I think the real mainstream no longer cares about bike champions the moment they're no longer... champions. Just look at Bradley Wiggins & his descent into hell. No one cares. It's the sad, brutal truth of "sport as an entertainment".
Unless they become pundits on TV, popular podcasters or managers within the sport (whatever sport that is), former sports stars are worth about as much as washed up old actors. Which is very little.
The greatest indignity Froome now faces (& will face for the rest of his life) will be his quasi-anonymity. For example everyone laughed at that funny situation a few years ago where the French authorities stopped him on the road & turned him back because there was a risk of forest fires ahead (
https://www.journaldesfemmes.fr/peo...oome-tour-de-france-incendies-jt-13h-france2/), i.e. with the joke being the fact the French news reported "
Personne ne passe, pas même ce randonneur à vélo..."
Aka a cyclo-tourist, i.e. despite being a man who won the Tour 4 times, no one recognized who he was. He was just some bloke on a bike.
That's basically Froome's future.