Cycling: A man addicted to riding his bike

Floyd Landis. Photo / Janna Dixon

Floyd Landis doesn't think he will ever race the Tour de France again.

It's not that he doesn't want to. Rather, he thinks the politics that have engulfed the world's most famous bike race will prevent him from competing again. No team, he thinks, will risk the suffocating attention that would come with him in their ranks.

Landis is the 34-year-old American who won the 2006 Tour only to have the title stripped after he failed a drugs test, becoming only the second winner, behind Maurice Garin in 1904, to be disqualified.

He vehemently protested his innocence in a messy and very public battle to clear his name. His defence has ranged from blaming the consumption of Jack Daniel's to challenging the validity of the tests.

It was a divisive topic. Some, like seven-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong, supported his former team-mate's claim but others in the peleton, like Stuart O'Grady and Christophe Moreau, ridiculed his defence.

In the end, Landis was handed a two-year ban which expired in January, 2009. He's competing again but doesn't believe he will ride the Tour de France again.

"I don't think it's a possibility next year, or ever, for that matter," he says as he sips his coffee just hours after arriving in New Zealand.

"I can't foresee what the politics in cycling will possibly lead to but the organisations in control are not working well together. There are people caught in the crossfire and I happen to be one of them, so I don't know if the opportunity will come up again. I would like to. But it's very sensitive.

"I would need a team to invite me and they would have to be willing to take the risk that they wouldn't be used as some sort of... The UCI and Tour de France don't get on well at the moment and they like to use whatever they can, whatever pawns are in the middle, to try to make a point. Most teams are afraid of giving them any reason to make them the pawn."

Landis has to content himself with riding in other bike races around the world, like this week's Tour of Southland.

Most spectators and probably riders will view him as Floyd Landis, drug cheat. That label is still a matter of debate but there is much more to the man than that. So much more.

MENNONITES ARE a largely conservative religious group who don't believe in the modern, high-tech world.

They are similar in many respects to Amish people, although less orthodox, and have rules like no dancing, television or alcohol.

Women are even forbidden from uncovering their heads. It's been described as a little like life in 17th century Europe.

"It was a quiet place," Landis remembers of his upbringing in Farmersville, Pennsylvania.

"We weren't supposed to expose ourselves to worldly culture, whatever that means."

It meant that he wasn't supposed to devote his life to something as trivial as riding a bike.

A young Landis bought his first bicycle when he was 15 to go fishing with his friends.

He soon discovered, though, fishing was not all that exciting. Riding a bike was and Landis used to ride and ride and ride.

His parents didn't like him doing that, especially when he entered and won his first mountain bike race (Mennonite religion dictates that people shouldn't wear shorts so he competed in trackpants).

"I happened to be quite good at it, even before I trained a lot," Landis says. "It was fun, especially when you win easily.

"My parents really didn't like it. But as much as they believe things should be a certain way, they allowed me to make decisions. The more I started racing, the more I became obsessed with it and the more concerned they were that I was doing something that was time better spent on something else. Anything else. Any reasonable parent, not just a Mennonite one, would probably think it's not the best plan if all a kid does is ride his bike. I would have to agree with that. The odds are, it's not a good long-term plan."

His father tried to discourage him by giving him extra chores. There weren't enough hours in the day to train, so Landis trained at night.

"I think that just confused them even more. I wasn't a defiant kid. I wasn't rebellious. But by that time they knew how determined I was and if I wanted to do something I would figure out a way to do it."

Unlike most Mennonite children, who go to private Mennonite schools, Landis went to a public school. It was a confusing place full of unfamiliar things and Landis dealt with it in the best way he could. More often than not, that meant riding his bike.

"At that age, there was more to my bicycle riding than the desire to go to races. I think bike riding for me, maybe until now even, was more soul searching. It was time for me to think and be alone. It was therapy for me to try to figure out life because I was confused... I'm still trying to figure out life."

FLOYD LANDIS' first experience with France was not a happy one. It was not as traumatic as 2006, but alarming nonetheless.

He had won the junior men's section of the 1993 national mountain biking championships, still in his baggy trackpants, which earned him a ride at the world championships at Metabief in France.

Not only was he leaving the United States for the first time, it was also the first time he travelled on a plane.

"The race didn't go very well because, even though I had been to a public school, I hadn't adjusted to living the way I knew other people did," he explains.

"I got sent to France with a bunch of kids who wanted to drink all night and I was traumatised by the experience. By the time the race came around, I was not in any position to compete. I was baffled as to what I was seeing. I distinctly remember that trip and it wasn't enjoyable for me. I was so far out of my element, I could barely sleep at night. All I wanted to do was go home."

When he got there, he questioned his desire to race. He needed time to absorb what he had experienced. After a month he decided he needed to at least try again and it wasn't long before he was winning again.

He didn't win enough, though, to make it to the top as a professional mountain biker. Once again he thought about quitting but realised he didn't have anything else and so bought his first road bike and entered some road races.

He was soon signed to the Mercury team. The first race just happened to be in France. He finished third and at one stage wore the leader's yellow jersey.

Again, he was noticed and offered a place on Lance Armstrong's US Postal team. Initially he turned down the approach to stay with Mercury but joined US Postal in time for the 2002 Tour de France, his first attempt at the race.

"Had I done the Tour de France with a different team the first time, I probably wouldn't have finished," he says. "I was not well. It's such a hard race. But we were winning so I had a reason to get up every morning.

"I don't remember in my whole life feeling as bad as I did in that first Tour. It turns out that once you force yourself to do it, no matter how bad you feel, you really can keep riding if you want to.

"Lance was a tough boss to work for. You don't have a bad day with Lance. You're not allowed to. In that way it's not rewarding in the sense it's fun; it's rewarding in that it's extremely difficult and a challenge and afterwards you feel like you have accomplished something because we won."

Armstrong won another two races with Landis in his team. Landis proved to be a brilliant domestique. He was strong in the mountains and selfless for his leader. In 2005, though, he left US Postal and joined Phonak as their team leader. He placed ninth at the Tour de France, his highest finish.

"I was happy [with that result]," Landis says. "I didn't really have any bad days but I wasn't exceptional. I realised ninth is not that different to winning. Minutes over a hundred hours is not that much. So I decided to focus on the Tour.

"My hip was deteriorating and I knew I wouldn't have a lot more chances [to win]. I trained more and was more focused than ever before as I worked towards one goal, winning the Tour de France."

IT WAS described as the most amazing solo ride of the modern Tour, better even than Greg LeMond's incredible 1989 time trial when he made up more than two minutes on Laurent Fignon to win the Tour by eight seconds.

It was "epic". It was "courageous". It was all manner of adjectives to describe something not witnessed in an era of saturated television coverage and constant communication with riders.

On stage 17 of the 2006 Tour de France, Landis not only recovered from a disastrous ride the day before, when he lost 10 minutes on the slopes to La Toussuire, but blitzed the field in sweltering heat.

He attacked 125km from the finish on the last day in the Alps and hauled himself from 11th place, eight minutes behind leader Oscar Pereiro, to be only 30 seconds behind overall.

Landis was said to have been so low emotionally the night before, someone produced a bottle of Jack Daniel's at dinner. Next morning, according to Landis' physiologist, Landis "paced around his hotel room like a wild animal", his "appetite for redemption so raw you could see his thirst for blood".

He attacked on that stage like there was no tomorrow. A few days later he was crowned Tour de France winner.

The subject of what happened next and his ban is a sensitive one. His manager Scott Thomson, a large, stocky man with a long ponytail and who looks like an American football linebacker, says it is off-limits.

"There's nothing left to say," he explains.

It's an episode, though, that clearly hurts Landis. Like his attempts to understand the world as a young Mennonite, he was left confused.

"[2006] went from the best year to the worst year," he says reflectively. "There have been times when I have been happy and things I have dealt with in life that are hard, but to contrast such a high point with such a low point in such a short period of time was difficult.

"There were a lot of things that went on in those two years [when I was banned]. One of them was my hip injury. [The surgery I had in October 2006 was] similar to a hip replacement and if it hadn't gone well, that would have been the main thing preventing me returning.

"I knew there would be a time when I would be allowed to race again. There were times when I wasn't particularly motivated to do so. There were other times when I enjoyed riding my bike again. At no time did I feel I needed to come back for some kind of redemption. My motivation in bike racing is never of that nature anyway. I like to compete and set goals. That's still the same.

People treat him differently now. Not worse, just differently, because of what happened and the fact his life became so public. He knows he will always court attention. But all he has known is riding a bicycle.

"I have to limit myself to whatever races are available and not set my goals too high."

IT WAS over a coffee one Monday morning that cycling enthusiasts Richard McIlraith and Wayne Hudson decided to invite Floyd Landis to join their team for the Tour of Southland. One of their riders had just dropped out and they needed a replacement. McIlraith had just read Landis' book so they made an approach more in hope than expectation.

"I recall saying to Wayne there was a one-in-20 chance of them reading the email," McIraith says. A reply came back overnight.

Landis will find it tough to win the Tour of Southland. His team-mates are a collection of little-known cyclists who might struggle to offer much support to a rider hoping to usurp the much stronger teams full of some of New Zealand's best.

Olympic silver medallist Hayden Roulston, who rode in this year's Tour de France, hopes to become the third rider to claim three successive wins in New Zealand's premier race and is backed by Olympians Marc Ryan and Jesse Sergent.

Also lining up are the likes of Gordon McCauley, Hayden Godfrey, Jeremy Vennell, Peter Latham, Sam Bewley and Westley Gough.

"I looked at the course and, while it's not like racing in the Alps, it's not easy," Landis concedes. "It's up and down and from what I gather there's often wind and cold weather. It's going to be a hard race... but I like to win bike races."

He won the greatest of them all, only for it to be taken away.

Landis is likeable and engaging. You want to believe his innocence but nearly everyone who fails a test in cycling professes to no wrong doing.

Now he's trying to get his life back in order.

He has nothing to do with the Mennonite community he grew up in. His parents still live there, but it is a life far removed from Landis' current one. He now calls San Diego home.

"Sometimes now riding is a place where I spend time thinking," he says, "and sometimes now it's riding as hard as I can so I don't have the energy to think. It is kind of addictive, riding a bicycle. I suppose it's like a drug."