Speech by Greg Lemond

[Rupert]

Belushi

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.

For some reason this reminds me of the scene in Animal House where Bluto smashes the guys' guitar on the stairwell and then says "Sorry." While anything that's not Lance-Hate or "They're All Dopers if they Win" is a relief, the political diatribe is pretty out of place in a cycling forum, even bizarre... and I was a Poli Sci major, too, for all you Revisionist Running Dog Lackeys of the Imperialist Capitalist Regime.

 

[krebs303]

You are not on the side of "labor" because celebrities make millions more, nor is "management" struck at by paying out higher sums to........................

what a load of condescending dribble.

 

[Rupert]

Critical Mass

Maybe a constructive use of this thread would be to morph into a discussion of Critical Mass (seems like it would have the right audience given the discussion). Personally I don't feel that Critical Mass, as an "in your face," defiant, F&%k everybody but us (righteous hippie bike commuters) isn't very constructive. I would prefer an approach of demonstrating mutual cooperation and education, to try and get the drivers to understand and cooperate, instead of pi*&^g them off and alienating them. I am a bike commuter, BTW.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Rupert - you need to come to my hometown of Portland, OR. "Little Lebanon" Bush Sr. called it. A bunch of little granola eating Che wannabes that make me (who voted for Obama) feel like Rusty Limbaugh some days.

In our Critical Mass rides a few years ago the police wrote out some 50 tickets to riders for "obstructing traffic". Well, this is a HUGE bike city with zillions of commuters, many of which are high-end attorneys, and when they went to court, the lawyers argued that the citations were illegal, as the bicyclists couldn't be obstructing traffic because they were traffic. The judge agreed, and threw all of the tickets out!

Fast forward a few months. And well, not just lawyers are commuters, so are a few members of the city council, and several police officers. So some of the cops decided to actually ride in the Critical Mass rides! Some in uniform even! They figured it was better to be there on their bikes and yell at people who broke the law, and try to get people to consistently stop at stop lights, than try to write tickets. And guess what, it's actually working pretty well!

 

[Rupert]

Sounds Good

That sounds like a good thing. Maybe it varies, but my impression has been that Critical Mass did more to alienate non-cyclists. I thought the Ride of Silence was a good demonstration of presence, but well-behaved and not offensive to ordinary (drivers). We have had periodic incidents here (mostly involving competitive, racing-type cyclists) that generate a lot of bad press and backlash. Critical Mass happens once in a while but you don't hear much about it. What I've read about critical Mass in NYC and maybe San francisco seemed pretty negative.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Yes, even some here used to be pretty unruly, but if I recall, one in NYC ended up with people almost coming to blows, and some vandalism.

The Ride of Silence is a completely different thing, and a very respected and true idea.

 

[rhubroma]

what a load of condescending dribble.

Well anybody who has portrayed corporate capitalism and society as I have done, that is in such an unflattering and grotesque way, to many I'm sure and not just yourself must be a charlatan, a blatherer, a parasite and naturally a maglomaniac who writes only a load of condesending dribble. But I have just reported the facts, which are always less flattering and hard to digest than the fantasy opinions in circulation that are a dime a dozen these days. So I would say my analysis is like a rather perverse and upsetting snap-shot portrait of what has really taken place, an not what the propaganda has led us to think, erroneously, what has happened. Back to cycling...

 

[rhubroma]

For some reason this reminds me of the scene in Animal House where Bluto smashes the guys' guitar on the stairwell and then says "Sorry." While anything that's not Lance-Hate or "They're All Dopers if they Win" is a relief, the political diatribe is pretty out of place in a cycling forum, even bizarre... and I was a Poli Sci major, too, for all you Revisionist Running Dog Lackeys of the Imperialist Capitalist Regime.

Yes this whole social, corporate and capitalist digression (because it never was a politcal diatribe, as you say) was the result of having to respond to a frontal attack from someone about something I wrote: namely, that pro athletes (including some cyclists) are paid far too much than their real social value as mere entertainers should warrent, and that they have become tools of corporate propaganda (even if I actually never called them tools of corporate propaganda, though should have). And that the situation, apart form being naturally intollerable, was symptomatic of a society and a corporate market system which has lost all sense of decency and proper measure, especially since the gap between the earnings at the top of the social pyramid and those in the middle and bottom has become ever expansive and of course dramatic.

That there are surely ethical consequences in terms of gargantuan earnings, corporate sponsorship and the fight against doping is inevitable, just as their have been moral issues at Wall Street caused by deregulation, which has done nothing more than promote greed and an ends justifies the means alibi. So it was a tanget related indirectly, though in a profoundly important way, to the issues raised by Lemond in terms of doping and Hinault's comment that the Tour is dead. Even if to those who hadn't followed the whole story, which all began because I had to defend myself from a frontal and potentially lethal attack, it would have seemed perverse, or rather bizzare, as you have said.

 

[rhubroma]

Maybe a constructive use of this thread would be to morph into a discussion of Critical Mass (seems like it would have the right audience given the discussion). Personally I don't feel that Critical Mass, as an "in your face," defiant, F&%k everybody but us (righteous hippie bike commuters) isn't very constructive. I would prefer an approach of demonstrating mutual cooperation and education, to try and get the drivers to understand and cooperate, instead of pi*&^g them off and alienating them. I am a bike commuter, BTW.

Ahh you should come to Rome the next time Critical Mass takes over the historical capital! Pure grotesque entertainment. And it's free...

 

[BigBoat]

Mutual cooperation WOULD be the way for them to go.... by far.

Funny... most of these critical mass people are far left leaning... Well we could have communism and then your right to protest lands you in a "Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies" (Siberian Gulag).

 

[BigBoat]

If you want to mock my intelligence you should probably spell "dumber" correctly.

That was funny. LOL

Not that I was the one that did that.

 

[rhubroma]

Mutual cooperation WOULD be the way for them to go.... by far.

Funny... most of these critical mass people are far left leaning... Well we could have communism and then your right to protest lands you in a "Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies" (Siberian Gulag).

Ahh BigBoat don't confuse marxist philosophy with Soviet Regime Communism, which is a perversion of the former.

In any case, protests are simply democratic and Soviet communists within the Regime didn't have a monopoly on repressing them. So did the fascists, of the extreme right wing, in Mussolini's Italy, and so did the capitalist factory owners in the US California workers protests of the 20's, like those led by Sacco and Vanzetti, who were even unjustly killed in the electric chair after having been first falsely accused of murder and then condemned at court, for which Madeline Albreight has recently offered the State's offical apologies (some 70 years later). But I digress.

 

[joe_papp]

So is the consensus that LeMond's messaging was very poorly executed from a technical perspective (presentation and delivery), but his content was solid - or at least would have been had the technical aspect of his speaking effort been equal to LA's technical execution in his TdF's, or was LeMond judged poorly not just on technical merits, but on the quality of his content?

I ask because during the one-on-one conversations Ive had with him, or with him and his wife, he's been very Lucid, powerful in his delivery of a consistent, fact-based message. He has a tendency to move rapidly from topic to topic, seemingly in a disjointed manner, but must in his own mind have a unique organizational structure because he can return to topics that seemed to me to be unresolved, totally dropped, and not only wrap them up, but use them as transitions to the next theme.

I always thought both Pat McQuaid and Greg LeMond should have image consultants/communication experts, but not dudes/chicks from these high-power pR firms, but rather, similarly talented people from w/in the world of cycling, or at least effective, competent people who understood a significant component of professional road cycling, so as to be able to help these guys not make asses of themselves in the media, and not set them selves up to be made asses of...

LeMond is not a raving lunatic. He is really smart, he's really well-versed in his anti-doping ideas, but he is like a scatterbrain sometimes - like the brilliant professor who forgets his notes or leaves home w/o his laser pointer.

 

[BroDeal]

So is the consensus that LeMond's messaging was very poorly executed from a technical perspective (presentation and delivery), but his content was solid - or at least would have been had the technical aspect of his speaking effort been equal to LA's technical execution in his TdF's, or was LeMond judged poorly not just on technical merits, but on the quality of his content?

I ask because during the one-on-one conversations Ive had with him, or with him and his wife, he's been very Lucid, powerful in his delivery of a consistent, fact-based message. He has a tendency to move rapidly from topic to topic, seemingly in a disjointed manner, but must in his own mind have a unique organizational structure because he can return to topics that seemed to me to be unresolved, totally dropped, and not only wrap them up, but use them as transitions to the next theme.

I always thought both Pat McQuaid and Greg LeMond should have image consultants/communication experts, but not dudes/chicks from these high-power pR firms, but rather, similarly talented people from w/in the world of cycling, or at least effective, competent people who understood a significant component of professional road cycling, so as to be able to help these guys not make asses of themselves in the media, and not set them selves up to be made asses of...

LeMond is not a raving lunatic. He is really smart, he's really well-versed in his anti-doping ideas, but he is like a scatterbrain sometimes - like the brilliant professor who forgets his notes or leaves home w/o his laser pointer.

That last bit is precisely it. Well mostly. He is a poor speaker. He actually got lost at one point and had to ask the crowd what he was just talking about. It literally sounded like he had stumbled off the street, totally unprepared, and was forced to speak for fifty minutes. He sort of rambled on and on.

The content was mostly interesting. He did spend a significant amount of time defending himself or trying put put himself in the best light vis a vis the Armstrong/Trek dispute. That got in the way of his message.

I also think they lost an opportunity by using so little time for questions and answers. It is too bad they could not have spent an additional hour for that.

 

[BigChain]

Other then being a pretense of a forum with all the same trolls who ruined cyclingforums and then dailuypelotonforums, this thread besides being the same three people posting under twenty names decaling the following things:

1. I love Greg Lemond and everything he says is true.

2. I hate Lance Armstrong and he is a bad person and a cheat

3. DOnt buy Trek bikes

4. I hate Lance

5. Greg is my hero

blah blah blah

None of this thread is interesting and it has all been stated before elsewhere.
Did cyclingnews really want this or did they plan it?

GO AND RIDE YOUR BIKES

I agree.

You guys (and I presume some girls) should get out and ride your bikes more often - clearly you spend too much time in this forum talking CR**.

There is barely a fact to be found. Innuendo. Heresay. No proof provided with any statement. Ridiculous assumptions. Totally innane comments. Wild accusations. etc etc.

Really - go and ride your bike more. I've never read so much CR** and most of the posts are by the same people. A bunch of WAN**** really!

 

[Animal]

I think I've seen this loony before. Was he that idiot with the random characters in his posts, and lots of capitals. He must have been banned and rejoined. What fun.

 

[BigBoat]

GO AND RIDE YOUR BIKES

I agree.

You guys (and I presume some girls) should get out and ride your bikes more often - clearly you spend too much time in this forum talking CR**.

There is barely a fact to be found. Innuendo. Heresay. No proof provided with any statement. Ridiculous assumptions. Totally innane comments. Wild accusations. etc etc.

Really - go and ride your bike more. I've never read so much CR** and most of the posts are by the same people. A bunch of WAN**** really!

Crap is starred out? ****ers's too....? No way! What about J.J. McTitty's for the hottie anti-Lance girls on the forum.... or jabbaent, jabbaist, jacentary for the office/ laptop sloths... Or boonen's Jack Palance after denying he's actually jacked on coke... jackalopes on the forum? jackassery acts are bleeped out? jackerwhads....
jack****ers....
jacklegs Like Lance Armstrong.....

What about the JAFO (Just Another F-ing Observer) posters?

 

[ndpuck]

This was probably already posted earlier in this thread (so my apologies if it was), but I just read it and found it hilarious.

BSNYC has a funny take on LeMond's speech:

http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2009/06/shot-in-dark-art-of-appropriating-blame.html

At over 50 minutes, LeMond falls just short of breaking the hour record for self-embarrassment, but you've got to give him credit for making a valiant attempt. With all due respect to the scope of LeMond's accomplishments and his obvious concern for the integrity of the sport, it's very difficult to look past the string of non-sequitors and illogical conclusions he presents.

Again, it's easy to admire Greg LeMond as a legendary athlete, and he's more than deserving of that admiration. However, it's a bit harder to admire him as a moral crusader when he steps off a plane with some hastily-prepared notes and alludes to all the facts he could cite regarding other people's guilt if only he wasn't involved in litigation. Certainly drugs exist in cycling now just as they did before--and during--LeMond's heyday. However, LeMond's argument simply seems to be that the practice of doping is worse now than it was in his time, despite the fact that there was much less testing then. Even the rider he beat in 1989 freely admits to his own drug use.

So does that mean because Laurent Fignon cheated that Greg LeMond cheated too? No. But when Greg LeMond retired, he attributed his diminished results to mitochondrial myopathy. Now, it's because everyone else was cheating. As a cycling fan, I certainly wouldn't accuse LeMond of cheating, nor would I argue against the obvious fact that he competed against other cyclists who did or that riders continue to cheat today. Still, I can't help but feeling like LeMond is taking the Mavic approach by claiming there's something wrong with everything except him. Yes, like Delaney's R-Sys sometimes you are surrounded by crap--but that doesn't mean you can't fail too.

 

[BikeCentric]

This was probably already posted earlier in this thread (so my apologies if it was), but I just read it and found it hilarious.

BSNYC has a funny take on LeMond's speech:

http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2009/06/shot-in-dark-art-of-appropriating-blame.html

BSNYC has been absolutely terrible since he sold out and got syndicated by Bicycling magazine a few months ago. It's actually quite funny how he's jumped right into the politically correct toe-the-line writing that all the rest of the mainstream cycling media parrots. Funny and kind of sickening as well.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Completely agree BC.

 

[BigBoat]

I dont read blogs... dunno. The jackwads!

 

[stephens]

The Tour is dead? It still captivates so many people that it makes millions for its sponsors. You'll know when pro cycling is dead: no one will be making any money off of it.

Random comment number 2: wouldn't it be ironic if Lemond's last 20 years of gluttony prove to be more damaging to his health than Lance's last 15 years of "doping" is to his? Who is the lab rat? Lance to the pharmaceutical industry or Lemond to the high-fructose-corn-syrup industry?

 

[BigBoat]

Random comment number 2: wouldn't it be ironic if Lemond's last 20 years of gluttony prove to be more damaging to his health than Lance's last 15 years of "doping" is to his? Who is the lab rat? Lance to the pharmaceutical industry or Lemond to the high-fructose-corn-syrup industry?

LOL Thats funny.

 

[nobody]

Random comment number 2: wouldn't it be ironic if Lemond's last 20 years of gluttony prove to be more damaging to his health than Lance's last 15 years of "doping" is to his? Who is the lab rat? Lance to the pharmaceutical industry or Lemond to the high-fructose-corn-syrup industry?

You should wait 15 or 20 years to see what would be Lance, and you have to measure the effect of what they have lived.

 

[redraider268]

Check out this response on Lemond's speech http://ofbikesandmen.wordpress.com
he really lays it out in his reply to a comment. Good stuff