Chapter 497 The Superstar Effect, Changing a Country's Road Cycling Development Process

October 13th.

Only two days remained until the official start of the Tour of Guangxi.

All the major teams had now arrived in Guangxi and begun their pre-race training.

For the World Tour, the competition for results at the Tour of Guangxi wasn’t taken as seriously by the major teams.

Perhaps only the development riders, sent by their teams to gain experience, would go all out.

After all, competing in a top-tier league like this was the perfect opportunity for them to turn pro or find a new team.

If any development rider could snatch a stage win at the Tour of Guangxi, it would be a massive accomplishment that made the entire trip worthwhile.

A newcomer always needed some impressive results to make a name for themselves.

Huang Chong was the defending champion of the last Tour of Guangxi. At the time, he was just a rider for an Intercontinental Team. He had used an invitation from the National Team to compete, successfully snatching a stage win on Nongla Mountain, which instantly garnered him the attention and contract offers from multiple World Tour Teams.

It was safe to say that without the Tour of Guangxi providing him a stage to showcase his talent, breaking into the World Tour would have been a much more arduous process.

Now, a year later, he was back in Guangxi to compete again.

Regarding predictions for the race winner, the media and betting companies didn’t even need to consider anyone else.

Huang Chong was the undisputed favorite to win.

His odds were terrifyingly low, at just 1:1.2.

In other words, if someone bet a dollar on Huang Chong to win, their profit would only be twenty cents.

Of course, for the fans in China, betting was a secondary concern. Compared to earning such paltry pocket money, the opportunity to come and watch Huang Chong compete for the championship in person was a far better investment of their time.

And this year’s Tour of Guangxi was undoubtedly the most popular it had ever been since the race was first introduced.

The race hadn’t even started, yet in Fangchenggang—the host city for the first day—every form of accommodation, from hotels and guesthouses to youth hostels and even rural farm-stays, had already been fully booked by fans from across the country.

Furthermore, as the race progressed, hotels in the cities hosting the subsequent stages—Jingxi, Hechi, Nanning, and others—had also been booked solid by fans well in advance.

As for the fans who couldn’t find a hotel, the more resourceful ones started looking for lodging with local families in Guangxi.

Those who truly couldn’t find a place to stay had no choice but to set up tents.

Sensing this massive influx of people, and to accommodate the fans’ enthusiasm, the race officials designated specific areas in the city’s public spaces where camping was permitted during the event.

They had no choice. The sheer number of fans pouring in was something they couldn’t have anticipated, forcing them to open up city parks that were normally off-limits to camping.

In any case, even if the hotels couldn’t accommodate all the fans, the spending on dining and tourism would still generate significant revenue for the local area.

This was a huge wave of fiscal revenue, and they couldn’t afford to ignore it.

Huang Chong had two main tasks on the 13th.

The morning was dedicated to an in-person fan meet-and-greet for the Red Bull Bora Team.

The main purpose was for him to share his experiences on the World Tour and some interesting stories from racing in Europe.

Of course, there would also be an autograph session and plenty of perks that the team had prepared for the attending fans, such as giveaways of team-edition cycling jerseys, water bottles, rider postcards, and more.

After the fan meeting concluded, the afternoon was scheduled for official team training.

The number of fans participating in the team training was strictly controlled; they were mostly fans who had purchased VIP packages.

The only exceptions were Huang Chong’s own cousin, whom he had specially invited, and his roommates.

However, what surprised Huang Chong—though not entirely—was that among the VIP fans invited to the training ride, Dewey, Zhou Ming, and Li Zifan were conspicuously present.

Those three young masters, being the wealthy guys from Hangcheng, had no trouble securing those spots.

Money really does make the world go round; that saying was no lie.

The three of them had not only made their joint-venture cycling gear brand a booming success, but after going to Europe during the Tour de France and securing a host of high-end brand partnerships—especially the exclusive distribution rights for the Red Bull Bora Team—they had now made their own products a massive hit within China’s cycling community.

It could be said that the ones who had profited immensely in the Chinese market by riding Huang Chong’s coattails were not just the Red Bull Bora Team, Lightning Bicycles, and the Red Bull Group itself.

In fact, the biggest beneficiaries were Dewey, Zhou Ming, and Li Zifan.

Of course, this was also due to their inherent advantage of being familiar with the domestic market, coupled with their excellent marketing decisions. In less than a year, they had firmly established themselves in the cycling gear market.

Moreover, their trip to Guangxi wasn’t just to watch Huang Chong race. More importantly, they wanted to get the newly crowned world champion to endorse their own brand.

Once they secured the exclusive cycling-related endorsement deal with Huang Chong, given his current meteoric rise, it was practically a sure thing that their brand would become the leader of the entire domestic market in the coming years—as long as they didn’t drop the ball on product quality and after-sales service.

After all, Huang Chong was China’s only superstar in the field of road cycling to have achieved such heaven-defying results, and his commercial value was already immeasurable.