Originally Posted by
furiousferret
We're always a Tour de France winner away from it not being in its death throes. The sport is in a massive depression right now, but it'll rise at some point....could be 5 years could be 20.
IMO in 20-30 or so years when vehicles are mostly autonomous, cycling will rise up.
I'll play advocate here and say I disagree. Particularly on the east coast.
I live in a pretty busy and growing area. Lots of good and well paying jobs. Problem is, in the US we don't concentrate cities and towns. We sprawl. We don't do public transit and alternate transport.
All of this eats up land and all of this clogs country roads and city streets.
To the organizer's points, this pushes them further and further out trying to find venues for actual "road" events.
I can't see it improving in my area as suburbs keep pushing further and further out. Now clogging more and more country roads up with fast and ignorant drivers. Not to mention making road closures probably nearly impossible.
You can do a country road route and see more and more new development popping up. Another 10 to 12 house neighborhood. Another 150 house neighborhood. Etc....