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Read it here: nytimes.com
We all know the story. At least the high points.
Or low points. Kinda depends on your point of view.
…Landis came from behind to win one of the hardest stages of the 2,272-mile race. He brazenly dumped the rest of the peloton and then rode ferociously for hours, mostly uphill, leaving everyone behind. Landis, who started his career racing mountain bikes, was heralded as a gritty rider with a superhuman ability to endure. His Tour victory was deemed to be the most exciting in years, if not decades.
And then he fell. Or maybe he’d already fallen. With Landis, it’s virtually impossible to know whether he earned his way into hell or was thrown there without a lick of fairness.
Fell, fallen, tripped, thrown. What’s the difference? He’s down either way. The question is how does he get back up.
Four days after his Tour victory, race officials announced that the urine sample he’d given following his mighty comeback showed a suspicious imbalance in his body’s testosterone. He became the first Tour winner to be hit with charges that he had doped during the race. And though he denied it immediately, Landis went from being lauded as the next great American cycling hero, heir to Lance Armstrong’s lordly throne, to an international subject of scorn, the butt of late-night television jokes and an example of everything that is wrong with cycling, with sports and maybe with humanity in general.
Yeah, it was a fucking train wreck. Still is. Don’t even get me starting on what is now apparently called “the Will thing”. In a word: Shameful. In two words: Fucking stupid.
He’s well screwed, even if the arbitration panel clears him. He’s been out a year, missed all the lucrative post-Tour victory endorsement and appearance contracts. I’ll bet they flowed him the $220 entry for Leadville, but come the fuck on – that guy missed out on a boatload of money. He’ll never get it back.
What’s next for our boy Floyd? Fall on you sword and sign with Vaughter’s squad? Race various ultra-endurance events around the US for a pittance? Motivational speaker? Home Depot’s tile department?
One thing I might need to clarify in this little ditty: When they refer to Landis back “in 1999, when he was a nobody bike racer making $30,000…”
A domestic pro making 30k is well ahead of the field. I know guys that raced pro domestically for a $1,000 a month and some running around money. Or less. You want to talk about “nobody” racers… Shit. I’ve heard stories about guys who represented this country in the Olympics who are so fucking broke they hit convenience stores on their training rides to drink the little cups of coffee creamer and eat sugar packets. Guys who have won big domestic races who eat an apple for lunch because they have nothing. Guys who need to win at least one prime to get gas money for the drive home.
Seriously. Rep’n Low Cash to the fullest.
30k does not a nobody racer make.
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My man was tearing it up Dutch country style, horseshit and hogwash.
He had to have something to ride clean on lance’s team the same year he shattered a hip. Medically questionable if you ask me.
…as re: “the Will thing”, you are SO correct. Amazingly shameful & amazingly fucking stupid.
As for the rest, what can really be said ? I wasn’t there, ergo, i don’t know. A point HAS been made about the labs procedures, but that gives us no real indication as to the mans guilt or innocence.
…think 3 weeks in france racing ON the bike is a long, hard time ?
…betting the ‘ 07 editions 3 weeks OFF the bike were an interminable torture.
I hope the situation doesn’t screw up the marriage ‘n’ family thing.
Personally, i’d buy that fucking mutt a coupla good beers any day ‘a’ the week !
“hope the situation doesn’t screw up the marriage ‘n’ family thing”
I think the death of his wife’s father counts for being screwed up!
…no doubt, dd, but i simply meant that i hoped their little nuclear threesome could withstand that & all the other shit on the table. It ain’t gonna get swept under the rug.
…’n’ i’d still buy the mutt some brew.
I’d buy him a beer too. He could use it.
New Drunkcyclist recruit?
…the mutt otta be. His politics are better expressed here than any other site.
there is no way this article can end well
seeing as i am out of beer
fuck landis and fuck early closing hours.
play with my nuts magazine???
fuck roadies, and fuck the tour.
Im sick of the whole “I didnt even when so-and-so might have” bullshit..
fuck all those guys,
Played Magazine..
Jojo just crushed it.
Played Magazine.
Game. Set. Match.
I wish I got $30K a year to ride a bike.
Anybody else think it was weird how they kept focusing on his drinking beer in the article?
Hurry up and give the bitch her fairness. Bitch got caught, fair and square. Now bitch wants to whine…FU…FL. I’ll be so happy when you are nothing more than a scant memory and we can all enjoy the tour again. You can fucking forget the prize money and the title.
There are lots of people who get paid to ride a bike who make over 30k a year. Theyr’e called bike messengers. Its actually safer than racing but can be as tiring.Its miserable at times when its raining, snowing or you just nailed a jaywalker but at least you are earning some coin from day one. There is nothing like sprinting for a smoothie prime and losing at a local crit to make you realize racing is a hard, unprofitable game. For most of us that is.
Ah but its all worth it.
find me a bike messenger service in tucson and I’ll show up on monday – with my powder coated deep v’s, brooks saddle, top tube pad, and no brake fixie. that’s alls I need right?
Most messengers I’ve talked to who make money like that are living in places like New York or San Francisco – and 30k there doesn’t go very far because everything is so expensive.
Gimmie 30k in Tucson doing anything… (Save gay porn. I’m holding out for 33k)
Ok Tuscon living is your reward for living in tuscon. In san francisco you can make a living and live well in the messenger community who generally live in rent control apartments. In Sf these days you will spend a good part of your work day waiting around smoking weed until you get a court job where you make some very good money. There is networking involved but there are always new faces on the road and nothing stops you from mountain biking in marin or racing one of northern california’s 100 races a year. My advice, like Harvey Kietels in Pulp Fiction, “move out of the sticks”.
Cheers.
You can always start a company. Begin with a same day driver and go from there.