You can tell men’s cycling isn’t a serious sport because the “Big Six” athletes come from four small nations—Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Slovenia—with a combined population of 38 million. Meet the rogues’ gallery of minor European whiteness: Remco Evenepoel, Wout van Aert, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Primož Roglič, and Tadej Pogačar. Add the top women and you at least get one Italian, the excellently named Elisa Longo Borghini, and possibly a Pole, the dashing Kasia Niewiadoma. But in women’s cycling the top ranks are if anything more dominated by the vestigial organs of Westphalian sovereignty, the Benelux countries. Unquestionably the best three women, the frenemies Demi Vollering, Lotte Kopecky, and Lorena Wiebes, hail from Belgium and the Netherlands. Is there any other global athletic endeavor whose competitors are only becoming more white and less international? To love cycling of all sports in 2025 requires a hard look at yourself, and perhaps some special pleading.…