Floyd Landis Speaks

I went to see Floyd speak at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park yesterday. It just so happens the store is at the bottom of my regular hill climb, so I found it sort of surreal listening to a guy who "won" the Tour de France last year just a few hundred yards from my usual training route.

He spoke for a couple of minutes, before opening the floor to questions. His introductory remarks were mostly about the beautiful weather and the good riding in Seattle. He seemed somewhat surprised by the number of attendees, several hundred. Then the questions came at him for about the next 45 minutes. The inquiries ranged from the benign, "Shimano or Campy?" to the serious, "Explain the Greg Lemond situation?"

I found he came across as a pretty genuine guy. He was clearly not all that comfortable with public speaking, but once grilled with questions he came into his own. He definitely had an aw shucks vibe about him when he received a standing ovation as he walked into the book store. He was funny and often cracked jokes before delving into a question more seriously.

Over the past few months, I read the briefing from his arbitration and hearing that his legal team posted on the Internet. I was struck by the discrepancies in the science, especially the margin of error between the two tests on the same sample. The standard deviation between the test results is clearly a red flag. Floyd mentioned during one answer that the Chatenay-Malabry laboratory has a significantly higher number of positive tests for testosterone than any other lab in the world.

Do I think he will prevail in his arbitration? I think he just might. Do I think the French lab screwed up? Absolutely. Do I think he doped? I just don't know. So many Pro Tour riders have confessed to getting some medical "help", it's hard to know what to think. SLR, on the other hand, thinks they all dope or were doping.

In the end, it doesn't really matter to me, because I find the most entertaining thing about bike racing is the beauty of the sport. Carbon and alloy machines gliding along through the majestic scenery of the French countryside and rising up through its high alpine peaks. The buzz of the freewheel, the whirl of carbon rims on pavement, the clicking of gears. Chearing fans on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. The snaking of the peloton as it winds through narrow switchbacked roads. It is simply, beautiful. For me, drugs cannot detract from that.