Bicycle Race Betting, Bet on Cycling at Sports Gambling
The sport of cycling has a long and storied history including the “Golden Age of Cycling” during the 1890’s. There used to be a time when cycling had major racing events across Europe and in the United States. There was once a time when many cities in the United States had cycling races on a regular basis. The sport is now just a footnote in the United States but it is still a major sport around the world, especially in countries like France, Italy and Belgium. There are different types of cycling. Road races have team and individual races, and are run in different ways. There are also different types of races that may be run in a road race, criterium, time trials, or over many days. Cycling is now even part of the Olympics.
There are professional cycling organizations that govern the way cycling races are run. The Union Cycliste Internationale is the governing body of International cycling. Unfortunately for the sport of cycling it has been clouded in recent years by doping scandals and mismanagement. Many top cyclists no longer want to get involved in professional cycling because of the lack of doping controls and penalties. Cycling does not have strong United States coverage and has poor television ratings. The sport is covered on the Versus cable network in the United States and is funded through corporate sponsorship. The Discovery Channel team is looking for a title sponsor after new Discovery corporate managers decided not to extend the $12 million deal to sponsor the U.S. team. The Discovery team used to be the U.S. Postal team when Lance Armstrong won his titles but now the team is looking to Asia for possible sponsorship. That shows just how far off the radar cycling is in the United States.
What may help the sport of cycling in the United States is simply the love for cycling in general. This year's National Multiple Sclerosis MS Bike Ride series had more than 100,000 cyclists. In Arizona there are expected to be about 10,000 cyclists for the El Tour de Tucson on Nov. 17th. Lance Armstrong is joining 10,000 citizen riders July 22-28 for the 472-mile Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. Those types of races may be the real hope for cycling in the future, especially with the scandals that have beset some of the bigger races around the world.
