Tour de France - I think that Landis is a Punk.

Last night I was leafing through some of the books in the cycling section of Barnes and Noble and I read some sections of Positively False and From Lance to Landis. I came away feeling like Landis is a punk. In one of the books he spends alot of time talking about how US Postal would not give him a time trial bike to practice on. His argument was that it would improve the whole team. Apparently Lance had one, but he was the only one on the team that had his own practice time trial bike. If Floyd thought he needed one why didn't he offer to buy one himself? I don't want to start any big war about this, but he just seems whiney to me. He reminds me of the kind of kid that got beat up in school.

chevy57

He still is good on the bike and can beat me :rolleyes:

I think that, to be a pro athlete, you have to be like that. You have to be confident, driven, and self-disciplined to such a high degree that you come across as arrogant and self-centered.

I'm not saying I disagree with you, just that it might not be fair to single him out and call him a punk. If he had gone on to win 8 Tours, we would be admiring his cocky self-confidence like we do with Lance.

I'll bet everyone else on USPS felt the same way, that they deserved the same perks as Lance, but they didn't end up writing books about it.

I agree that to reach that level you have to be driven, confident and skilled. I also believe that you have to be somewhat self centered none of these are the issue. I don't necessarily dislike Floyd Landis I just think the stuff he wrote in his book comes off a bit whiney. It is almost as if he is saying that he could be better if he got the same breaks as Lance. The really great ones make their own breaks and don't seem to have the same entitlement issues that Landis has.

chevy57

Landis had a pretty good break on stage 17. I don't see the big deal in asking you team to provide you equipment. Didn't they do some team time trials when FL and LA rode for USPS, seems like they would want the whole squad practicing on the bikes.

I don't get that. Haven't read the book - but those guys train on their TT bikes all the time. Heck - you don't get to be a perfectly drilled and dominant TTT team without training a LOT together on TT bikes. Landis was on some of the best road TTT teams of all time - hard to believe they wouldn't supply him with a bike to train on.....I suppose he meant a TT bike to take home and train on during the off-season rather than at training camps and such? I can see that.......

They also routinely took the postal guys into the wind tunnel to improve their form. I remember they took Eki in once, got some of the best values they'd ever seen and decided they couldn't improve his position!

I haven't read the book either, but it really surprises me that US Postal wouldn't give all of their riders TT bikes to train with. To expect proper training equipment isn't whiny in my opinion, but not to get it is pretty chintzy in my book.

I read or heard somewhere that the reason not everyone had a time trial bike was because they only had prototype CF bikes made specifically for LA. And unless you were the same size you couldn't "fit" on the bike. Hence, the lack of TT bikes for everyone.

IMO, if he really wanted to get good on a TT bike and one wasn't given to him then he should have just bought one himself.

Plus, it was Lance's team and unless you were willing to take on your role as a helper to Lance then you had to go elsewhere to be the big dawg. Hence the Phonak signing for FL, Quik-Step for Tom Boonen and so on...

I read or heard somewhere that the reason not everyone had a time trial bike was because they only had prototype CF bikes made specifically for LA. And unless you were the same size you couldn't "fit" on the bike. Hence, the lack of TT bikes for everyone.

IMO, if he really wanted to get good on a TT bike and one wasn't given to him then he should have just bought one himself.

Plus, it was Lance's team and unless you were willing to take on your role as a helper to Lance then you had to go elsewhere to be the big dawg. Hence the Phonak signing for FL, Quik-Step for Tom Boonen and so on...

The prototype TT may have been for LA, but the rest of the team had to have TT bikes for the team and individual time trials.

I finished the book last night.

They all had TT bikes but they weren't always with them. Lance had 2 (or 3?) so he had a spare to use when on the road. The rest of the team only had their standard issue road bikes with them when the season was on, so they couldn't practice TT on off days etc. However, if the whole team had TT bikes and road bikes with them in the pre-Tour season they'd need a lot of extra vans or trucks to carry them around. IMHO Floyd should have bought his own bike and kept it at his Euro-home (Spain, France - jezzz I forgot already!) to train on if he ever got the time to do it. If he were to bring a TT bike along during the season I wouldn't be surprised if he'd have to supply is own car (and driver!) to carry it around as well!

Last night I was leafing through some of the books in the cycling section of Barnes and Noble and I read some sections of Positively False and From Lance to Landis. I came away feeling like Landis is a punk. In one of the books he spends alot of time talking about how US Postal would not give him a time trial bike to practice on. His argument was that it would improve the whole team. Apparently Lance had one, but he was the only one on the team that had his own practice time trial bike. If Floyd thought he needed one why didn't he offer to buy one himself? I don't want to start any big war about this, but he just seems whiney to me. He reminds me of the kind of kid that got beat up in school.

chevy57


Get the book and read it. I picked it up at the library and skimmed through it and came to the same conclusion and sat it down. Later on, I picked it up again and this time checked it out and read it. Came to a different conclusion. You may or may not. I can tell some firsthand stories about one of the aforementioned characters that might change your perception about him as well. To keep the peace I'll refrain. Point is, things aren't always what they seem. You are certainly entitled to your opinion though. Happy Holidays...

I concur with your title.

I concur with your title.


+1 during the entire trial and the way he carried himself thru this entire ordeal.. i just knew something wasnt right... and in the end all my assumptions about him were right.... as a young spectator of the sport hes definitely been written off as a punk....

I read the book and am kinda split. First, I was abhored by the procedures and standards used to test athletes and how they can vary from lab to lab. However, with Landis, I also got the impression that either he was really getting effed or that his whole book was a nicely done PR job. The last chapter (discussing the trial), especially seems to me to be a hastily constructed CYA piece.

I agree that to reach that level you have to be driven, confident and skilled. I also believe that you have to be somewhat self centered none of these are the issue. I don't necessarily dislike Floyd Landis I just think the stuff he wrote in his book comes off a bit whiney. It is almost as if he is saying that he could be better if he got the same breaks as Lance. The really great ones make their own breaks and don't seem to have the same entitlement issues that Landis has.

chevy57If you think Landis is a whiner, you probably don't have words to describe Lemond's whining. :rolleyes:

Whether he's a punk, whether he's innocent or guilty, whether I even like him or not doesn't really matter to me, so much as I like the sport a lot better with him in it.

Why does everyone keep saying he should have bought one himself? Do you really think that Floyd Landis, the winner of the Tour de France (well he crossed the line first anyway) really did not own a TT bike for himself? Do you really think he just never thought to buy one? You guys need to understand that he was complaining about the team not bringing TT bikes with the whole team, only lance had 1.

Floyd is right that it would have helped the team if they all had TT bikes. Nobody can say he wasn't correct. The only problem is that the team was racing for Lance to win. Lance won. There isn't much of a reason to go back and say they didn't do enough to win. They won 7 in a row without bringing TT bikes with them. Floyd is right and the team is right. It's all hindsight though to second guess him, who cares anymore anyway?

Yeah, I read a short paragraph about someone once, and now I know exactly what it's like to be them and feel completely qualified to make judgement calls about thier daily activities.

Az

:o

I have met Floyd in person, I was impressed with how nice he was..he even left a recorded message on my voice mail, so my cycling buds would believe I really met him!

I have read Landis' book, and I can see why someone would come away with the impression expressed in the OP. Landis' attitude was (understandably) defensive from the first page through the last. However, most people who have met him and publicly expressed their feelings about him have said how nice he is. I think that says more than the impersonal encounter of a book.

Haven't read either book yet, but remember that "From Lance to Landis" is written by David Walsh. He's the journalist who has tried to smear Lance in a previous book, so he is obviously biased against American champions who he believes are all dopers.

We have no way of knowing if Floyd is guilty of doping unless he admits it to us. I agree with previous posters who said that to play at that elite athlete level anyone is bound to become a bit arrogant. Imagine being in the top 2% of anything! I often try to imagine what it would be like to be under that kind of pressure to perform and under that kind of constant public scrutiny. I was fortunate to bump into Floyd on the street before the Palo Alto prologue of this years Tour of California. In the 10 minutes that he stopped to talk with me I found him to be a really nice guy. The guy is like all of us, he loves to ride his bike; and unlike someof us, fiercely competitive and driven.

I hope Floyd is not guilty and will ride again someday, but I doubt we'll see him in the peloton ever again.

Last night I was leafing through some of the books in the cycling section of Barnes and Noble and I read some sections of Positively False and From Lance to Landis. I came away feeling like Landis is a punk.
chevy57

So you did not read the whole book and feel like he is a punk? I read the book and another that talked about the TT bike story. Lance ridiculed Landis over his request for a TT bike. The story in both books were the same so I am sure it was true. You may call it whining but Landis was right. When he switched teams and got a training TT bike his TT ability went way up and so did the teams standings. Lance and Landis are both type "A" people and in Lance's world there is only room for Lance. It is no wonder they did not get a long.....and that is the real story about the TT bike. The friction between Lance and Landis....not the bike it's self.

We have no way of knowing if Floyd is guilty of doping

What about a failed drug test?

The very best you could say about Landis' failed drug test is that the lab concerned, the process and the equipment could have done a much, much better job than they did. If Landis did dope, then I think anti-dopers (like me, and I guess every other contributor to this thread) are entitled to say to WADA "For God's sake follow more professional procedures next time, so that we're not left with with all this doubt".

Your question, 'What about a failed drug test?', really should be the end of it. But WADA (or more specifically the lab in Paris) made too many mistakes. They turned 'he did it' into 'it's hard to argue that he didn't do it - despite our mistakes, the weight of probability is against Landis'. That's nothing like good enough. And it makes it very difficult for us to be certain that Landis doped.

It seems to me that currently, as faustobonzo said, 'we have no way of knowing if Floyd is guilty of doping'. If WADA was a better organisation we would know, one way or the other, and we'd all be better off for it. It might help if WADA owned up to a bit of fallibility once in a while.

The very best you could say about Landis' failed drug test is that the lab concerned, the process and the equipment could have done a much, much better job than they did. If Landis did dope, then I think anti-dopers (like me, and I guess every other contributor to this thread) are entitled to say to WADA "For God's sake follow more professional procedures next time, so that we're not left with with all this doubt".

Your question, 'What about a failed drug test?', really should be the end of it. But WADA (or more specifically the lab in Paris) made too many mistakes. They turned 'he did it' into 'it's hard to argue that he didn't do it - despite our mistakes, the weight of probability is against Landis'. That's nothing like good enough. And it makes it very difficult for us to be certain that Landis doped.

It seems to me that currently, as faustobonzo said, 'we have no way of knowing if Floyd is guilty of doping'. If WADA was a better organisation we would know, one way or the other, and we'd all be better off for it. It might help if WADA owned up to a bit of fallibility once in a while.

+1

In just about any other sport, industry, or criminal investigation that I have seen when it comes to drug testing.....we do it all the time in the military....if the lab goofs up even in the slightest the accused is excused from prosecution. The lab has to be beyond reproach because of the chain of custody of the samples. Once the person who is being tested gives up a sample he has lost positive control and must rely on the integrity and thoroughness’ of the lab. That is a hard thing to do when your livelihood depends on the lab being right.

The other sad tail of the story is the USADA witch hunt. When they asked Landis to give up any evidence he had on Lance in return for a dropped/lesser charge that was just wrong. The USADA gets 70% of their budget from the US government. They need to make a bang to keep the money flowing. The USADA approached the NFL, MLB, and the PGA tour and asked them to let the USADA run their testing programs. All said no. The USADA has problems and IMO is not a good source to handle doping issues. The labs may be fine but the management is bad......yet for right now they are all that cycling has.