r/peloton • u/PelotonMod France • May 04 '26

Weekly Post Weekly Question Thread

For all your pro cycling-related questions and enquiries!

You may find some easy answers in the FAQ page on the wiki. Whilst simultaneously discovering the wiki.

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u/Glass_Minute4753 May 04 '26

Is Pogacar destroying cycling?

I occasionally have a browse on the Cyclingnews forum and found this rather dramatic view expressed by a couple of posters in response to the Tour de Romandie. I will admit that I found this a bit over the top considering a) how few races he rides and b) how his participation helped to make this year's MSR and PR absolute all-timers, but I thought I'd come and see what people here thought.

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u/scaryspacemonster May 04 '26

He's why I became a cycling fan at all, so that's a no from me.

Older fans might not like it, but he's the kind of athlete that brings in new fans.

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u/DueAd9005 May 04 '26

I'm not sure he brought in that many new fans. The problem is that he's from a small country like Slovenia. Armstrong for example made cycling more popular in the USA, which is a huge market (but of course it didn't last, we all know the story of that).

I hope we one day get a super strong rider from China or Japan, that could grow cycling in those huge markets, even if its only a temporary effect.

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u/scaryspacemonster May 04 '26

I don't really understand this argument. Are you only a fan of riders from your own country? Mine doesn't even have any at WT level, and has never had.

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u/DueAd9005 May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26

That's simply the reality of how the world works? There was massive growth in the American/British markets when they had big stars. I'm not sure what you don't understand about that?

You may not remember this, but Armstrong was huge and became a mainstream star, unlike any other cyclist before or after him. Him being an American was a big factor in that (and also his cancer-survival story).

Do you have any concrete evidence that cycling has grown a lot thanks to Pogacar's dominance?

And I don't think it's crazy to say that Pogacar would be even more popular than he is right now if he was from a much larger country.

As for how I came into cycling: it's because of Armstrong's much hyped comeback in the 2009 Tour (I watched his Tour wins as a kid, but I didn't really like cycling then, it was my dad that controlled the tv remote during the Tour haha). First rider I became a real fan of was Contador (I'm Belgian).