Tour De France's Floyd Landis On CBD Vs. Weed: Some People Function On Marijuana... I Can't

If anyone knows what it’s like to take part in one of the hardest cycling races in the world, endure long periods of pain, and cross the finish line as one of the best, it's Floyd Landis.

There's also the emotional toll: Landis was involved in the Tour De France’s biggest doping scandal. He was stripped of his 2006 victory, as well as six team victories. But now he's back on the bike, and one thing that helped his quality of life was CBD.

Benzinga spoke to Landis to learn more about the professional world of racing and what made him enter the hemp space. The first thing we wondered: Why did he fall in love with cycling?

“I just fell in love with it just because it was a way to just be alone. And think about life.”

Fun — Obsession — Fun

It all started when Landis was a kid and simply enjoyed riding for the fun, excitement, and adrenaline. Quickly he became aware of his talent and one race led to another. When it became a profession and a job, riding was only for one reason: getting results.

At that point, it seemed like there was no stopping him. In 2006, he rode Tour de France with an injured hip and had to take cortisone shots to get through it.

“This race is all about managing pain,” Landis recalls. He did manage the pain, but afterward, the hip had to be replaced.

As cycling grew more into an obsession, the more Landis forgot why he did it in the first place.

“The rides are so long, and then you have crashes to deal with. It’s kind of just a miserable sport,” Landis admits, describing the feeling probably every athlete has experienced at least once. “Why did I enter this,” the question he asked many times during races.

“You can’t really explain it unless you feel it. Sometimes it happens, multiple times in the same race. When you think, oh I’m going to quit, but then you think 'OK fine, I am going to keep going.' And then you’re right, as soon as it’s over you feel good.”

After all that happened, Landis wasn’t able to ride for a few years, having a bad association with the bike. “Like everything I enjoyed about it seemed to have gone away,” he opened up. “And I guess it just takes time.”

And strength. Which Landis apparently now has sine he's riding again.

“Over the last few years, I was able to ride. Enjoy. And even sometimes I could watch Tour De France. It’s good now,” he told Benzinga.

And that’s how he went back to fun, rounding it up: fun — obsession — fun.

The CBD Story

Landis' hip replacement surgery went well, and he is grateful (100 years ago, he wouldn’t be able to walk at this point). From time to time, however, there’s pain.

Landis had heard that a lot of people were using CBD products to ease anxiety or just for inflammation or pain, sometimes to replace drugs like Advil or Tylenol.

“I had used marijuana from time to time,” he says. “Sometimes just for fun just to enjoy it, and sometimes to help me sleep or for pain management.”

That’s how he realized that cannabis varieties with more CBD are more effective for his pain. He tried out just CBD, and it worked. “So I can still function during the day. Some people can function on marijuana, but I can’t. I get nothing done by doing that,” he said with a smile.

Instead of taking standard pain medications, Landis chose nature.

After the hip replacement, he was on opioids. Soon he realized that while using them, he was forgetting about things. “Which is how people get addicted to it in the first place," he says. "It’s just how easy it is to use them for psychological pain when they are available."

Thanks to the good people around him, Landis was never hooked, but he knows people who abused them and the addiction made their lives worse. Some lives even ended.

"The problem is if you are going through something else like I was in life, it’s easy to start using it for everything," he says.

But Landis knew people who benefitted from cannabis, for both physical and psychological trauma.

“None of this is magic," he says. "Life is about getting through some hard times, some pains. For me, marijuana seems like a better choice because it’s not addictive.”

Not A Good Salesmen Unless...

In 2016, Landis started his own CBD business called Floyd’s Of Leadville.

“I am not a great salesman for the sake of just selling something,” Landis said. “But if it’s something that it really helps, and I believe in it, it’s easy to sell. And I wanted to promote it, because it’s something that really benefited me a lot.”

Floyd’s Of Leadville products are mostly marketed to athletes and mainly formulated to help with recovery and inflammation. But Landis believes they're suitable for anyone who lives an active lifestyle and has aches and pains that they would like to manage. They also rely on different strains with beneficial properties for anxiety or sleep.

CBD and many other minor cannabinoids in these products are derived from organically grown hemp by Amish farmers in Pennsylvania.

People that care, they grow it right, Landis explains, adding that Amish farmers are proud of the product that they produce.

This brand prides itself on transparency, sharing its certified third-party lab results on the website. The company sources “seed to shelf” hemp without additives, chemicals or residuals.

“It's an issue not just with CBD, but with all supplements,” Landis explains. “We try to invest in quality stuff, because we take it ourselves as well.”

Since CBD products are not yet regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, neither as nutritional supplements nor ingredients, rules about them are not exactly clear. That’s why Floyd’s Of Leadville is trying to be careful about claims and marketing, and it lets people rely on testimonials.

The company ships its products to all 50 states and sells them in Colorado in some local stores and bike shops.

A number of professional athletes, from ultra runners and professional cyclists to rock climbers and professional volleyball players, have chosen this brand and have become its ambassadors.

For Landis, life is good now.

Courtesy photo