Skip Madness
New Member
I did a search, but I couldn't find another topic about this.
Cycling is often seen as a sport where fans are fairly non-partisan. Sure, we all have riders and personalities who we like and support and those who we don't, but we offer encouragement and praise to pretty much all and sundry regardless of the colours they wear. Even the famously vocal and fanatic Basque supporters, who go stark-raving nuts for the boys in orange, will get behind more or less anyone on the cols of the Pyrenees.
I think part of the reason for this is that teams generally don't have the historic identities that they do in other sports. They are mostly named after sponsors, they turn over reasonably quickly - it's hard to build up strong emotional attachments in those circumstances. Cheering on a company name just sounds plain bizarre. The abovementioned Basque fans are the exception, but look at their team - it is a quasi-political outfit in the vein of the Basque-only football teams in Spain, and has the strongest identity of all and with it the most loyal fans.
Another thing is that in other sports it is easy to knock athletes for being out-of-touch with their followers. But as spectator sports go, cycling is one of the most raw. Lance Armstrong may be worth millions, but he still had to lug himself over the ordinary French roads that everyone else uses, only able to do so with the self-restraint of the parting crowds. Even if it's someone you don't like - I personally have never taken to Danilo Di Luca - it can be hard not to tip your hat to everyone for just getting the thing done.
But in spite of all those things, do you ever find yourself rooting for a particular team? You like the way they ride, or you have a loyalty to a certain rider that you extend to his or her teammates? I think this year that High Road/Columbia seems to have picked up a bit of a following among Brits due to the three we have in their ranks. There's a lot of popular support for Slipstream, too, which I put down to the manner in which they have been founded and what they stand for.
For my part, I am very fond of the Saunier Duval team and am always happy to see them win. This stems from an article I read back in 2005 or 2006 about how for every kilometer that every one of their riders would ride in races during the season, they would plant a tree in Mali. I don't know if they are still persisting with it, but I'm sure they were as recently as last year. The other thing that made me take to them was that they got their riders to each represent one of the human rights in the UN declaration, and send them off to speak at conferences promoting such rights.
Plus, what's not to like about those yellow and white jerseys?
I have only been following women's cycling seriously from this year, but I have grown affectionate towards the Chirio Forno d'Asolo team - partially because they have some common links with the Saunier Duval team. I like their aggressive riders like Stiajkina, the Fernandes girls and the sisters Polikeviciute. Something I find interesting is that there are probably more ethnic minority riders in their team than I have ever seen in men's and women's road racing in Europe combined. I also quite like the simplicity of their set-up - guy wants to set up women's cycling team, uses his own ice-cream company as the main sponsor, gets his family to help with the business side of things.
So, does anyone else have a particular team they like to get behind for any reason at all?
Cycling is often seen as a sport where fans are fairly non-partisan. Sure, we all have riders and personalities who we like and support and those who we don't, but we offer encouragement and praise to pretty much all and sundry regardless of the colours they wear. Even the famously vocal and fanatic Basque supporters, who go stark-raving nuts for the boys in orange, will get behind more or less anyone on the cols of the Pyrenees.
I think part of the reason for this is that teams generally don't have the historic identities that they do in other sports. They are mostly named after sponsors, they turn over reasonably quickly - it's hard to build up strong emotional attachments in those circumstances. Cheering on a company name just sounds plain bizarre. The abovementioned Basque fans are the exception, but look at their team - it is a quasi-political outfit in the vein of the Basque-only football teams in Spain, and has the strongest identity of all and with it the most loyal fans.
Another thing is that in other sports it is easy to knock athletes for being out-of-touch with their followers. But as spectator sports go, cycling is one of the most raw. Lance Armstrong may be worth millions, but he still had to lug himself over the ordinary French roads that everyone else uses, only able to do so with the self-restraint of the parting crowds. Even if it's someone you don't like - I personally have never taken to Danilo Di Luca - it can be hard not to tip your hat to everyone for just getting the thing done.
But in spite of all those things, do you ever find yourself rooting for a particular team? You like the way they ride, or you have a loyalty to a certain rider that you extend to his or her teammates? I think this year that High Road/Columbia seems to have picked up a bit of a following among Brits due to the three we have in their ranks. There's a lot of popular support for Slipstream, too, which I put down to the manner in which they have been founded and what they stand for.
For my part, I am very fond of the Saunier Duval team and am always happy to see them win. This stems from an article I read back in 2005 or 2006 about how for every kilometer that every one of their riders would ride in races during the season, they would plant a tree in Mali. I don't know if they are still persisting with it, but I'm sure they were as recently as last year. The other thing that made me take to them was that they got their riders to each represent one of the human rights in the UN declaration, and send them off to speak at conferences promoting such rights.
Plus, what's not to like about those yellow and white jerseys?
I have only been following women's cycling seriously from this year, but I have grown affectionate towards the Chirio Forno d'Asolo team - partially because they have some common links with the Saunier Duval team. I like their aggressive riders like Stiajkina, the Fernandes girls and the sisters Polikeviciute. Something I find interesting is that there are probably more ethnic minority riders in their team than I have ever seen in men's and women's road racing in Europe combined. I also quite like the simplicity of their set-up - guy wants to set up women's cycling team, uses his own ice-cream company as the main sponsor, gets his family to help with the business side of things.
So, does anyone else have a particular team they like to get behind for any reason at all?
