Landis - 'Positively False'

[Oldman]

I believe I'm the one who said I heard from someone who met him that Floyd was simple, not stupid, just simple. And I saw the same thing in the book you did. Not that this excuses anything he did, but as I said, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy. One of the things Werner Franke said about Jan Ullrich was that Jan had such an innocent, simple mindset that he wouldn't have known EPO from HGH and that's why Franke wanted (wants) Jan to finger those who "poisoned" him, and has tried suing him as such. It seems to me almost that Floyd has known only a couple things in his life: growing up in a Mennonite farming community, and racing a bike.


One can hope. I really do think at one point either Floyd or Tyler is going to crack and feel the need to spill their guts to the world in order to relieve the burden they carry. It just might take a few years.

You're correct. I met him after the Nutra-Fig guys discovered him. Did not spend much time talking but he was an absolute motorhead. The rides that Levi is now memorializing on King's Ridge and coastal Cal as "his hometown" were training rides mined by my former teammate, Kirk (Levi grew up in Montana). Floyd could tag along on these 6+ hour sessions...on a mountain bike with knobby tires and could hang just fine. He was raw and just wanted to play along with the guys. Mercury and John W decision that they needed Euro's to make the big time was the turning point from what I could gather. The sad part is, if pure power and recovery was the measure of a GT winner; he probably could match Lemond in physical talent. He lacked the savvy to apply it and protect himself.
Tyler's another story. He knew and was busted by USAC when he was an espoir. He drank the whole soup and wanted the success and isn't in the same physical league as Landis.