(Before I start I went back and read the many posts that
would disagree with me on this, no flaming necessary)
Last Friday I had the an opportunity to ride with Greg
LeMond, 3 time Tour de France Champion at the kickoff event
for the 2004 Trek 100 which raises money for children's
cancer research. In a nutshell, what a treat; not so much as
having the guy 3 feet to my left talking to me being Greg,
not watching his technique (I need all the help I can get),
but seeing what a regular guy he is. In these days of
athletes being me-me and really self-absorbed (including
that guy that's going for his 6th TDF victory this year),
Greg was as interested in listening to someone talk about
their bike or their best ride as he was about telling of how
we won de Tour in by 8 seconds. Matter of fact, he didn't
bring anything up about himself. He kidded us that we could
all drop him and take it easy on him. I asked him if he
would be kind enough to sign a poster I had laminated of him
when be was SI's Sportsman of the Year in '89 and he said no
problem at all. I brought it to the dinner that evening and
he got a real charge out of it; "That's when I was skinny,
had poofy hair, and went fast." They broke out a huge box of
posters of him winning the Worlds in '89 and he was signing
them for everyone writing things like, "You could have beat
me that day." My camera was on low battery so it took a few
seconds to cycle up and he was very patient with it, just
had a great time. My buddy, who is just getting started with
cycling but very enthusiastic, asked Greg about training and
he spent 10 minutes with him going over what works and how
to do it properly.The best thing of the entire weekend is
the riders raised over $500,000 for research but for the 82
of us in the Century Club it was extra special. It was very
cool to not only meet someone I look up to for his biking
ability but that he didn't feel any better than I am. If
other professional athletes were like him we could actually
have them as role models.