Being a cycling fan in the 1970s

HellonWheels

Is anyone here old enough to be able to say they were following the TdF and other races way back then? I was a teenager, rooting for Merckx back in the mid 70s...and one thing that always puzzled me was why I was often one of the very few cycling fans I knew. Back then the sport was still entirely European (LeMond didnt spark the interest of many Americans until the mid 80s)...but way back in the 70s the ONLY ppl I knew who even knew what the TdF was were the few members of the bicycle coalition I was in, and my gay friends from the center of the city.

Anyone know why this was? I've always been curious. I lived in a working class section of town and NO ONE knew anything about competitive cycling except for me. Not even my late father, the big sports fan, knew anything!

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DiabloScott

I'd heard of it but didn't understand it at all. I did have a Schwinn "Le Tour" 10-speed though!

I remember seeing the results in the paper and being amazed that after 3000km the winner was only ahead by a few minutes. Didn't understand at all.

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Powerful Pete

Interesting, because here in Europe, cycling has traditionally been a working class sport. You don't think of doing the northern classics and the Roubaix if you have money. In that case, you play tennis or go into football (ehm, soccer for the Americans ).

Now that image is changing, with cycling becoming more of a 'higher class' sport as many older 'professional' people (40s and up) 'discover' riding as a way to get some low impact exercise, fall in love with it, and end up spending oodles of cash and getting their friends into it.

I come from an upper-middle class background here in Rome, and growing up I was the only rabid cycling fan (inculcated by my father and grandfather, both ex-riders who went against the social grain) in my class. Not that riding was not popular, or that classmates did not follow the Giro (that was the only race of interest to us, the Tour was by far secondary until people like Chiappucci and Bugno starting racing it in the Lemond/Hinault/Indurain era).

Just different. They all dreamed of Wimbledon and the French Open. Nothing against tennis, little white shorts and all, it is just not for me .

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mojomarc

[QUOTE=DiabloScott]I'd heard of it but didn't understand it at all. I did have a Schwinn "Le Tour" 10-speed though![QUOTE]

As did I--man, that seemed like the best bike ever, what with gears and brakes that worked by hand levers instead of reversing the pedals. Ah, memories....

I remember seeing like 15 minutes of highlights every year on Wide World of Sports or some similar show, but that was about it. I couldn't have named the riders at all back then. I think it was 1983 before I saw more, which also happened to be the year my family got cable for the first time.

limerickman

1980 was the year I got interested in what was going on in the peloton.

The sport here had no coverage except for a half hour every saturday on
World of Sport on ITV during the TDF.

In our country, just like Powerful Pete, cycling would have been regarded as
a sport for the "working classes" (whatever that means).
Soccer is by far the most popular sport followed by Gaelic Games.
As Sean Kelly started to win though, cycling came to the fore.
This country did host amateur races - and one of the toughest in the entire
amateur cycling world was/is "Ras Tailteann" know as "The Ras".

Sean Kelly's exploits and the plethora of english speaking riders encouraged
Channel 4 to start showing the TDF in 1982 with Ligget and Sherwen.

Sadly to this day though, except for the TDF, there is little knowledge or no interest in the European races here.