Let Us Pray

What's gotten into Landis? In the days before the Tour of California, he spent a total of 10 hours in the Allied Aerospace wind tunnel in San Diego, experimenting with different time-trial positions. The position he settled on, the one that does the most to reduce his drag, is not particularly easy on the eyes. Riding with his aerobar cocked at an implausibly high angle, Landis in the heat of a time trial looks not unlike a monk at matins, a supplicant beseeching the Almighty for more speed.

Whether he's praying for it or not, this son of Mennonites from Pennsylvania's Lancaster County is getting speed from somewhere. At the Tour of California TT, a 17-mile course around San Jose, he devoured the course, finishing 55 and 76 seconds, respectively, over pre-race favorites George Hincapie and Levi Leipheimer. He won the Tour de Georgia's "race of truth" last Thursday, edging Danielson by four seconds -- the margin of his overall victory -- over an exceptionally long course featuring a fairly nasty climb a third of the way through.

For the next day's mountain stage to Dahlonega, I rode in the Phonak team car alongside director Rene Savary, a dapper, white-haired Swiss who exhorted his riders in various languages: "Allez, allez!" "Venga, venga, venga!" "Fantástico!" "Vámonos!" -- and, when the heavens unleashed a downpour as the riders ascended Fort Mountain, "Mamma mia!"

Do You Have Any Grey Poupon?

It was on that climb that Phonak's Robbie Hunter, a dour sprinter from South Africa, traded paint with Discovery's Yaroslav Popovych. The two had exchanged heated words at the end of Stage 1. Now, after an altercation that remains cloaked in mystery, they'd both come off their bikes. Scrambling back onto his steed, Hunter rode up to the team car and gave his version of events: "He rides up and hits me! Piece of s---!"

After the descent, who should pull up alongside us but Johan Bruyneel, Discovery's team director, who gestured for Savary to roll down his window.

Johan was not in search of Grey Poupon. "You need to talk to Hunter," he told Savary. "You need to tell him he has to keep his hands on his f------ handlebars!" Popovych had told his boss that Hunter grabbed his jersey. I've known Bruyneel for five years and never seen him this angry.

Savary tried to be the voice of reason -- "We will talk this evening," he said, in a soothing tone -- but seemed a bit unnerved.

Otherwise: a strong day for the Phonaks, who sat on the front of the peloton, allowing unthreatening breakaways to drift away, taking care not to reel them in too quickly. Why? "Because then there will be counterattacks," Savary explained, "and we will have to control them."

What else did I learn? I saw, firsthand, how these professionals are able to relieve themselves at 20 mph. Ben Brooks, William Frischkorn -- good on you, guys! Kids, don't try this at home. On a related subject, I learned that, when the team director pulls to the side of the road and declares, "Now we pee!" you follow his example, whether the call is urgent, or, as in my case, faint.

I stayed in the car, and had reason to acutely regret that decision over the final two hours of the stage.

Discovery's Depth

Gotta give it up to Discovery's Jason McCartney in particular -- the guy went on a breakaway, attacked the break and then, having been reeled in after some 50 miles off the front, took a blow and attacked again. So what if the guy got dropped two kilometers from the finish line? No one rode with more cojones on the day.

Gotta give it up to Team Discovery in general. Yes, when the lead group on Brasstown Bald was whittled to a dozen riders, Landis had a pair of teammates. But that final selection included four Disco boys: Danielson, Popo, McCartney and a Slovenian named Janez Brajkovic, who was named the event's Best Young Rider. Popo finished the race in third, with Brajkovic two places back, giving the Team Teal three riders in the top five.

And this without Hincapie, the strong, silent, snake-bitten South Carolinian who was in superb position in the one-day Paris-Roubaix spring classic, only to fall victim to a freakish bit of bad luck. On April 9, 220 kilometers into the beastly, 259-kilometer Hell of the North, Hincapie was exactly where he wanted to be. He'd lost this race a year ago, outsprinted at the line by Belgian strongman Tom Boonen. But now Boonen was isolated, without teammates. The Big Hink had fellow Discovery riders Leif Hoste and Vladimir Gusev at his side, poised to lead him out at the finish line.

And then, without warning, Hincapie sat up -- holding his handlebars, which had somehow snapped off. In the ensuing crash onto the cobblestones, he suffered between a third- and fourth-degree shoulder separation. Hincapie elected not to have surgery.

"That would've meant eight weeks off the bike," he told me on the phone Sunday evening, raising his voice to be heard over the robust squalling of 17-month-old Julia Hincapie. After a week in a sling, he was riding on the trainer in his house. When we spoke, he'd been out for a couple of road rides. "Riding on it can't make it any worse," he said. "It's just a matter of dealing with the pain."

He'd injured his right hand earlier in the race, crashing after "riding into the back of someone's wheel." But he remounted, and liked his chances so much -- before the disaster -- "that I was asking myself, 'With the injury to my hand, will I be able to hold the trophy over my head?'"

The question now is: When will he race again? Look for him to be in super form at the Dauphine-Libere in June.

Whither Jan?

While Discovery may have the best team in pro cycling right now, it does not have a rider whom you would characterize as a top threat to win the Tour de France. Who are the favorites?

Not Jan Ullrich. Armstrong's longtime foil is off to an atrocious start this season. A chronic knee injury has prevented him from racing. "It's clear he doesn't like to ride a bike," sniped CSC's team director Bjarne Riis to a Danish newspaper, "which is why I can't understand why he wants to be a cyclist. It's a waste of talent.... I believe in him less and less."

Riis is probably trying to get in Ullrich's head to improve the chances of his own stud, the supremely gifted Basso, runner-up to Armstrong last July. But the fact is, no one in the world is riding better right now than Landis.

I was afraid this sport might lose its hold on me now that Armstrong has moved on. But between Bruyneel's road rage and that street fight Landis and Danielson engaged in on the way up Brasstown Bald; between Hincapie's misfortune and the spectacular season Landis is having; between the implosion of Ullrich and the smack that Bjarne Riis is running, it's just not happening.

It's only April, and I can't look away.