Floyd Fever
Pennsylvania Native Chases Tour de France Victory
By Andrew Mason

Floyd Landis became a big fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers during their run to the Super Bowl title last season.

"They had an incredible team," he said. "I watched them play a lot of games. I joined the bandwagon." If Steelers fans want to stick with a winner-and keep it yellow-it's not too late to jump on Landis' bandwagon.

The 30-year-old native of Lancaster County, Pa., said he's prepared to win the 2006 Tour de France-the Super Bowl of cycling-in July. He finished ninth overall in last year's Tour.

"I'm certain that I'm strong enough to do it," he said. "My chances are as good as anybody's."

If an American is going to succeed Lance Armstrong, chances are it will be Landis, Armstrong's former U.S. Postal teammate. Armstrong, cancer's most celebrated survivor, retired from professional cycling last summer after winning a record seventh straight Tour de France.

"Nobody could really replace Lance. I wouldn't begin to say that I'm going to replace him," Landis said. "But I'd like to win the Tour. That's the goal. Seven of them is another story."

Landis, the lead rider of the Swiss-based Phonak team, has proved this year that he can win major stage races. He was the overall champion of the Tour of California in February, Paris-Nice in March and the Tour de Georgia in April.

"I put energy into being good in California, and then things just started going right," said Landis, who splits time between his homes in Murrieta, Calif., and Girona, Spain. "The focus of the year is still July. I don't think I've overdone it. I'm certain that's not a problem."

He thinks the media, however, might be overdoing it a bit. Landis has been featured on the cover of nearly every cycling magazine under the sun over the last several months.

"They've gotten a little carried away," he said. "I guess they didn't know what to do when Lance left. ... But Lance was a whole different story. He has that whole human interest story that nobody can reproduce."

The story of Floyd Landis is an enigmatic tale.

He was one of six kids raised in a strict Mennonite family in Farmersville, Pa., and was anything but a star athlete at Conestoga Valley High School.

"The jocks didn't even know who I was," he said. "I wanted to play football, but my parents would have none of that."

Landis wasn't involved in any varsity sports and, due to his family's religious beliefs, wasn't even allowed to wear shorts in gym class.

No television, no movies, no dancing and no bare legs.

"It was strange," he said. "The majority of Mennonites went to private school. There weren't any others at Conestoga Valley that I knew of. Those were formative years and kids can be mean but, whatever, you get over it."

His parents did allow him to buy a mountain bike when he was 15, and his life was changed forever. He pedaled countless miles daily, often logging them in the wee hours of the night, in all weather, after he finished his work shift at a grocery store and completed his long list of chores at home.

His parents didn't approve, but they didn't stop him.

"I got addicted to it, and I was good at it," Landis said. "It became a bit of an obsession and kind of a way out, a way to see the world."

He began winning local races. At 17, he was the junior national mountain-bike champion.

In 1996, when he was 20, he left Lancaster County for good, moving to California to pursue a career in professional cycling. It was a decision his parents told him would lead him straight to hell.

"It was that cut and dried," Landis said, laughing. "But I had great parents. They cared about me. They're just very conservative. But they're supportive of me now. It just took them a while."

His bike certainly has carried him a long way from his roots.

"That part of my life seems like more of a dream than this part because I'm so far removed from it," he said. "But that's my personality. I keep looking forward."

Landis, who made a smooth switch from mountain to road biking in 1999, spends five to six hours a day on his bike, dreaming of winning the Tour de France.

When he was a member of the U.S. Postal (now Discovery Channel) team, a dream was all it could be because all of his efforts were in support of Armstrong. After helping Armstrong win his fourth, fifth and sixth straight Tour titles, Landis left the champion's side after the 2004 Tour to join Phonak. Their once close friendship didn't survive the transition.

"Lance and I had our differences last year," Landis said. "He was upset that I left the team. But, whatever, everything's fine now."

He left "Team Lance" with a Tour de France education he couldn't have gotten elsewhere.

"I learned a lot from Lance about the race and the tactics and the training and what it takes to manage them all," said Landis, who also learned what it was like to compete against Armstrong last year.

Now he gets to put all of his experiences to use in an Armstrong-less Tour -- three long weeks, 2,261 grueling miles and a yellow jersey for the taking.

"This year is different. It's not as predictable," Landis said. "But it's still the hardest race in the world, and there are a lot of guys there as equally motivated as me. Whether Lance is there or not, it's just as difficult. "The race gets decided in the mountains and time trials," he said. "People rarely get lucky and win the Tour. I think I'm good enough to win it. We'll find out."

Andrew Mason is the assistant sports editor at the Herald Mail in Hagerstown, Maryland.