As I recall, each year Phil Liggett & Paul Sherwen provide the same conversion data. I met them last year at a party during the Tour of California. They are great guys and what is amazing is that their show is totally improvised and they see the monitors at the finish line and see what we see on TV. They do not have any better video or help of any kind. Contrast that with a stadium event where there are multiple cameras, monitors in the booth plus the commentators can see the action live.
I was thinking about changing over to km/hr so that I could feel better about myself.
I watched the Masters this weekend along with Paris Roubaix. The golf was really good and it was also great to have Tiger back in the hunt.
It was clear the Cancellara was not going to escape as he did last year. He was a marked man and was not going to ride Thor Hushovd off his wheel. I thought it was a good race with some interesting tactics. The event favors big men since they tend to glide over the stones. The lighter guys bounce around too much.
As far as mainstream goes, cycling definitely has a large following and understanding of the sport in Europe. In the US, I think it is very much regional. We have the Tour of Californian coming in May and there are usually a lot of people on the roads to watch the pros. And I think the pros want to compete in the race. If there were more races and promotion, it would increase in popularity in the US. One of the problems is the Euros have most of the season captured by races with 100 year traditions. If one can race in the TdF why would you race in the USA in a competing race? Most racers who make UCI pro status, whether US or other, want to race in the Euro grand tours. Likewise, great Euro basketball players want to play in the NBA.