Book Review: Positively False by Floyd Landis
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Positively False The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France By Floyd Landis With Loren Mooney Cover by Embry RuckerThis Edition: Hardcover Publication Date: 06/2007 |
Positively False by Floyd Landis is officially out in stores now. It is a very quick read, and most chapters are very interesting.
If you have been too busy to keep up with the Floyd Landis case, this book will give you a great synopsis of what has happened since Landis was accused of using testosterone to win the 2006 Tour de France. For those of you like me, who have followed every aspect of the case, the parts of the book that deal with the doping allegations can be boring.
The best part of the book is the “Prologue.” where Floyd recounts the behind the scenes from his amazing in the Tour. My heart was pumping again as Floyd tells of his rocket like performance to race back into contention. I loved watching it on TV last year, and I loved reading his insight this year. The best quote of the book was after the amazing comeback, when Eddy Merckx said to Floyd, “Only the big champions do it like that.”
Almost two thirds of the book are about Floyd’s history about growing up in a Mennonite community and getting into bike racing. There is a really funny story about blowing up sticks of dynamite in France while at a junior mountain bike race. I laughed out loud at that story. I couldn’t get enough of Floyd recounting his training with Lance Armstrong in the mountains before the Tour de France. I could read a whole book about how Floyd trained for the Tour. It is amazing what he did with his power training with the help of Alan Lim. Floyd….If you read this, please get with Alan to write a book with more detail on your time together training. What you two did both with power and wind tunnel work has changed cycling forever, and I would love to see it written down in detail by the two people that were responsible.
The book is definitely worth the money. It is very entertaining, and a great look into what it takes to win the world’s most prestigious bike race. I wish that he had left out some of the swearing, so that I could read the whole thing to my son, but a cleaner version just wouldn’t have captured the essence of Floyd.
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