That's good to know. This warmed me up to the latest cycling champ:
In 1999, Landis switched over to road racing and three years later was signed by U.S. Postal, which at the time ranked as the sport’s version of the
Yankees
. Landis was quickly drawn into the orbit of Lance Armstrong, who was impressed by the newcomer’s unconventional sensibility and his toughness. The two trained together often as Landis grew into one of Armstrong’s top support riders and perhaps his closest friend on the team — at least until 2004, when Landis’s outstanding season drew offers from other teams, and he decided to leave U.S. Postal for Phonak. From there, the friendship deteriorated fast. Armstrong considered Landis’s move traitorous, while Landis considered Armstrong unreasonable, pointing out that Phonak had doubled Postal’s contract offer. The two spent most of 2005 in an occasionally spiteful feud, partly fueled by the fact that with his hip in such bad shape, Landis felt he had little to lose.
“There aren’t many guys in the peloton” — the main pack of riders in a road bicycle race — “who are willing to tell Lance to go screw himself,” says David Zabriskie, a top American who rides for the Danish CSC team. “Floyd just didn’t care.”
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