LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Floyd Landis may have been standing atop a podium in Paris on Sunday, but many family members and friends were cheering in Farmersville.

The crossroads village in eastern Lancaster County was Landis country over the weekend — beginning with his taking the lead in the Tour de France bicycle race late Saturday and ending with a party Sunday night after Landis was declared the winner of the epic 2,272-mile race.

Family, friends and well-wishers converged on the town to sign posters, decorate the curbs with chalk and eat Arlene Landis’ cake amid the green and yellow balloons of Floyd Landis Phonak team colors and the glare of television cameras.

Visitors — many of them arriving on bicycles — just started showing up, said Tammy Martin, a friend and neighbor of the Landises and a long-time supporter of Floyd’s racing career.

She had invited 15 to 20 people to her home, where east, west, north and south Farmersville roads meet. On Sunday night, there were about 150 people there.

“I have no idea who most of these people are in my yard, but I don’t care. I love a good party,” Martin said.

Landis, the 31-year-old Conestoga Valley High graduate who has claimed headlines on the world’s sports pages for days, roared into Paris Sunday to receive the accolades of bicycling fans as the newest holder of the Tour de France crown.

His win capped a dizzying run. After a stunning come-from-behind show of determination and skill on Thursday, Landis pedaled to victory in the world’s most prestigious bike race.

Floyd Landis’ parents, Paul and Arlene, had come to the Martin home Sunday night to watch a rebroadcast of the final stage of the 23-day tour. The Landises do not own a television.

Instead, Arlene barely made it inside. Paul stood near the edge of the party crowd, greeting people as they arrived.

The couple did not watch their son take the overall victory on Sunday morning. Instead, they rode their bicycles to church.

At least one newspaper reporter and a television truck followed them there.

Arlene said the exposure they have received in recent days has been overwhelming. People who have recognized them have been walking up and talking to them. Strangers have been coming to their door just to congratulate them.

“People know us by name, and we don’t even know who they are ... so, life is getting pretty exciting,” Arlene Landis said.

Capping that may be a meeting with President George W. Bush. A French reporter told them Sunday she had learned that Floyd and his family had been invited to the White House.

“I don’t know why the president would take the time to do that, but I would be thrilled,” said Arlene, a supporter of Bush.

When that trip could occur depends on when Floyd returns to the United States.

The Landises don’t know when they will see their son and they haven’t even spoken to him in the recent rush of events. He called both Saturday and Sunday evenings and left messages. They were at Martin’s house watching the Tour at those times.

Also waiting for Floyd’s return — and word from Ephrata officials — are plans for a parade in Landis’ honor.

Mike Doupe, event director for local bicycling race promoter RedRoseRaces.com, is hoping to organize a parade of bicycle riders from Farmersville to Ephrata. Floyd Landis could then address the crowd, Doupe said this morning.

Doupe said he does not know when or if that could occur, but he’d like it to happen soon. He hopes Landis will return to the United States next week — and he also hopes the new Tour de Paris champion will stop on the East Coast to appear on television programs before returning to his current home in Murietta, Calif.

“Ideally, Lancaster would have the ‘Today’ show hosted from Farmerville,” Doupe said.
Cyclingnews.com, an Australian-based Internet cycling journal, reported that Landis would compete in two short criterium bicycle races in Europe this week. The criteriums, where he will likely not try to win, are done as a promotion for the Tour de France.

He is also scheduled to race near Chicago next month, although there was some speculation that he may skip that race to hasten his hip replacement surgery.

Landis disclosed earlier this month that he has a degenerative bone condition in his right hip stemming from a hip fracture he suffered in a training ride crash in 2003. He plans to have an artificial hip inserted soon, so he can begin training.

Landis told the press in France that he plans to defend the race leader’s yellow jersey at next year’s Tour de France.

In Martin’s backyard, people gathered from the chapters of Floyd Landis’ early life.

Eric Gebhard, a friend of Floyd’s since childhood, recalled how they first started riding bicycles. The mountain bikes were a two-wheeled means of escape at first — down to the Conestoga River where they played with matches, shot at squirrels and occasionally fished — and then as a type of challenge.

Gebhard said there was a steep dirt path on a hill above town that they tried again and again to ride. And there was the road circuit around the town. Each week, they would record their time and try to ride faster than the week before.

Later, after Gebhard and Landis won local mountain bike races, the pair traveled the western states, competing in races by day, sleeping in the back of Gebhard’s truck at night and eating with money from their winnings.

“It’s just nuts when you think about how far we’ve come,” Gebhard said.

Mike Farrington, the owner of Green Mountain Cyclery, the Ephrata bike shop where teenagers Gebhard and Landis used to hang out, spoke of Landis’ stunning comeback on Thursday. The race — in which Landis surged up four Alpine mountains from eight minutes back to again be in contention from the overall victory — is already being called the stuff of cycling legend.

In trying to explain the feat to a customer on Thursday, Farrington put it in terms of NASCAR.

“What Floyd did today was like coming back from four laps down in the last 20 laps to win,” Farrington said he told the man.

“That’s impossible,” Farrington said the man replied.

“Yes, but Floyd did it,” said Farrington.

After overheating in the Alps the day before, Landis took 70 water bottles from his accompanying team car during that climb. Many of those he poured on his head to cool himself.

Even with the mountain climbs — at grades of as much as 26 percent — Landis averaged 25.34 mph over the 89 hours of racing in the Tour.

“He’s just amazing. His will and his determination to follow his goals is an inspiration to everyone,” said Dan Garrett, who is now a magisterial district justice in Warwick. He had been Landis’ economics teacher at Conestoga Valley High School.

Garrett, whom Landis has called his favorite teacher, recalled again the high school senior who projected that he would be earning $100,000-a-year within five years.

It’s not the money that is important, Garrett emphasized, but Landis’ conviction at 17 that he would be a world-class cyclist.

Paul Landis, Floyd’s father, took Sunday as an opportunity to shift attention away from his son to another hero.

He posted an invitation and directions on the door of his home Sunday to his church, Martindale Mennonite.

He hoped some of the people following his son would become interested in his upbringing and be led to follow Jesus Christ.

“If they are brought though Floyd, that is an extra special blessing ... and I think it’s already happened, because we’ve already gotten some very good response,” said Paul Landis.

Paul said one man told him Saturday that he should be in Paris to watch Floyd stand atop the podium. But the father believes he and Arlene were where they belonged — in Farmerville.

“We could have gone, but we would have missed all this.’’