the moment

[Vino attacks everyone]

whgat made you fall in love with cycling, how did you become pasionate with this sport?

Personaly the year was 05 and it was the 21 stage in the tour de france
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI4QfcW7qnY

 

[Caruut]

whgat made you fall in love with cycling, how did you become pasionate with this sport?

Personaly the year was 05 and it was the 21 stage in the tour de france
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI4QfcW7qnY

As a Brit, it was Cav's wins that got me watching, mountain duels that kept me watching and Voeckler in yellow was the icing on the cake. That and the unparalleled soap-opera-ness of the discussion of the sport. How many other sports could have a doping forum which totalled half of the non-doping forum?

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

jan the man.

 

[woodenswan]

what a magnificent display of power that was!
i'm gonna use this opportunity to come out of the closet and tell yuo how much i love the name "Vino attacks everyone". it tells you everything there is to know about the guy

for me it was the 2010 Ronde and Cancellara's ferocious attack. one of my fav races

 

[will10]

TdF 2003 .

 

[Parrulo]

a long time a go in a galaxy far far a way a man whose name i don't remember fell during a stage of the volta and was hurt pretty badly, yet he still managed to win from what i remember( ya i was that young that i don't even really remember what was happening) i am sure he still did great on the stage which was a medium mountain stage with a downhill finish. maybe libertine can help me out on this one.

but ya that was when i got hooked up to cycling

 

[slowoldman]

1984 Olympic Road Race.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tWg_CR43rg

 

[Martin318is]

approx '85 or '86 when Aus television started to broadcast the weekly tour packages that US tv were putting together - John Tesh soundtrack and all. I was already into bikes for a couple of years as I liked riding as fast as I could, but this is what got me into following racing. Particularly liked the emphasis they gave in 86 when referencing Systeme U. Made the team sound like they were killer robots or something. LOL.

 

[auscyclefan94]

This is quite weird as it was Luz Ardiden 2003 TDF made me really fall in love in the sport. Armstrong's ride that day was amazing.

 

[meat puppet]

the early indurain tours, especially 1991 and 1992.

 

[hfer07]

this was "the moment" for me-the finest & closest to my heart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnV1Tb0EIkk

 

[Eric8-A]

 

[craig1985]

Dude I went to school was a cyclist, and I was amazed by his bike that it was worth a lot of money that he had to leave it in the teacher's staff room. Cue 2003 and 2004 after leaving school, I had way too much spare so I started riding my bike to give me something to do.

 

[CobbleStoner]

1984 Olympic Road Race.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tWg_CR43rg

and the whole build up to the '84 games in LA, with the new 7-11 velodrome, the TTT on the 91 freeway, but really didn't you know you were hooked the first time you caught on and rode in a pace line with other racers? that was it for me, the rest just added the motivation needed to train long and hard.

 

[Tank Engine]

When LeMond and Hinault destroyed everybody in the '86 tour. I then followed the '87 tour, which was one of the best.

 

[nobilis]

1997, I was watching Eurosport and there was the Tour of Switzerland. It was love from first sight Since that, I follow almost all the races all season long. Before that, we had no cable at home so no eurosport and no cycling on tv.
But i used to follow the tour news before that, through newspapers, namely during Indurain era.

 

[Midnightfright]

VDB'S LBL win think it was about 2000. Watched it on an episode of transworld sport and have been hooked ever since.

 

[RedheadDane]

I guess it happened gradually. I remember watching a bit back in 96, and being completely clueless; thinking a stage-win got you the yellow! I was 8 Then the Festina affaird came along and I think I actually thought the Tour had stopped.

Cue five years later. TdF 2003. First stage. Huge crash! I began watching a little again. At first though it was mainly the last few stages.
Then I realized something I hadn't been aware of before; there's actually a wide array of events. Talk about being clueless... and slowly but surely I became more and more hooked on this mad sport.

 

[Echoes]

I was cradled into it. Hardly possible single out one event.

Perhaps if I had, that would be Paris-Tours 1991 won by Johan Capiot, one of my idols of the time, along with Edwig Van Hooydonck. I was 8.

Than Kelly's win in Milan-Sanremo against Argentin, which for me was a sweet revenge after Criquelion's losses to bionic man at both Ardennes classics the year before. Yeah already then I only cared about the classics. Bore de France was already boring.

And then I watched a programme on BRTN (Belgian channel; Dutch-speaking), with Lomme Driessens and all the legends who rode under his management: namely Merckx, Post, Van Looy, Maertens, Van Springel, De Vlaeminck & Capiot, among others.

 

[vladimir]

Claudio Chiapucci's stage win in Sestriere in 1992.
Incredible stage!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orMnutFbptQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqoH6R-99N0

 

[Kwibus]

I have a brother (15years older then me!) that organised Tour de France poules at his work early 90s. I allowed to join back then and it got me hooked badly together with a friend of mine. We used to ride our bikes a lot bike then. When that friend moved away, together with the big doping scandals at the end of the 90s I lost my interest in cycling.
I've always kept on following cycling a bit, but only the stuff that was broadcasted on the Sportjournal and then I still missed a lot.

2009-2010 I was totally fed up with football which was always the sport that got most of my attention so I decided to watch more cycling in 2010 again. I watched the classics and I certainly enjoyed it, but the Giro definately got me hooked again. Specially the strade bianchi stage that Cadel Evans won.

 

[El Imbatido]

Not really one particular moment but the entire Tour de France 2008. I was sitting in my hospital bed waiting for my operation day and being a night person (from all my years working fast food close shifts) i was used to being awake at late hours. Just the entire focus of SBS tv on Cadel Evans and the expectation and weight of being the big favourite and the whole Tour de France circus. I was fixated each night. I eventually got out of hospital on the day of the final time trial and had to endure the disappointment of Evans losing another tour by the slimmest of margins. (yes i did see bits and pieces of the 07 tour and saw the final 07 TT at a party 12 months earlier but i never really got into it)

I went out an put a deposit on a road bike at my LBS after i had recovered and went back to my fast food job (about november i think), by this time i was hooked and was riding my old GT (triple triangle technology) mountain bike. I paid off some of it off weekly for the next few weeks. But come Christmas morning i was surprised to find out my parents had paid the rest of it off and gave it to me as a christmas present.

 

[L'arriviste]

I couldn't ride a bicycle until I was seven years old. Then I rode a short mile with a kid from school who had been allowed to ride his Dad's (gorgeous) cross bike. I was attracted by the elegance of the machine and the colours. Particularly the colours.

Bunked off school and watched the '89 and '90 Tours on this same kid's VHS and I was hooked in time for the '91 edition. Then I saved and got a 7-Eleven jersey and I still have it now, ripped to shreds by successive crashes.

The 1991 Tour was probably "the moment", and also seeing this photo of Eddy P on the Muur:

 

[Richeypen]

To be honnest I can really remember. My earliest cycling memory was watching Big Mig take a bottle illegally in the Tour (I guess that was 1996). After that lots of memories of me riding roud a campsite every year on family camping trips pretending to be Erik Zabel. Dont thing there was really one moment which set it off

 

[RownhamHill]

Two moments for me:

First, as a bored student on summer holiday in the mid nineties I started following the tdf on Eurosport live, not knowing much about the sport other than that Indurain always won. After watching a couple of non-descript stages it just so happened that one day I switched on the stage where Riise attacked, and then broke Indurain - I was in absolute awe that pedalling up a mountain someone could accelerate in such a way.

As it happened after that year my life moved on (to graduation, work etc) and I had neither the time, the access to cable TV, or the motivation to watch cycling again for a long time (the Lance year's never interested me for whatever reason). The next time I watched the tour again seriously was in 2009, bouyed by the success of Cavendish/British Cycling, and also hoping LA would come a cropper somehow or other.

And this lead to the second moment - when Contador attacked (going to Arcalis?) and free-wheeled past that dude on the hairpin, before totally destroying the field. Particularly enjoyed the soap opera of LA whining afterwards (before getting served again by Contador (and Wiggins even) a few days later).