[giobox]

The UCI Tour of California has been to Laguna Seca too, it was one of my least favorite bike race watching experiences.

Professional road cycling generally has no barriers between spectators and the riders except in key areas or start/finish lines. A race track designed for cars of course has enormous run off areas and view blocking steel safety structures, tire walls for 150mph+ accidents - you don't need these for a bike race. The result is spectators generally sat far, far further away and the atmosphere is IMO much worse for it. I've had far more fun sat at the side of mountain stages with friends and a few beers.

That said, of course it has the advantage you get to see the riders multiple times instead of just once as is case on most point to point stages, but easy access to live streams on phones/tablets makes the race so easy to follow at the roadside anyway.

[jandrese]

On the other hand maybe some separation between the cyclists and spectators isn't a terrible idea? Or at the very least require the spectators to have a least a minimal level of situational awareness.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/27/sport/tour-de-france-crash-in...

[noarchy]

I'm not sure why you'd be getting downvoted. This year's Tour has been off to a very rocky start and fan interference sure hasn't helped.

[Luc]

> I'm not sure why you'd be getting downvoted.

Because it's one of those comments that took 3s to write but would take a lot of effort to properly respond to, because it's 'not even wrong'.