The point is that UK people get their views from the UK media*. French people don't. German people, spanish people, dutch people don't.
The average joes you refer to are UK average joes - late adopters to road cycling generally; if they remember Lemond they're practically hardcore! For many of them, cycling is C4, phil liggett, Lemond and Fignon, Roche and Delgado,Indurain and Armstrong - that's the extent of their history. They think like the tour started in '81, and Hinault is prehistoric.
They, generally speaking, esteem Track as just as important as road, a view they seem to share only really with the aussies. Same olympic obsesssions probably!
But that's the UK view, not the world view, because many countries, my own anglosphere one included have a somewhat longer history of interest in continental road racing, and a larger amount of cycling history to consider when these stories are brought up.
It's one reason why we irish are in 'so deep' on the issue, both for the good - walsh, kimmage, - and the bad - mcquad, arguably roche mór.
(*Because of a shared language, there is some overlap - UK people may get some US, irish and Aussie news as well, but I doubt many UK sports fans, for example, know jimmy magee, whereas most irish know phil liggitt.)