One of the things I love about pro cycling is how accessible the teams are (normally anyway, obviously not at the moment.) We have met loads of our favourite riders, male and female and even been invited in for coffee on the team bus! You can't imagine a kid hanging around before a premiership football match hoping for an autograph and being invited into the dressing room can you?
And I also think that, on the whole, cycling fans appreciate good riding, especially brave, attacking riding, whoever it is that is doing it. You can be standing with people of different nationalities supporting a different team but its usually friendly, and most people cheer for every rider as they pass. So you don't get the same aggression between fans as in some other sports. I have never felt unsafe at a cycling event even when it was just me and a young DS and we were in countries where we didn't speak the language.
A couple of incidents spring to mind. One year at La Vuelta when my son was quite young - primary school age anyway - we'd forgotten chalk and he was busily trying to scratch his favourite rider's name on the road with a stone, when a Colombian family with a similarly aged boy came over and offered him their chalks. The boys couldn't understand each other's language but they both spoke fluent cycling and were soon helping each other decorate the road and yelling with excitement when they saw their favourites pass by. It was lovely.
The other was at Paris Roubaix a few years ago when it was unseasonably hot. I had totally under estimated how many drinks we would need and we soon ran out but the big group of fairly rowdy Belgian lads next to us gave us half a dozen bottles of water and cans of pop and wouldn't accept anything for them.
I do enjoy the domestic racing scene, but nothing beats going to a big race in Europe - its just fabulous! Fingers crossed next year is more normal.