Powerful Pete
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@KLizotte 107058 wrote:
Do you guys believe the eyeball counts they are citing? I find it hard to believe cycling is that popular worldwide. Soccer I could understand but cycling? Even when I lived in Europe I never heard anyone discuss the TdF at the water cooler or watch it in the pubs (on the other hand, football (a.k.a. soccer) was a topic of endless discussion. Rugby, tennis, and golf were also quite popular.
You were hanging out with the wrong people!
Keep in mind that cycling is very regional within Europe – while people in parts of Southern Italy would only really pay attention to the Giro, for example (as opposed to that other race in a nearby country where the food and wine are almost as good as ours), in the North (the cycling “centre” of Italy) you will get people talking about all the major monuments and most probably also local races in their area. Lots of attention and eyeballs in France, Spain, Benelux, Switzerland and increasingly “non-traditional” areas like UK (the Irish always being more passionate and in the known about cycling – as an aside, Sean Kelly is the man). Cannot comment on on Eastern Europe, Germany or Scandinavia as I haven’t spent enough time there.
If you want crazed fanaticism try Belgium. I had cars pull over and ask me what team I was racing for while out on training rides (this was a wee few years ago, I was much, much thinner and a bit faster then now, LOL).
Out of curiosity, where did you live in the Old World? I was intrigued by your golf reference. If you tell someone in Rome that you play golf they may be vaguely aware of its existence. I used to have conversations with my friends about how weird it was that golf even made the papers (this is when I was studying English and reading copies of old American papers) as “who would ever play or follow that”. Then I moved to the US and understood…
