Cycling For Sport

According to Wikipedia, cycling also called biking or bicycling, is the use of bicycles for transport, recreation or sport. This type of sport consists of professional and amateur races. This sport is popular in Europe, the US, UK, Washington and all over the Asia.

Cycling as a sport began in 1868 in Washington where they raced a distance of 1,200 meters in the city. In the subsequent years, the sport grew to intercity and also saw the same sport being picked up by other countries like the United States ten or so years later. Though they caught up later than the other countries, the US had better tracks and media coverage for the cyclists thus they saw a big number of participants in their first ever race. Through the years, the US changes the game to make it longer with longer hours and this changed the rules of the game. There can be about 6-day races.

This sport grew substantially in Europe in the early 1900s and has been growing up to today with the exception of the World War I and World War II. Many rules and conditions of the sport were set up around this period. Cycling as a sport has become so lucrative both for the cyclists and the sponsors in the recent years. There are races throughout different countries of the world from January all through to December.It is documented that there are about 120 days of cycling in a year and theses are only professional races. Many countries have amateur races in their own countries and regions.

Even though called a popular sport, Cycling is not appreciated in every country. In countries like the US and Britain, the sport is not much appreciated so, they do not host races in their countries but a few professional cyclists join the races in other countries to compete. However, this sport is much appreciated in most European and Asian countries. The Bike Helmets host these tournaments year in year out and they are publicized and given a lot of airplay.

The sport has a governing body that is based in Switzerland that has registered member countries and they have cycling federations that organize a number of tournaments for their members, locally, nationally and even regionally.

The prize money for this sport is very high. For example in Tour De France alone, prize money totals up to $2.5million.This by all means is a sport to watch.