Life is one disillusionment after another. We learn Tiger Woods is guilty of infidelities, and as we recover from the shock, we are told by Floyd Landis he indeed used illegal performance-enhancing drugs when he won the Tour de France in 2006. Oh, my.

After Landis a couple of years ago spent 300 pages insisting he was innocent of doping charges in his biography "Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour,'' one understands why the book originally priced at $24.95 is now available on Amazon for 45 cents.

You'd have to guess Landis' believability isn't worth even that much.

No one is surprised when any athlete is accused of employing steroids or blood boosting or human growth hormone, particularly a bike racer.

The sport is brutal. Only Thursday, Lance Armstrong took a tumble in the Central Valley town of Visalia while competing in the Amgen Tour of California and was hauled off to the hospital.

Hours earlier, the sainted Sir Lance, seven-time champion in France, had been implicated by Landis, in whose apartment in Spain extracted blood was stored.

Landis' message was: We did it together, teammates helping each other.

Does one detect a faint resemblance to Jose Canseco's revelations about himself and Mark McGwire in the A's clubhouse during the Bash Brothers era?

An understanding has long persisted that in the 21-day, 2,200-mile Tour de France, there's been a faithful love affair with drugs, as Tom Robbins wrote in The Observer, one of England's Sunday papers.

"From the early days of brandy and red wine in the water bottles,'' agreed Robbins, "to amphetamines, cocaine, heroin and hormones, drugs have always been on the scene.''

But of course. As the late Jacques Anquetil, the first five-time winner (1957, 1961-64), made clear, "Do they expect us to ride the Tour on Perrier water?'

Non, monsieur.

What anyone expected from Landis is difficult to fathom. He had this great burst of speed in one of the last segments, which skeptics thought would be impossible if he weren't on something. That gave him the victory in 2006. Briefly. His title was stripped because of the drug accusations.

Landis would lose the appeals, his sponsor and, in the process, his wife. That led to the book, which now presumably will be submitted to the Pulitzer committee in the fiction category.

Cycling, like track and field, swimming and other sports below ESPN's radar - another Yankees game; heavens! - seems to get attention only when something goes very right, such as Armstrong proving Americans could make it up the Alps, or something goes very wrong.

The Tour of California has received considerable attention out on the Left Coast, where the worst spring weather in recent memory has been as much the story, along with Armstrong until he crashed out.

But the baseball, football and basketball crowd didn't really care. Until this scandal. Now hands are being rubbed together in glee, if not by the cycle purists.

Barry Bonds, as you know, was accused of using steroids. Still he was loved in San Francisco. Exceptions are made for local heroes.

Armstrong, having recovered from cancer and having won the Tour repeatedly, was and is a national hero. The French sports daily L'Equipe contended his blood samples were tainted, but this side of the Atlantic we pass it off as sour grapes. Or is that sour plasma?

Now, with Landis going after his old riding partner, claiming Armstrong's longtime coach Johan Bruyneel taught him about blood doping, we have one U.S. citizen attacking another.

"I have nothing to hide,'' was Armstrong's response when confronted with the Landis accusations.

Which are the exact five words Landis used as the opening sentence in his book, co-written by Loren Mooney.

Anybody out there hiding anything, a spare tire, a bicycle pump, some HGH?

Bruyneel, Armstrong's team manager, voiced his denial about the Landis claims. How time flies. It seems like only yesterday Landis was voicing his denials.

"Floyd needs help,'' Bruyneel told the Los Angeles Times. "I can only speak for myself. I completely deny the allegations. ... What kind of credibility does Floyd have after telling another story for four years?''

What kind of credibility does cycling have? Why did Landis insist he was innocent and then, like some guy going to confession, say he was lying all the time and everyone else also is lying?

"I want to clear my conscience,'' Landis told Bonnie Ford of ESPN.com, who covers the Tour de France. "I don't want to be part of the problem anymore.''

You're going to be for a long, long time.