Brandon McNulty won the UCI Road World Championship in Montreal on Sunday, becoming the first American male to claim the title since Greg LeMond in 1989. The cycling world erupted. The American cycling world erupted harder. The American general public has not yet noticed.
This is the moment, we are told, when America reclaims its cycling throne. Except America never had a cycling throne. America has spent three decades watching Europeans and Australians and Colombians treat the sport like it matters while we’ve been distracted by fantasy football and pickup basketball. McNulty’s win is being framed as a national awakening—a sign that American cycling is no longer a curiosity, but a genuine force.
The reality is messier and far more revealing. McNulty’s victory exposes not a dormant superpower finally stirring, but a nation that has systematically ignored a sport that demands patience, strategy, and endurance. We prefer our athletics loud and immediate: touchdowns, slam dunks, home runs. Cycling asks you to suffer for four hours and celebrate a finish line you cannot see for most of the race. That is not American.
Yet here we are, breathlessly declaring that this one win changes everything. Social media algorithms will briefly elevate cycling content. ESPN will run a three-minute segment. By October, we will have forgotten. McNulty’s Montreal masterpiece will become a footnote in a sport America still does not truly understand, let alone love.
The real question is not whether America is ready for cycling. It is whether cycling is ready for America’s attention span.