Breaking Away

So after the 2004 season, lured by a higher salary and the hopes of working his way up to leader, Landis left Armstrong's stable for the Swiss-based Phonak team. Soon after he joined, doping charges eliminated several teammates and put Phonak's future in question. When the team was finally cleared to compete in the 2005 season's circuit of races, Landis was picked to head the squad.

At last year's Tour de France, he finished ninth, a so-so result in a season where almost everything had gone wrong. But now, things are different. It looks like everything has gone right.

With three wins this season, he has fine-tuned the single-minded drive that started him pedaling in the first place, the urge to race away from the slow pace of his upbringing in Pennsylvania's farmland.

Just back from a 100-mile ride, Landis sinks into a deck chair on the patio behind his adobe-colored home. Veins pop out on his forearms, which are bigger and ropier than most cyclists', dating from his years as a mountain biker and a childhood of physical labor. A pink-skinned redhead, wearing a T-shirt and baggy jeans that swallow up his lean frame, he has an elfin look, with prominent ears and a keen nose. He seems to end each sentence with a chuckle.

The man who wears the yellow jersey when the race ends under the Arc de Triomphe will be the toughest, fittest rider of the bunch. He will have intimidated and offended his closest rivals. He will be the most selfish man on wheels.

The question for Landis is, can a man raised to denounce the very notion of personal triumph muster the egomania? Is he mean enough to win?

The Mennonite Way

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Landis grew up in Farmersville, Pa., a crossroads of perhaps 200 souls, set in the wide, sweeping countryside that is home to some of the nation's largest congregations of the Amish and Mennonites. The roads are dotted with horse-drawn buggies and folks out walking in old-fashioned dress, with the women in devotional caps and aprons.

The Mennonite way emphasizes plainness and self-denial. One doesn't call attention to oneself; individuality is frowned upon. The community is central; any Mennonite whose barn burns down knows his neighbors will pitch in to raise a new one.

In keeping with the value they place on meekness -- and on limiting contact with the worldly outside culture -- Mennonites do not proselytize. They keep their views to themselves and quietly walk the talk.

You get a sense of Mennonite society from the lay of their land, its openness, its unhurried atmosphere, the clean sense of order in the squarely built houses and geometrically laid crops. There's the land, the sky and, flat and distant, the distinct line of the horizon.

That's the line Floyd Landis longed to cross.

He was a strong-willed boy, the second of Paul and Arlene Landis's six children. Always poking holes in the explanations he was given.