Like smoked eel and blood pudding, not everything relished across the pond is met with equal acceptance in the U.S.

Glancing at various European online newspaper sports pages, one finds soccer, cricket, rugby, golf, and tennis at the top of the pages. But you’ll also notice entire pages devoted to professional cycling. The Times of London lists 20 stories about professional cycling written in the last month.

But like cricket and rugby, professional road cycling doesn’t generate the same buzz in Americans that hums through European sports fans.

And though Lance Armstrong’s name has become one of the most highly recognized of any American athlete, many Americans are in the dark about what his (former) sport is about.

With the Tour of Missouri beginning in St. Joseph on Sept. 8, which will bring some of the world’s top cycling athletes, the buzz about bikes is starting to heat up.

“A lot of people have asked me if I’m going to ride (in the Tour of Missouri),” said local recreational bicyclist Ray Daws, a retired Department of Defense employee who has taken extended bicycle tours through Europe. “They don’t understand that these (racers) are professionals. They don’t understand what you have to go through to get to that level.”

St. Joseph native John Mallon and his wife Kay lived in Geneva, Switzerland, for 15 years. He easily names several of the top bicycle races that go through Europe during the summer months, which is something he probably wouldn’t be familiar with had he not lived there. But he also became familiar with cycling as a recreation and a form of transportation while he was there.

“Everybody is just a little more aware and perhaps respectful there,” Mr. Mallon said of cyclists taking to the trails and the roads as commuters and for recreation. Sundays, he said, were particularly busy cycling days as groups of men and women banded together to leisurely tour the countryside.

Dr. Bob Corder, a St. Joseph physician who has toured France’s renowned wine country on a bicycle, said the difference in the bicycling cultures of Europe and America are obvious.

“Lance jump-started the popularity,” Dr. Corder said of a renewed interest in cycling in America, which still doesn’t touch French residents’ fervor for cycling.

Axel Neubauer, who was raised near Cologne, Germany, said that even though commuting to work and school via bicycle is common in his country, there isn’t extensive coverage of professional cycling in the German media. But, the bicycle culture as a whole far exceeds anything seen in the states.

Mr. Neubauer has biked his entire life, but didn’t buy a helmet until he moved to St. Joseph where he’s a research scientist at Boehringer Ingelheim. He tried commuting to work, just as he had in Germany, but he found the traffic too intense.

“I was amazed how much less drivers were used to cyclists,” he said of pedaling up Gene Field Road on busy weekday mornings. “Makes me nervous ... I decided I was taking my life in my own hands ... on the flip side, they are finally completing the (hike and bike) trail and extending it. I hope it helps foster the bike culture in St. Joe.”

Jimmy Myers can be reached

at jimmym@npgco.com.