Since I started covering professional cycling a couple of years ago, I’ve learned that the American notion of what goes into making a professional cyclist — a notion I shared, by the way — is just totally wrong. A lot of Americans seem to think that cyclists work their way through the ranks until they emerge at the top and head for the Tour de France.

I’m sure there are good reasons for this view of professional cycling. It does happen occasionally that a rider finds his way from enthusiast to workaday domestic pro racer, so other racers probably have seen it happen to one or two people they know and like the idea that, with just a little more time to train, it could happen to them. Pro racing is also just a world away from what the average person does on a bike. Amateurs, no doubt, like to think of themselves as in the minor leagues, but, unfortunately, this view is just wildly incorrect. The difference between the ProTour and Tour de France and your average Cat 3 race is like the difference between Major League Baseball and slow pitch softball. It’s the difference between the Olympic 5,000 m and the guy who comes in 250th at 25:30 in your average local 5k.

So people just don’t have any frame of reference for what it takes to make an Andy Schleck, Alberto Contador, or Christian Vande Velde.

Which is why I’m so amused by all the monday morning quarterbacking — or, maybe, monday afternoon directeur sportifing — after yesterday’s Stage of the Tour de France.

“Learn to shift, Andy!” someone cries! “If you mis-shift during a sprint, no one waits for you!” someone complains. “Pro riders should know how to recover from a dropped chain!” proclaims another.

Let’s start with this.

The idea that Andy Schleck doesn’t know how to shift gears or recover from a dropped chain without stopping is ludicrous. This is a man who has been racing bikes his entire life. His father raced bikes. His older brother races bikes.

Tour de France contenders do not appear out of nowhere. They train, all the time, from a young age. Every day is dedicated to training or to racing. They live at training camps where they probably spend more time in a month just practicing things like shifting and recovering from dropped chains than a lot of people spend training in a month.

When you read in Andy’s bio that he joined the amateur club VC Roubaix six years ago, don’t be confused by the word amateur and think he was some Cat 4 back then. The amateur/pro distinction means something specific here in Europe, and the amateurs of VC Roubaix all fast guys who just don’t have official pro contracts. They’d tear your legs off, have no doubt.

(Brief aside, VC Roubaix, though an amateur club, is not your average NorEast Cycling. These guys host a Cyclocross World Cup and the Espoirs Paris-Roubaix among other races. They’re a serious bike racing organization that develops high level pro cyclists. Don’t be fooled.)

I didn’t talk to Andy, and I don’t know exactly what happened to him yesterday, and I’ll spare you my boring hypothesis, but he did not just mis-shift or not know how to recover from a dropped chain. Let’s all disabuse ourselves of the notion that what happened to him is the same as what happened to that guy in your 35 mile Cat 4 race last weekend, ok? The video shows he was not shifting, and there’s little doubt that he knows how to work his bike better than you or I ever will.

The there’s the raging debate over whether Contador’s attack in the moments following Schleck’s troubles was savvy or desperate, all in the game or disgraceful. What’s my take?

First, let’s be clear. There’s no rule in cycling that says you have to stop dead when your opponent has a technical problem, or has to pull to the side of the road to take one of those beautifully euphamistic “nature breaks”. But attacking is a different story, for two reasons. And attacking is what Contador did yesterday.

So why not attack?

First, there’s the sporting reason. If Contador wins the Tour by less than about 30 seconds, his win will forever have an asterisk on it. “Contador technically won,” people will say, “but Schleck was the stronger rider and Contador took advantage of his 30 seconds of bad luck.”

And the thing of it is, Contador gained most of his time fairly, on the descent. He went over the top just a handful of seconds in front of Schleck. It’s possible he could have not attacked and still gained time on Schleck, who is not as skilled a descender. So the attack means a mostly legitimate 40 second gain will be treated by the fans as totally illegitimate, even though most of that time was earned fairly.

Of course, sportsmanship will only take you so far, and winning the Tour is important too. But some racers get remembered as great champions and others as unsporting, petulant racers who would take advantage of bad luck to win. I’d imagine that most people would prefer the first.

Jan Ullrich, after all, played the villain in the eyes of many Americans for most of Lance Armstrong’s career. But a lot of people were remembering him fondly yesterday, despite the evidence that he doped, and despite the fact that he spent his career trying to unseat the American fan favorite. That’s because he played fair, famously waiting when Armstrong crashed on Luz Ardiden only to be attacked and beaten by Armstrong moments later.

The second reason for not attacking is more pragmatic: it’s simply dangerous to piss off your opponents. Ullrich’s gesture in 2003 was payback for a similar gesture by Armstrong, who waited for his crashed opponent on the descent from the Col de Peyresourde, in 2001.

Similarly, you know that Niels Albert did not make any friends when he rode Sven Nys into the barriers in last year’s Jaarmarktcross. The fans, who had never really warmed to 2009 World Champion Albert, turned on him, and his season started to fall apart right there. And, though his public statements were fairly magnanimous, believe me, Nys did not forget about Albert’s move.

The point is, you never know when you’ll be the victim of a mishap, a mistake, technical problem, and find yourself wishing you had been a little more sporting to the guy who is now taking advantage of it. You don’t know how your ten second gain will be repaid or avenged, or what extra motivation you’ve given to the guy who already has devoted a lifetime to the singular goal of beating you in the Tour de France. You never know when the two of you will have to work together to stave off someone else’s attack. In cycling it pays to make friends.

You can argue the point if you want, but I’m not alone in my position on this. In fact, even Alberto himself seems to have realized the possible consequences of his move yesterday. Is his contrition too late?

Update: Velonews’ Lennard Zinn offers some speculation on what happened to Schleck’s chain that at least half-validates my thinking. (I think Lennard may be wrong that Andy was shifting when the problem occurred, but he knows more about bikes than I ever will, so we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.)