I like Cycling, despite the unending tales of woe and sorrow that it gets these days. They like to say in Hollywood that there is no such thing as bad press, but they weren’t talking about Road Racing on a bicycle. The latest bad news is the loss of a couple of major sponsors for both Teams and Tours. Deutsche Telekom(T-Mobile) and Adidas have both said they will end their sponsorships.
The one great and shinning Cycling Team in America, Discovery Channel/US Postal Service is no more. The Tour de France winning team which was Lance Armstrongs team for many years, has disband.
I first became interested in Professional Road Racing in the mid 1980s when Greg LeMond was the first America to win the Tour De France. This was pretty heady stuff. I bought magazines and read about road racing for the first time. I had heard of the Tour de France, but the Tour of Italy? Tour of Poland? These things were news to me. In fact, all of it was news to me. The One Hour Time Trail. All those Pro Cyclists with the unpronounceable names. Eddy B and Bernard Hinault.
My favorite Greg LeMond story is about his dieting advice. He said something along the lines of, “You could ride a bicycle across the country eating nothing but Twinkies and drinking nothing but Cokes and be in better shape when you got done than when you started.” I have always been a huge fan of this advice, though in truth I have never ridden across the country in such a manner. I have ridden a few Centuries were the event sponsors must have liked the advice as all the snacks and drinks were sugar laden goodies. Of course, it has been a few years since I rode a hundred miles at a time, or well, any miles at a time.
But I did follow the Tour de France while Lance Armstrong was setting all those records and changing history. Eventhen it must be admitted that Road Racing never became as huge a sport in America as it is in Europe. Between the cheaters, and those accused of cheating, there is just no good news on the Pro Cycling front.
