Do you think the ProTour has or will have a negative effect on American racing?
PS: No, not really, the ProTour is very much a European tour, but if you look at the American circuit, Philly will always be a huge, impressive race, San Francisco will be a big race, and the Tour de Georgia will always be greatly followed, but only regionally, because it’s very difficult to make the sport of cycling big in the USA when you have so many embedded sports – football, NASCAR, baseball, basketball, etc. When there’s a cycling event, it’s well suppported on a regional level, but that’s really it. I hope I’m wrong, but that’s been my thought for the past 10-15 years. You look back at the Tour DuPont, you couldn’t find many of the ProTour races as good as the DuPont. It lasted for 7-10 years and it’s gone. USPro is still around, and I actually rode the first ever event, in 1985. Eric Heiden beat me, I didn’t think that guy with the massive thighs and big ass could beat me on a climb like the Manayunk. Eric had just finished the Giro and won the Intergiro classification, even a
