I watched the first episode of Chihayafuru a while back and found it to be really weird and the "sport" didn't really grab me. Nothing in the episode did, actually, so I dropped it without a second thought.
... until recently. I've been looking for a good sports anime, and pretty much every list and thread or talk I found in the internet mentions this. So I queued it up again on crunchyroll, but I started Yowamushi no Pedal first and I'm still watching it.
Speaking of it...
Yowamushi no Pedal Grande Road xx-17
If Imaizumi pulled Fukutomi out of the pack 15km earlier to tire him on the climb and leave the final "ace sprint" to Onoda (since, again, it's a climb to the finish), this show will regain some points it has been losing for a while now. I'll do a big write-up when I finish, but let's just say the space-time rules this show follows (or tries to, at least) are completely irrelevant.
I don't mean bogus, even if, well, they are, I just mean completely irrelevant. People can catch up with each other no matter the distance and time between them whenever they feel like it. In the meantime, they keep saying each team member's name ad nauseum.