In Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: Part 19, I looked at a bunch of different factors related to cycling including how racing developed in the US (mainly crits and time trials) versus in Europe.  I finished by look at single day races called the classics and want to continue from there.  Because while the single day races were hard enough, grinds of 70-200km over horse-tracks, that wasn’t enough.  Someone decided to intensify the stupid and that led to the development of the tours.

The Minor Tours

Because after guys got bored trying to murder one another in a single day race over horse-tracks in the classics, some guy got the idea of holding multi-day events and the mini-tours were born.  Usually 3-7 days of racing including multiple road races and usually including a time trial as I described yesterday.

At this point, the racing had moved to something Americans didn’t get and couldn’t follow; at least in the classics it was fairly simple racing even if it was still boring as hell because of the length.  But in the tours you had the screwy racing structure with the winner not being determined the winner until the end.  The whole team thing where you help out a competitor.  Hell, giving everyone the same finishing time in a pack race is too close to Communism or Socialism for us; everyone is equal even if they aren’t?  I don’t think so.

Remember, America is the country that had to invent the concept of a shot clock and play clock so games wouldn’t stop moving for more than 8-24 seconds and start boring us. Watching a guy ride a kid’s toy for 6 hours across the country (isn’t it just faster to drive) is not our idea of fun and especially not 4 days in a row where you don’t find out who won until the end.

Add to that the following: most road races in Europeland are raced from point to point (or occasionally around a city) so as a spectator you don’t even get to see that much of the racing.  In crits you see the racers go past tons of times; in Europe you see them exactly once or a few times on the big loop courses.  But ultimately, who wants to watch this for 3-6 hours 4 days in a row? Bored Europeans that’s who.

Continue reading Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: Part 20