Source of Greg LeMond's quote, "The mountains are the pinnacle of suffering."

Question

I'm writing an article about cycling and I want to include a well know quote from the professional cyclist Greg LeMond (the first American to win the Tour de France). The quote is:

The key is being able to endure psychologically. When you're not riding well, you think, why suffer? Why push yourself for four or five hours? The mountains are the pinnacle of suffering.

This quote is all over the Internet, but I'm having trouble finding the original source. I would like to properly attribute it in my citations.

Answer 1

This is from Samuel Abt’s book LeMond (1990):

“The key is being able to endure psychologically,” LeMond explained. “When you’re not riding well, you think. Why suffer? Why push yourself for four or five hours? The mountains are the pinnacle of suffering. You don’t know when you’re going to explode, when you have to back off. You’re pushing yourself almost to your maximum; then you recuperate and do it again. You might do it ten or fifteen times in a race. When you don’t have the conditioning or if you’ve been away from it a long time, you forget how much cycling hurts. You really forget.”

_{Samuel Abt (1990). LeMond: The Incredible Comeback of an American Hero, p. 4. New York: Random House.}

Abt was a sports journalist who covered professional cycling, so the quote probably comes from an interview LeMond gave to Abt or a colleague.