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| Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France | 
 enlarge | Author: Floyd Landis
Creator: Loren Mooney
Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $3.97
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Avg. Customer Rating:  56 reviews
Sales Rank: 31224
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.2
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.62092
ASIN: B0013A05VU
Publication Date: June 17, 2007
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Product Description
THE SERIES OF EVENTS surrounding Floyd Landis's 2006 Tour de France was as improbable as anything in the history of sports: He showed up nine seconds late for the race's opening prologue, donned the leader's yellow jersey twelve days later, and lost his lead only to regain it in remarkable fashion just before the Tour's final stage into Paris. Winning the Tour should have been the culmination of a life's dream, but a mere three days later, Landis was accused of using banned performance-enhancing drugs. Released by his team and threatened with the removal of his Tour title, Landis went from winning the most prestigious race of his career to being unfairly labeled as a cheater, a liar, and a doper.Positively False is at once a memoir and a powerful indictment of the unchecked governing bodies of cycling that have compromised theintegrity of the sport as a whole. From leaving the Mennonite community of his youth in order to pursue his passion for cycling, to riding alongside Lance Armstrong for three years -- with whom he shared the same work ethic and competitive desire -- Floyd Landis details the highs and lows of his career with unabashed honesty. It is this same honesty with which he will clear his name once and for all, as he lays bare the inner workings of the cycling world -- a place where athletes are subject to the antiquated science, flawed interpretive protocols, and draconian legal processes of the anti-doping agencies -- and finally lays to rest the scandal that threatened to destroy everything he's worked so hard to achieve....
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| Customer Reviews: Read 51 more reviews...
 No doubt in my mind . . . June 22, 2007
33 out of 42 found this review helpful
Before reading this book, I had really only heard the repeated statements in the mainstream press that Floyd Landis' drug test results from Stage 17 of last year's Tour de France revealed a testosterone to epitestosterone ratio (T/E) of 11:1, far above the allowable 4:1 ratio. But there was something about Floyd that made me feel he was not the type of athlete who would using doping to win. So when this book came out, I immediately purchased it in order to hear Floyd's side of the story.
What you get in this book is a very open, honest, and engaging telling of Landis' cycling history, for example: his first bicycling experiences as a boy; his first races in the U.S. and abroad; the accident that injured his hip; his experiences riding alongside Lance Armstrong and other greats; his major cycling victories leading up to his win in last year's Tour de France. Throughout the narrative, Landis and Loren Mooney weave in text about Floyd's personal life, including his Mennonite background (for example, how he snuck out late at night to bike since his father had intentionally filled his day with chores), how he met his wife, and even his taste for heavy metal music like AC/DC and Metallica to psyche himself up (he also often winds down with some Johnny Cash). I really felt that I knew Floyd well after reading this book.
The overall impression I got from his life story confirmed my gut feelings from before--this is not the type of person who would feel the need to cheat to win. With Floyd, what you see is what you get. He has nothing to hide. As he tells the story of his doping case, it becomes increasingly clear that the French Lab responsible for his Stage 17 blood test was run much like the Keystone Cops--mixing up sample numbers, not following there own rules for what constitutes a positive sample, and inconsistent when compared to other international labs (for example, the same samples run in an Australian lab and also at UCLA would have been judged as negative).
In a nutshell, this book is a great read--I stayed up late a couple nights because I could not put it down--and after reading it I find it impossible to believe that Floyd Landis cheated. If anything, the French Lab that ran his urine tests at last year's Tour should lose it's certification and be banned from future Tour's.
Read this book if you want to know the truth about Floyd Landis' 2006 Tour de France victory. Highly recommended!
 Landis takes his case to the public July 14, 2007
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
"Positively False: The Real Story Of How I Won the Tour de France" (306 pages) is basically divided in 3 parts: Floyd's Mennonite upbringing in Pennsylvania and his humble beginnings in bike racing; his years in the big time, including his 2 years as a member of Lance Asrmstrong's team and of course his subsequent Tour vicotry; and his battle with the US Anti-Doping Agency.
Floyd on Armstrong: "Lance had his own way of being a jerk in the peloton to get what he wanted. ... He never yielded, so other riders other riders stayed out of his way." Floyd writes openly about how much money he makes over the years, for example his bonus the first time he was on the Armstrong team that won the tour in 2002 was $90,000.
The last 150 pages of the book are devoted to the doping allegation. Lance makes a very convincing case that there were serious errors with the doping test and the subsequent procedures. It is very telling to me that Eddy Merckx, the most successful bike racer of all time, has come out in public in support of Landis, as has Lance Armstrong as recently as last week (but hastily adding that he thinking that the USADA will suspend Landis anyway). In the last chapter, Floyd addresses the public arbitration hearing that took place in May, including the dramatic Gerg Lemond incident.
This is an enjoyable book, and highly recommended for fans of professional bike racing. Landis is a good guy, and what has happened has changed his life (and career) forever. It also has a profound impact on the Tour itself. We are in the midst of the 2007 Tour, and general interest in the Tour here in the US has dropped dramatically, which saddens me as a long-time Tour de France admirer. I hope we'll see Landis again in the Tour some day.
 Landis is a cheat! Deal with it! July 4, 2007
12 out of 92 found this review helpful
Poor old Landis, gets caught out taking 'enhancing drugs' and cries foul, what a joker!
Drug taking within professional cycling is bloody endemic. 'Le Tour' is becoming a mere shadow of it's former self. Landis wants you to buy his book about him being 'caught out' and try and prove his innocence! What a great guy, I don't think!
My advice is, don't give Landis and his publishers money for this garbage about the poor sap being 'dealt some bad cards'. He knew what he was doing and it didn't come off. Blame who you like Floydie, it's ultimately your responsibility.
Even if you know the story it's a good read June 25, 2007
11 out of 15 found this review helpful
I didn't want to believe it when I heard it and we all had reason to doubt the results to begin with because of past "doping" alegations (Butch Reynolds, Lance Armstrong). BUT, beyond all the testing, science and legal info is a good story that's well-written. Mooney knew well enough to stay out of the way and let Floyd talk. Floyd's story is important beyond a good sports yarn. Cheating hurts everyone, but fighting cheaters by cheating only creates tragedy. I hope Floyd is able to ride his bike until everyone who has conspired to get him off it is confined to walkers and wheelchairs!
Straight shooting June 25, 2007
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
As someone who has closely followed the Floyd Landis story from his stage 17 comeback during the 2006 Tour de France, I found "Positively False" to be a straight-forward account of Floyd's life before and after the 2006 Tour de France. It is an easy-to-read story with surprisingly less rancor than that story deserves and a complete lack of self-indulgence in the telling. Hardly surprising, Positively False is biased in Floyd's favor but, given all I know from publicly available sources, I found his coverage of the case against him to be reasonably balanced. Idiots and the patently idiotic are duly noted (including Floyd as idiot) without resort to hysteria or overblown ranting.
In terms of the doping scandle, Floyd provides enough technical details to enable an understanding by most interested readers of the case's difficulties and complexities without resorting to the mind numbing details of the underlying science (thank you, Floyd, for not going there). He also provides a chronology of the case, how it played out in the glare of the international media and who the players were on that stage. This part is not a pretty story. In fact, it's a very strong indictment against a system where it is common-place for anti-doping officials to increase pressure on the accused by leaking information to favored media outlets before that information has been made available to the athelete. It is a system where the accused is presumed guilty, tried and judged within a system entirely controlled by the accusing agency (in this case, the USADA, which has never lost a case in more than 100 challenges) and, even if that trial establishes that intent to cheat is obviously and clearly lacking, is required to find the athlete guilty and to impose the maximum sanction. The system would strike most U.S. taxpayers (who do, in fact, provide funding for this sytem) as "unacceptably unAmerican", a question that Floyd has been raising with members of Congress.
In terms of Floyd's guilt or innocence, the reader is left to their own judgement; there is no obvious yes or no answer to the question of whether Floyd took performance enhancing drugs. It is part of the tragedy of the story that the question will never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction; Floyd's reputation on the world stage will never fully recover. Floyd knows this and his reaction is typically pragmatic, the same pragmatism he and his wife have regularly applied throughout their topsy-turvy life together.
Aside from the doping issues, I enjoyed Floyd's account of what it is like to train to be a contender on the Tour, what demands winning puts on the different riders on a team, how psychology is used as much as physiology in wreaking havoc on the competition, and, of course, details about the inner workings of the Postal/Discovery Channel team and Lance Armstrong. How Floyd broke his hip and what he had to do when 99.999% of the public in his situation would be in a hospital bed punching the morphine button is a hard to believe story of grit and perserverance.
Bottom line: even for those who have no desire to delve into the question of Floyd's guilt or innocence, the first 2/3rds of the book is a great read about professional cycling over the past 6 years or so. (The last 1/3 drills back into the details of the doping case.)
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