Floyd Landis competes in first mountain bike race in 9 years, doesn't fare well

There's being in shape, cycling shape, and then there's mountain bike shape. I don't care who you are or how fit you may be if you haven't been mountain biking in a while, you are going to struggle.

Such was the case for Floyd Landis, yesterday at the Teva Mountain Games in Vail, Colorado. While there were a few notables - Ned Overend, Travis Brown, Jay Henry, and Ross Schnell - the field of elite men was not especially competitive. Despite this, Landis only managed to muster a 36th place finish and was passed by Shonny Vanlandingham who started four minutes behind and won the women's race. (Via VeloNews)

He blamed his lackluster finish on the time off the bike during his doping hearing, saying:

There were quite a few weeks when I rode a reasonable amount, 200-to-300 miles a week...Then that hearing; I didn't ride at all. You're sitting there. The next thing you know, you're eating doughnuts and you don't even care. It was awful.

Now sure, if he ate one less doughnut and kept the training going he would have fared better, but I'll bet he wouldn't have cracked the top 15. It's going to take a lot more than miles on the road and good eating to compete with the big boys in the pro mountain bike world. In the 9 years that you've been away Floyd, mountain biking has grown up and the elite mountain biking world does all that, plus they get dirty.

Let this be a wake up call to all those past and future Tour de France winners out there (Lance are you listening?), that you can't just turn around and think you'll start dominating in the mountain bike world without even trying. This is not a game you can play in your retirement.

Still, it would have been fun to watch the Lance and Landis showdown at Leadville, even though they might have been competing with each other in the middle of the pack.

Read my letter to Lance Armstrong after he backed out of the Leadville 100.
Read my letter to Floyd Landis admonishing him for scaring Lance.