Floyd Landis the talk of the town and the Tour de France

The Frenchwoman found her way last week to the Green Mountain Cyclery, a little bicycle shop here along Reading Road where a decade and a half ago 15-year-old Floyd Landis was introduced to the sport he now rules.

"I should kiss the ground he walked on," said the Brittany native, who signed her name Colette on the store's window.

"Better not," advised Jennifer Farrington, the owner's wife, "the floor's filthy."

That curious juxtaposition of the now-glamorous international sports star and the quaint but manure-scented corner of Lancaster County where he was born and raised was evident here on Saturday.

Seventy-five people, ranging from journalists for the French sports paper L'Equipe to Landis' old buddies at Conestoga Valley High School, gathered in the bike shop to watch the 2006 Tour de France's 19th and next-to-last stage.

Here, on a rented big-screen TV, they saw the red-haired American rider virtually clinch a Tour victory with a spectacular time-trial performance that left his supporters here whooping and hollering like Eagles fans.

"I always knew he was going to do something special," said Dan Marschka, who rode with Landis in the mid-1990s. "But I had no idea it would be "this special."

The realization that a local guy named Floyd, whose parents still wear traditional Mennonite garb, who used to train on the dusty roads near his Farmersville home, and who wore sweatpants to his first race because his religion forbade shorts, was almost certainly going to be crowned the Tour's champion Sunday on Paris' Champs-Elysees was difficult for some to grasp.

"I can't believe it," said Jennifer Farrington, who cried in the arms of her husband, Mike, after the TV announcer declared that Landis was going to win the world's greatest cycling race. "I can't believe Floyd won the Tour de France."

It's curious that Landis, 30, will wrap up the Tour on a Sunday. His observant parents, who have electricity in their home but no television or telephone, at first objected to his racing on the Sabbath.

"But we now believe Floyd is honoring God with his success," his mother, Arlene, said Saturday, during a post-time-trials celebration at their home, about five miles from this Lancaster County borough. "We don't criticize him at all."

Landis, said Mike Farrington, who has spoken frequently with his old pal these last few weeks, was different from many of his Mennonite buddies. He had an intellectual curiosity, a biting wit, and by the time he predicted he'd one day win the Tour de France, he was "a definite hell-raiser."

While he has admitted to a certain restlessness with his laid-back hometown and the Mennonites' rigid lifestyle, Landis has insisted he never entirely rejected his parents' values.

"But let's face it, there's nothing around here for young people to do," Mike Farrington said. "And things were even worse 15 years ago. Once Floyd started cycling, he knew _ and we knew _ he was gone."

It was then that Landis first visited Farrington's shop, located at the time in nearby Akron, and discovered both cycling and the path that would take him from Farmersville to Paris.

"His first bike was a mountain bike," said Farrington, whose shop's bikes sell for as much as $3,000, "and his father was very upset because it cost $300. I still remember his dad saying, `Did you say $300?' "

A photo of Landis crossing the finish line as the winner of the 1993 U.S. Junior Nationals in a Green Mountain Cyclery jersey hung on the wall, as did pictures of Landis from his various successes throughout the intervening years.

As the local rider clung to a spot at or near the top of the Tour's standings these last few weeks, Farrington's store became a mecca for cycling enthusiasts. Its window has become a huge greeting card, with visitors' messages scrawled there in the green and yellow colors of Landis' Phonak team.

"You're the best. Dean and Ginger, Orlando, Fla."

"Make `em suffer!"

"Le Vainqueur."

When no one could translate that last message, L'Equipe reporter Benoit Heimermann came to the rescue.

"It means the winner, the victor," said Heimermann, who assured the crowd that Sunday's last stage should not affect Landis' status as the race leader.

"He will have no problem," he said, "no problem at all."

A US Airways pilot rented a car and drove here during a layover in Philadelphia. Vacationers from Colorado stopped by. The owners of the Mount Hope Estate and Winery in nearby Cornwall dropped off a bottle of red wine, whose label bore Landis' photo and the words "Tour de Floyd.

Landis' time trial began about 10:18 a.m., and by then the viewers stood shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the TV, cheering whenever he was shown or the lead he quickly recaptured was reaffirmed.

Those who knew Landis best, like the Farringtons and Marschka, were amazed at how low the racer sat on his bike, given the fact that he will undergo surgery next month to replace a badly deteriorating hip.

"He's got to be in a lot of pain," said Mike Farrington. "I was thinking of that the other day (when Landis fell out of the lead, finishing the 16th stage eight minutes behind the leader, only to rally back to within 30 seconds of the pace before Saturday's leg). Maybe it was bothering him.

"This year's Tour has been a microcosm of Floyd's career. A whole lot of amazing highs and incredible lows."

Marschka recalled when he and his brother would ride high into the hills with Landis during local races.

"He'd be so far ahead that he'd frequently circle back and check on us and still win by a mile," he said with a laugh.

Lois Cunningham, Jennifer Farrington's mother, said a much-younger Landis used to cycle past during his early training rides, moving past the Ephrata Cloisters, the picturesque farmettes of the area's Amish and Mennonite residents and the quaint little stores with names such as Mother Tucker's Antiques.

"Now he's in Paris," she said, as if still disbelieving. "I hope his success will encourage the youngsters around here to be more active. They've gotten a little docile.

"And I think they will follow him, because Floyd is the kind of person they can look up to. Someone whose morals are above reproach."