After a long buildup, the UCI World Championship finally came to town. When it did, it sent me back a few decades, to a year I spent with my family in northern France – and to a gray day when I stood with my brothers beside one of the region’s old stone-paved roads. We waited in the drizzle; then cyclists on the Paris-Roubaix road race appeared, and sped by as spectators shouted out names.

To a young American, this was a strange scene. The locals were thrilled, but the pack of cyclists passed by so quickly. That was it? And this Belgian guy they liked so much, Eddy Merckx, was he really a superstar? Sports heroes back home were remote – on the TV screen, distant fields or cereal boxes – not in person and nearly close enough to touch. Certainly not riding on bikes.

In time, cycling arrived in the U.S. The movie Breaking Away was an early indicator. Then came Lance Armstrong. More recently, we’ve seen the big road races, like last month’s Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) World Championship that drew more than half a million spectators to Richmond, VA. (See photo.) Over these decades, the industry changed in other ways. Bicycles evolved, as did cycling gear.

Take headgear. In that road race from the early 1970s, I remember the cycling caps, many flipped up at the front, and the mesh of leather-covered padding some wore for protection. Now compare them with today’s highly engineered and sleekly designed helmets, often paired with nylon fabric racing suits. That’s a huge change.

Where did the caps go? And how do you explain their absence? When trying to analyze business transformation in various industries, I’ve found that you can get a lot of mileage out of the following: 1) applied technology, which here would include material sciences and aerodynamics, among other disciplines; 2) public policy – both official law and, in this case, UCI regulations; and 3) consumer opinion, always a driver, but here largely supporting the view that helmets promote safety (despite evidence to the contrary).

Those factors explain a lot, but not everything. I found one pro cyclist who wants to see the caps again. Apparently he has allies. Looks as if I’m not the only one with memories.