On Tuesdays here in Topeka, the local bike club has recently started a ride that starts at PT’s Coffeeshop and only rides down the bike path. It was meant to attract new riders to the sport. A few new guys have shown up, so that is great, but in reality, Tuesday has become the new Monday rest day. With that, it has become a social gathering and beer drinking session.

I’ve participated the last two Tuesdays. I can’t keep up though, so I’m going to eventually have to surrender. I’m one of the lucky guys that pays the next morning for drinking too much beer the night before. I’m not sure if “training” would help, but right now the after effects aren’t worth it.

Anyway, I’ve had this theory, well, not really a theory, but an observation, that for a sport to be successful as a spectator sport, there has to be beer and drinking involved. That is nearly a fact for American sports. Think about it- football, baseball, Nascar, hockey, you name it, there is drinking involved always.

It is the same for cycling in Europe. Spectating cycling and drinking goes hand in hand. Especially in Belgium, the king of all countries when it comes to beer. During he classics, cyclo-x, the start money criteriums after the Tour, all involve a huge amount of drinking while spectating.

Most of the truly successful big races in the US that I’ve done over the years are at venues that allow drinking. The first one that comes to mind is Athen Twlight Criterium. I pretty much refuse to ride that race now because of an over 50% crash ratio over lifetime participation, but I have to admit that Gene Dixon has a perfect formula for attracting spectators. The whole course is nearly a street party for the whole evening.

Tulsa Tough is relatively new event that has finally started attracting very good riders and a very good spectator base. Most of the spectators at Tulsa aren’t bike race fans. They are just regular people that have heard that the bike races are a very fun time and nearly a street party. After coming, they become bike race fans. That is the key.

For a sport to be successful financially, there has to be a fan base that doesn’t necessary have any desire to take part in the sport personally. Cycling in the US doesn’t have that fan base now. It had that fan base in the 70’s, but somehow lost it. To get it back, guys riding around in circles isn’t enough. Adding beer to the mixture just might be.

The savior of the sport in the US?

Blue Dome Criterium at Tulsa and especially The River Criterium with Cry Baby Hill have both become very spectator friendly. Part of the success is because of the festive atmosphere. Here a video from Cry Baby Hill that I took just pre-riding the course.

Tulsa Tough Cry Baby Hill Pre- Ride 2013 from Steve Tilford on Vimeo.

I like Chris Horner. I nearly 100% agree with what he says about reading a race and I like the way that he races normally. I’ve raced and ridden with they guy for a really long time. He is a blue collar rider. I think he loves what he is doing.

That being said, the last couple interviews he’s done with Velonews leave me scratching my head. There are so many statements that don’t really make sense it makes me wonder if maybe they were interviewing him in a foreign language and then translating it back to English. That might explain some of the answers, maybe not.

From what I get out of the articles (training article, spain article), Chris doesn’t think that the Tour of Colorado is hard enough of a race and that he has pretty incredible form, after training for only “3 weeks”, after a 5 month lay off and surgery. I very much doubt the accuracy of that statement.

He goes on to imply that he feels that he can win the Tour of Spain after Utah and possibly will win the race overall. As far as I know, he’s never finished on the podium in a Grand tour.

Man, I don’t much like that talk. I’m not really sure how you get super race form in 3 weeks of training. He’s said that for sure he’ll be in the top 10 of the Tour of Utah, implying better. And that he’s not tired at all from the last two days of racing – 180km, and then 210 km. He must have been training really, really hard.

Like I said above, I like Chris. He’d probably be racing a full cross season if he could do it contractually. He’s always been pretty vocal about predicting his form and where he thinks he is compared to nearly all other riders. But when I hear words like this, it’s always worrisome.

I really hope he has had incredible numbers training and is just euphoric that he is back racing again. That would explain some of the Velonews quotes pretty well. And it would be great if he won Tour of Spain too. It just sounds screwy when he is calling his shots. But, that is how he has always done it.

Chris, Todd Wells and me at Jingle Cross a few years back.

Chris, being the nice guy, pushing Mari Holden up some of the climbs at the Mike Nosco Benefit Ride.