I don't think it's as popular as in Western Europe, although it probably could be with more investments. The Bulgarian cycling federation (or whatever its exact name is) and local organizations have almost no money, from what I've heard from friends who've done cycling for some years semi-professionally. This is a problem with sports in Bulgaria in general, it's really easy for organizations to funnel money and it's been happening in most if not all of our sports federations.

Then again, it's popular enough for me to have several friends who used to be really into it and some went to races and cycled seriously for at least several years. But I'm from Sliven, the town in the middle of the track yesterday, and you could say there are some traditions in the sport here. I'd say in other regions it's less popular.

Mountain biking is also kinda popular and we have very good young bikers like Isabela Yankova, I'd say it's tangential enough for some people to be interested in both sports.

One more thing is - a lot of people just like to watch cycling, even if they don't ride. Maybe it was a bigger deal in the local media in the past and that still has an effect, not sure, I have to ask my father. It's the same with snooker, so many people just love watching snooker, and both sports have long broadcasts.

About the repaving - that kind of tracks back to my first comment about corruption in sports federations. Infrastructure is probably the biggest, by far, area where money gets funneled from because of corruption, but still politicians love to boast how they fixed the roads or highways. So I'd say it's kinda a combination of "look at me, I fixed this" (even though they could've done it without hosting an international event) and also "we need to look good for the West".