel like making all the diet sacrifices and training a ton of hours to get very lean because they've done it for years and they're sick of it.

 

[BikeCentric]

I'd be somewhat surprised if you could get power output at age 47 up close to what it was in early 30s. Muscle power starts to decrease after age 35 or so, one of the big reasons why you see so few pro athletes in power sports older than 35. It's why Zabel stopped winning. In some cases you can continue on through experience or endurance (which doesn't go downhill as fast). But it was always my understanding that pure power dropped off as you get older.

On the other hand, it's almost like LeMond is shooting many of his own arguments in the foot. If he is claiming such good effects from just training, wouldn't that also say that younger riders might be able to achieve some impressive results just with training rather than dope?

Peak power output decreases after age 35 or so. Sustainable power, such as functional threshold power, can still be maintained or even increased if the athlete had not trained it to its potential in the past.

 

[krebs303]

I see the conflict. Had to read it a couple times it seemed contradictory at first glance

"Greg would get destroyed going uphill"
Merckx-"he had no trouble going fairly fast uphill"

seems conflicting but not really as they are used in different context
Greg being destroyed would be in be in a race.
Merckx is compared to going fairly fast uphill on a group ride which IMO would get you destroyed in a race.

on the flats seems equal don't see any conflict
Greg-but he would be able to absolutely motor on flats.
Merckx-he was barely breathing on the flats.

 

[BikeCentric]

I see the conflict. Had to read it a couple times it seemed contradictory at first glance

"Greg would get destroyed going uphill"
Merckx-"he had no trouble going fairly fast uphill"

seems conflicting but not really as they are used in different context
Greg being destroyed would be in be in a race.
Merckx is compared to going fairly fast uphill on a group ride which IMO would get you destroyed in a race.

on the flats seems equal don't see any conflict
Greg-but he would be able to absolutely motor on flats.
Merckx-he was barely breathing on the flats.

The Merckx thing was a personal observation from memory as well that I tacked on there at the end because I just remembered it. We were on a big group ride climbing at a moderate pace, a pace that was fairly hard tempo for the majority of the riders in the group. So everyone was breathing fairly hard, Merckx was too but he sure wasn't panting or struggling at all. And he was really, really fat, so what I'm getting at is that it was clear to us all that he still had a gigantic aerobic engine in that body of his because he was climbing at a hard tempo with a bunch of very fit racers, not in any danger of getting dropped whatsoever, and the difference was that he was like 80 pounds overweight!! Now if that was a race I'm sure that even he would have gotten dropped because that is just too much weight to carry uphill. If he didn't have to carry that extra weight he would have killed us all because his power output was still pretty darn good as old and fat as he was.

 

[nobody]

Have you never tried to carry all day long for months or years 20 or 30 kg on your back?
What would become your muscles?

 

[Anonymous]

You're not getting what I'm saying. Yes, you are correct that his power/weight ratio is much worse, that's what I said; that's why I said he'd do poorly on climbs but fine on flats.


Then again, I didn't take 20 years off, and I'm 29.

exactly. you can't stop aging no matter how you train. midigate some of it's effects but only to a degree. your max heart rate will come down as you age. there's nothing you can do about it. yes, it came as a shock to me too. and when riding along side someone like you who maxes at 200 or better, the result is obvious, flat or hill.
it may be less obvious on the flat but you still can't out sprint the comparable younger rider with a higher power to weight ratio.

 

[sampras38]

Personally I agree with 99% of what he says, I just wish he quit with all the personal attacks on individuals such as Lance. The same goes for Kimmage, although he admitted to doping briefly. That I find incredibly hypocritical.

But generally we need people like him on the case and I have no issues with that at all.

I just think sometimes he goes a bit far and on occasion comes across as a little bitter and a mentalist..;-)

 

[rhubroma]

well well..

Some things we agree on.

The obscenity of pure capitalistic greed on Wall Street, it's affect on democracy and the environment.

But if paying professional athletes less means professional owners make more, I'm against it.

Again, it looks like a simple management/labor issue with me on the side of labor.

You are not on the side of "labor" because celebrities make millions more, nor is "management" struck at by paying out higher sums to those at the top of the earnings pyramid. The corporations sponsor sport as an investment, to increase their allready gargantuan profits. Real labor, that of the working classes, has seen a dramatic proportional loss in its relative earnings since the 70's, when mass credit and mass debt was invented in America and since has become pandemic practically throughout the capitalist universe. Naturally this to the exceeding benifit of the corporations who are the ones that lend the money to the working class, then make money on the interest from repayments, which, in turn, is invested further by them in corporate investments that naturally only upper management profits from. Thus a viscious cycle has forced the middle class to greater indebt themselves, and for the rest of their struggling lives, while the rich and powerful corporate capitalists reap all the benifits. And they also form the political lobbies which really dictate public policy, that of the elected politicians. And we even have the gall to claim we live ina democratic society! No, the entire system is rotten. And your arguments only lend support to the greed and excess which has also caused the rescent global financial crisis with its epicenter at Wall Street. It won't be long before we're back in the Middle Ages, if we haven't arrived there allready. We are all serfs to the corporate overlords, whereas a more democratic distribution of wealth would require our politicians to create regulatory rules to break this lethal cycle, but they absolutely won't do that becuase they are controlled by the corporate puppet masters. Whereas the masses have no stomach for the devestating revolution that's necessary today, as I have said, and have rather been beaten into submission by the corporate propaganda, which we see everyday on televison and read in the newspapers. So the people who ought to be rebelling against this corporate capitalism that keeps them down and causing this revolution which annihilates everything, literally everything, so we can start over from scratch as they say, are actually the ones praising the system because they have no brains anymore, because they are thinking the way the corporate capitalists have druged them into thinking, above all when spending their entire earnings at the tasteless shopping malls and at the stadiums.

 

[slowoldman]

The Merckx thing was a personal observation from memory as well that I tacked on there at the end because I just remembered it. We were on a big group ride climbing at a moderate pace, a pace that was fairly hard tempo for the majority of the riders in the group. So everyone was breathing fairly hard, Merckx was too but he sure wasn't panting or struggling at all. And he was really, really fat, so what I'm getting at is that it was clear to us all that he still had a gigantic aerobic engine in that body of his because he was climbing at a hard tempo with a bunch of very fit racers, not in any danger of getting dropped whatsoever, and the difference was that he was like 80 pounds overweight!! Now if that was a race I'm sure that even he would have gotten dropped because that is just too much weight to carry uphill. If he didn't have to carry that extra weight he would have killed us all because his power output was still pretty darn good as old and fat as he was.

OUCH!! Man, you are tough on the old guys, you'll get there soon enough. I don't even try to kid myself in trying to pretend to know all the scientific data that you all rattle off in almost every post, in fact, elapid's links to the articles caused my head to hurt.

I can tell you that as you age, you "lose a step" in sprinting and acceleration, period. I have lost that "edge" or top speed and jump as I have aged. As a self proclaimed athlete it isn't easy to admit but it is obvious in the results category. I am assuming that is what you are referring to as peak power. I can tell you it is possible to maintain the sustained power output, I race at 44 now and can still hit it pretty hard leading out my sprinter, our leadout train (a bunch of older guys that carry more weight than they used to) can still hit 35-39 mph in a leadout pretty consistently.

We also race against a guy that has maintained his strength through the years. His sustained power is pretty incredible, I know because it is my job to mark him.

Thurlow Rogers is 47, I believe, and he used to race with Greg LeMond (so it is a good comparison to Greg's claims, although Thurlow has NEVER been off the bike). When he lays it down, HOLD ON! (he was third in the Elite Nationals RR last year in a break of three with two riders from Cal Giant and was driving the break the whole time). He can do crit laps (intervals) for 7 minutes at a time at 36 MPH! I know because I have been on his wheel, barely. So I believe the claims that you can return or stay at levels while older that are close to numbers you posted when in your 20's. You just lose that "pop". I think francie can back me up on this as he used to race against Thurlow too.

Edit: Thurlow goes uphill really well. I don't think he has gained too many pounds from his early racing days though. So his power to weight ratio is probably pretty close to what it was.

Well that is my unscientific seat of the pants addition to this argument. Take it for what you will.