Greg LeMond looks back on the best and worst moments of his career

When Greg LeMond began cycling he had a yellow bike and yellow jersey, but had no idea about the significance of the colour to pro bike racing racing. He also certainly didn’t know what was in store for him in the sport. I spoke to the 62-year-old about the new documentary about the American that is currently in theatres, The Last Rider. The film is a series of interviews with LeMond, his wife Kathy, as well as 1988 Tour winner, Pedro Delgado, and former directeur sportif, Cyrille Guimard, among others. The Last Rider follows LeMond’s beginnings to his roller coaster ride in the sport of cycling. After becoming one of the best riders in the world, including a road world championship win at the age of 22, LeMond would go on to become the first American to win the Tour de France. He’s also the only American to have won, given that Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis have been stripped of their titles.

The Last Rider

This isn’t the first film about LeMond. Slaying the Badger, which came out in 2014, documented the battle between the American and Bernard Hinault at the 1986 Tour.

“I really liked Slaying the Badger, as if you were a non-cyclist it helped you learn about the strategy, just like the Netflix docuseries, Tour de France: Unchained that I’ve been watching,” the Tennessee resident says. “It’s really great for cycling because you just get to see the inside of the sport, the tactics and all that. It does a good job of playing out all the drama with the teams, the exciting parts of the sport.”

Then versus now

Awareness about pro cycling has come a long way in North America. “It’s very different from when I started, obviously. When I began racing I knew very little about the history of cycling. My first bike was yellow. My first jersey was yellow. A guy I raced with as a kid, who later became a good friend, Kent Gordis, told me that I shouldn’t be wearing the jersey,” he says. “After he beat me in about 12 races he came up to me and said that only winners of the Tour could wear it, and I didn’t even know what the Tour de France was at the time!”

LeMond said when he did get into pro racing, even when he met Jacques Anquetil, he didn’t know who he was. “I knew who Eddy Merckx was, and the riders that had raced in the decade before me,” he explains. “You’re going to remember the racers that won the big races ten or fifteen years ago, but that’s it. You’ll remember the Lance Armstrongs, the Miguel Indurains,…