The Tour will survive
 

The Tour will survive surely, but probably go thru some hard times. Procycling in general will be viewed very differently by those on the outside - i.e. people who only know/heard about the doping. Unfortunately many of those folks make key decisions regarding TV coverage, pro sponsorship etc.

So expect a very different pro scene over the next decades. I think as the pro teams start to disappear, the grand tours may even have to resort to tier 2-3 teams, perhaps even national amateur teams to make up the numbers, but still retain some sort of prestige that could come with an Olympic or World championship type national representation.

Sure it'll survive. The question is, will it be bed-ridden?

I see all these posts where people write in to say they're so fed up with the doping that they don't want to watch the Tour anymore, or they have no more interest in pro bike racing, or they should just end the Tour, etc. etc.

I don't know, I find this hard to understand. I am a cyclist, I have always been a cyclist; it's what I do with my life. These negative people must not be cyclists. To be a cyclist requires a certain amount of passion. I am not a golfer because I am not passionate about golf. I could live very easily without coverage of the Masters, but I could not tolerate absence of the Tour. I will always be a cycling fan, come hell or high water, and the Tour should go on, come hell or high water. Guys are doping? That's unfortunate. Deal with it and get over it.

- L.

You're obviously into cycling in your personal life. Lots of fans aren't, and you're probably right that the negative people aren't "cyclists." I don't play hockey (can't even skate) but I like the sport. Same goes for the TdF, though I'm a cyclist in the touring sense, not the racing one. Am I a rabid fan? Hell no - waste of my time to get geeky about it like I do with other things, but it's a fun diversion for me.

As for why one would give up watching it, I think it has to do with the investment of time and interest in watching it only to see one by one a new scandal unfold, ruining a lot of the interest, changing the timbre of what's going on, and worst maybe - picking a favorite only to see him turn out to be tainted, etc... (I was at various points in my life a Zoetemelk fan, a Pantani fan, a Jan fan, and a Basso fan, and I have to say it's a bit of a let-down to have the one you root for end up being essentially a cheater.) One poster in another thread compared it to pro wrestling, and I laughed about it when I read it, but when I thought about it a little bit, I really couldn't blame him, even if cycling is supposed to be legitimate.

I'm no fan of Rasmussen, but it's pretty annoying to have to deal with the entire complexion of the tour changed, with the top rider suddenly out of it. And no matter what the results are of Landis's tour last year, I can't feel comfortable about whomever is pronounced "the winner." That whole tour was ruined for me. If it were a Beloki-like crash, it would still stink but would be understandable. But the doping stuff has been out of control, lots of the biggest names have been disgraced, and I think a good number of the more passive fans are just sick of it enough to say, "Why am I spending time watching this?" Call them fair-weather if it makes you feel better to call people names like that or to put them down for their lack of passion (EDIT: Not that you are), but I don't know what to say other than maybe try to understand if you don't already that for many of us, this stuff isn't that important and maybe we are fair-weather, and if evidence mounts that it's bogus and rotten to the core, it ends up being like placing trust in politicians that you feel (or know) are corrupt. As a life-long but obviously more casual fan than you, I have to say my interest in this sport truly is on the brink at this point.

Shouldn't I be rejoicing in the efforts to clean it up? Well, yes and no. If it ends up being anticlimactic all the time with the winners and favorites, the sport starts to become a series of dry humps, and unlike politicians - I almost wish they would lie to me and just let these guys drug it up and race, just so long as I have the illusion that a race was started and completed whole, because I know I liked it a lot more the more ignorant I was, weird as that may sound.

+100
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=325620

What does one have to do with the other? There are plenty of people who LOVE cycling themselves but don't enjoy watching others do it. And there are PLENTY of people (particularly in Europe) who LOVE watching pro cycling but have no interest in cycling themselves. What's wrong with that?