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The average fan

Sep 18, 2009
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DISCLAIMER: Not a native englishspeaker!

I do not post very often, but I visit this forum on average twice per day and has done so for a very very long time. I always pictured myself being the average cycling fan. I watch every race sent on norwegian television and try to stream or follow a livefeed on those that aren't broadcast here. I also read A LOT on cyclingnews, especially when there is a race (not just the one in july!).

I don't have intimate knowledge of the technical aspects of cycling. I never raced, just always rode a bike to school and every now and then out in the woods with dad (which is why I usually leave posting to those more knowledgable). This is where I have drawn a comparison of myself to Football (soccer for you Americans...). The average football fan watchs every game their team plays. They follow news about their team and 95% has never played football beyond recreational. These people are the bulk of the football viewing audience and I thought I was the equivlant in cycling.

Now for cycling I figured the trend would be the same, but this week I realised it is not. I have had a summerjob working at my dads firm. There are about 50 people working here, male and female and ages 20-60. Most of them cycle to work and during lunch the discussion has been the TDF. I am just here to answer the phone, which doesnt ring very often. So I am watching eurosport. Everyone has noticed and turns to me for reports of how stages are developing during lunch.

Yesterday I said something along the lines: "Well Astana has more riders than Saxo, no surprise. It looks like it might favour Contador ont he final climb." The instant reply was: "but Hushovd, can he get any sprint points today? Do you think he can top 10?"

I explain how its not really likely, and try to steer the conversation towards Contador and Andy. In the end we are talking about Hushovd and Lance. Now most of these people seem to think Lance was doped to the gills, but they still admire him (Which is odd cause they seem to loathe Koss and we all suspect he was doped to the sky).

So in conclusion I found myself sitting with 50 people who all watch the last 40-80 km of TDF stage, a couple of classics and some giro stages each year. None of them knew Basso had won the Giro (!!!!). They did not really care about much beyond Thor's green jersey in tdf. Is this really the average fan? My friends, the people I am with when not at work, are diffrent though and definatly have a lot mroe knowledge, but still I find they mainly only know Cav, Hushovd, Pettachi and on the other side Conta, Andy, Basso, Menchov, Lance.

I tried to bring up (with my friends) how i thought Greipl was amazing and response was: "who is this Greipl?". These are people who at least claim to watch every giro stage! I was ridiculed for chosing Tony Martin for my fantasy team last year, solely because they had never heard his name. And two days ago one of them said the following: "wow this Samuel Sanchez guy really came out of nowhere...."

Sorry I am making a wall of text here, my point is: Is this trend I see here, that 95% the audience only watch the screen and tune out unless one of their favorites is mentioned, the norm everywhere? Why would it be like this for cycling, but not for other sports? Do people simply watch the Tour de france for the Tour of French countryside? Is this why we all spend so much time here on cyclingnews, because its the only place we find people who acctually care about other riders than the top 3? I thought Norwegian tv2 had excellent commentary for introducing newcomers to ALL aspects of cycling, but maybe lacked some indepth analysis and solid predictions (except for when Dag Otto Lauritzen is there), but apparantly all the information goes in one ear and out the other, unless its about Hushovd.

So last paragraph I promise. Do you all experience it diffrently? Do you feel like you are watching and experiencing cycling on a diffrent level than those around you (not trying to be elitist)? It frustrates and worries me that on the queen stage, all that 49 people cared for was sprint points for Thor. What will happen to norwegian cycling intrest (which to be fair is centered around the tdf and to a less extent Paris-Roubaix) when he quits? Unless EBH steps up and becomes a new contender to some sort of competition.

What is the average cycling fan like?
 
May 8, 2009
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The average cycling fan probably is more knowledgeable and watches more than just a couple of interesting stages a year. But the average sport fan (in Europe) places very few importance on cycling except for some few "special moments" a year. Like yesterday. Those days they do care about Armstrong, or in Norway, Thor Hushovd.

I guess your friends are sport fans, more than cycling fans. In Spain they really care a lot about cycling in the mainstream media 4-5 times a year. I mean, Contador may get the frontpage in the sport newspaper 4-5 times a year. The rest is for football, F1...
 
Jul 27, 2009
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As a cyclist who follows the pros avidly, my fellow riders are far behind the apeball I believe. Of course there are other 'hard core cyclists' like myself, but the majority are not. I was riding in a bunch the other morning, and of course, being July, the conversation turned to the tour.

This happened to be the morning of Chaingate, and living on the other side of the world, we get the stages live overnight here. So riding along I hear 'isn't Schleck doing well in the yellow jersey?' me; 'did you even watch last nights stage!?' 'no, not yet, I might watch the highlights when I got home' and so on. Their lack of knowledge makes for a real lack of good discussion although they are getting slightly better!

As for watching races outside of July... not happening! About Frank's crash; 'yeah, that was a bit of a bummer, but he has been underperforming this year'
I don't think any of them had heard of Tour de Suisse!

So basically sensation, I agree with you completely. The so called 'fans' seem to follow the few select riders they like, show off their (lack of) cycling knowledge. I guess it's just a case of us educating them :)
 
Aug 20, 2009
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I think most sports fans, whatever sport, follows and watches purely for entertainment, not because they want to know everything about it. I personaly think its great to come home from work, drop down in the coach, flip on the TV and let the riders do the work. My knowledge of cycling is a result of me watching a lot for races rather than activly trying to learn everything.

Or as EBH so well expressed it: "Sean Kelly? Sorry, I am not so good with cycling history. I just want to race."
 
khardung la said:
The average cycling fan probably is more knowledgeable and watches more than just a couple of interesting stages a year. But the average sport fan (in Europe) places very few importance on cycling except for some few "special moments" a year. Like yesterday. Those days they do care about Armstrong, or in Norway, Thor Hushovd.

I guess your friends are sport fans, more than cycling fans. In Spain they really care a lot about cycling in the mainstream media 4-5 times a year. I mean, Contador may get the frontpage in the sport newspaper 4-5 times a year. The rest is for football, F1...

But when i looked at spanish newspapers during the giro, online, mainly el pais and el mundo, every day in the top 3 sports stories was an article about who won the stage and who was in pink.
 
The majority of Dutch 'cycling' fans are just tour watchers, they do know the big classification riders and sprinters, but outside the Tour they know little.
Like the Norwegians my friends had no idea Basso won the Giro... they did know who Basso was because of the Tour all those years ago though.

They are suprised by Rodriguez, Sanchez, Vandenbroeck and Hesjedal who according to them came from absolutely nowhere :D (that's what you get for not watching Vuelta..) :D and they only ask me if it's possible for Gesink to get to top 5 or podium.
 
Mar 10, 2009
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In Canada it is all American riders and which ever Canadians make it to the Tour. I live in Ryder's hometown and his profile is very huge right now at home and across the country. As far as how much cycling is covered here? I was listening to a sports show on the radio yesterday and for 20 minutes they talked hockey. It is July and no one is actually playing hockey. In the last minute they mentioned that Canadian Cyclist Ryder Hesjedal finished 4th in today's stage of the ...........
That is the state of cycling coverage in Canada.
 
Mar 17, 2010
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Master50 said:
In Canada it is all American riders and which ever Canadians make it to the Tour. I live in Ryder's hometown and his profile is very huge right now at home and across the country. As far as how much cycling is covered here? I was listening to a sports show on the radio yesterday and for 20 minutes they talked hockey. It is July and no one is actually playing hockey. In the last minute they mentioned that Canadian Cyclist Ryder Hesjedal finished 4th in today's stage of the ...........
That is the state of cycling coverage in Canada.

Don't feel bad. Here in they talk about baseball for 20 minutes, then the sheep that crossed the road in the stage yesterday....nothing about the riders!!!
 
Many of the fans on this forum are not average fans. They are more like Barcelona football fans and have a good knowledge of the sport. Dedicated. The average fan runs beside the riders in his underwear on mountaintops and just wants to get his face or **** on YouTube or the telecast. What a refreshing change on yesterday's stage to see some sheep running beside the riders....................a step up intellectually on the usual road runners. I am not uncluding The Devil or the Bottle. There is nothing average about those two.
 
Jul 18, 2010
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I'm feeling old as I clearly remember the first year that El Diablo was first seen on the roads of France :(

He also pretty much was the first cleverly disguised hardcore fan, and got very famous immediately*. He'd wait in ambush for Chiappuchi at every stage in the weirdest places and wave his trident at him :D



*Mainly thanks to the main french commentator of the time, Patrick Chene, a man who made a fish finger look intelligent, and was somehow propelled to various sports commenting or rather shouting, without knowing one thing about any of it [and he never learned anything, either]. So basically he took any chance he got to speak about everything except the race, since he didn't know what to say about it, but was genetically unable to shut up (even to let the amazingly well spoken and even more knowledgeable Robert Chapatte even finish a sentence).

Anyway, none of us who watched the thing then ever had a chance to forget el Diablo.
 
Aug 10, 2009
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Sensation said:
DISCLAIMER: Not a native englishspeaker!

What is the average cycling fan like?

Wowza, for a non-native english speaker your english is excellent!

I really enjoyed reading your entire post.

Where I live, the majority of people don't care about cycling. But those who do tend to follow it with enough interest and passion to develop a good understanding of the dynamics of the sport. A few years ago a guy in our area started a small 'Tour Pool' for fun, it has grown in popularity and gets a pretty big local following. Even those who don't enter tend to follow it - if they're cyclists.

I credit this 'tour pool' for making cyclists in my area learn more about the sport and its riders beyond the marquee anglophone pros. They can talk with a fair degree of knowledge about the strength of domestiques in teams like Euskatel and GCE. They understand that a lot of Italians may have left it all on the road in the Giro. They can rhyme off results from the Dauphine and Tour de Suisse - while understanding the guy who wins the Dauphine may have peaked too soon. They follow all the European championship results. And they know the Frenchman who just won the tricolore will ride with the might of 10 men to try to do something in the TDF.

But on balance these people are about .1% of the population of my city... they are a small minority. If you talked to the avg. person on the street they would only know about Lance Armstrong and Radioshack.

I'm surprised in Norway Edvald Boassen Hagen isn't gaining more popularity. My wife ran into some Norwegian tourists in Spain this spring and she wanted to talk about EBH - he's one of her favs - they knew him, but also seemed more interested in Thor. My wife also met Kurt Asle-Arvesen at the Giro one year and he is also now one of her favs. He was super nice with the fans, definitely the most approachable rider.

I've been a fan of Arvesen since he won espoir worlds in 1997. I also thought Morten Hegreberg would become a big rider back in the day - I've always wondered why he stopped?
 
Jun 9, 2010
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nia O'Malley said:
I'm feeling old as I clearly remember the first year that El Diablo was first seen on the roads of France :(

He also pretty much was the first cleverly disguised hardcore fan, and got very famous immediately*. He'd wait in ambush for Chiappuchi at every stage in the weirdest places and wave his trident at him

I LOLed big time!!!! I remember that!!!!! Now Didi is a living legend... The Bottle is a nice fan too and his costume is great... I have LOLed several times when I see him running is really funny! like yesterday in Le Tourmalet...
 
Aug 10, 2009
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nia O'Malley said:
*Mainly thanks to the main french commentator of the time, Patrick Chene, ... but was genetically unable to shut up (even to let the amazingly well spoken and even more knowledgeable Robert Chapatte even finish a sentence).

I loved Chapatte! He was awesome. My memory is foggy, but wasn't Chapatte often on the back of a motorbike commenting from right inside the race?
 
Jul 18, 2010
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shouldawouldacoulda said:
I loved Chapatte! He was awesome. My memory is foggy, but wasn't Chapatte often on the back of a motorbike commenting from right inside the race?
Yes, sometimes, and looked like a space alien in the big shiny helmet :D
 
Aug 10, 2009
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nia O'Malley said:
Yes, sometimes, and looked like a space alien in the big shiny helmet :D

Patrick Chene would always hail Robert with three calls of his name:

"Robert, Robert, tu es la Robert?", Chene always seemed so manic, like one of the alvin and the chipmunks characters.

And I loved the way Chapatte would reply with his direct " Oui Patrick " Then he'd have some great insight - I had this image of the great Gazoo with that helmet of his. And yeah Chene would cut him off. Hilarious.

I did think Chene was good on the Journal du Tour after show tho. Or whatever it was called. I haven't had the pleasure of watching the Tour on French TV since 1992.

Thévenet became a great TV commentator too, didn't he take over for Chapatte?

Gawd I wish we had French TV here so I didn't have to listen to the Versus drivel.
 
Jul 18, 2010
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Thevenet did. He was awful iirc. The real stereotypical dumb ex-cyclist. And he was mad to talk as well, so in the end you had 2 blokes you couldn't listen to without crying instead of 1.

It's been a long time I've had the pleasure too, though I was back home 2 years ago and wasted my holidays in front of the TV. I think it's Fignon now and Jalabert on the bike, which is weird. And somebody else who talks rubbish very loud, of course.


And don't forget Gérard Holz who would bu*t in during the journal, actually making Chene himself look intelligent (great feat you would think impossible at 1st glance); this is probably why you wrongly remember Chene being any good at le journal :D. Chene was at least happy friendly dumb, whereas Holz was arrogant dumb.




ps:whoever said the profanity filter was out of control was right.
 
Aug 10, 2009
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nia O'Malley said:
And don't forget Gérard Holz who would bu*t in during the journal, actually making Chene himself look intelligent (great feat you would think impossible at 1st glance); this is probably why you wrongly remember Chene being any good at le journal :D. Chene was at least happy friendly dumb, whereas Holz was arrogant dumb.

Oh frig, thanks for making me laugh so hard today! I've enjoyed it.