Cycling on USA TVs, desktops, laptops, and handheld devices

[Potomac]

Nine straight days of watching WT level cycling and now the plug is pulled.

How will I make it to MSR?

 

[Monte Serra]

They should learn from baseball announcers (particularly radio announcers) how to do play-by-play and commentary that reflects the pace of the game action, which like in cycling, has chunks of slow, not-very-exciting pacing.

Indeed, good cycling commentators should be able to make even a relatively boring Grand Tour stage enjoyable to watch. The sometimes extended lulls between action provide opportunity to tell interesting stories, analyse the overall race situation or delve into the cultural background of the region the race is transversing. This of course requires that the commentator has good narrative skills, knows which stories are interesting, can read a race and knows the parcours, and has prepared himself properly for the race by doing background research. Unfortunately these requirements are not always met, resulting in subpar cycling commentary.

 

[scribers]

Nine straight days of watching WT level cycling and now the plug is pulled.

How will I make it to MSR?

Head on over to the pogi thread. At least as good as watching racing

 

[Carols]

Nine straight days of watching WT level cycling and now the plug is pulled.

How will I make it to MSR?

The same way the rest of us will. Watch non WT level races

 

[Sciatic]

Indeed, good cycling commentators should be able to make even a relatively boring Grand Tour stage enjoyable to watch. The sometimes extended lulls between action provide opportunity to tell interesting stories, analyse the overall race situation or delve into the cultural background of the region the race is transversing. This of course requires that the commentator has good narrative skills, knows which stories are interesting, can read a race and knows the parcours, and has prepared himself properly for the race by doing background research. Unfortunately these requirements are not always met, resulting in subpar cycling commentary.

Well said; exactly.

 

[zlev11]

i'm probably in the minority but i really dont mind CVV and Bob Roll. they aren't great or anything but they are well informed and dont get on my nerves. switching over to the two buffoons who were announcing Tirreno for Eurosport was really jarring after watching Paris-Nice. Kirby is Kirby (just a terribly annoying human being) and McEwen couldn't even be bothered to try to correctly identify riders unless they're in the dozen or so that he knows. they're both incredibly lazy and go on and on making terrible jokes.

 

[Potomac]

Max list MSR coverage beginning 4:30 AM Saturday

 

[Sciatic]

It’s the annual special bonus viewing time for us North American (especially West Coast) fans: we’ve already changed to daylight savings but Europe doesn’t for another two weeks, so the time difference is an hour less than normally. So if you’ve already adjusted to DST and get up at 6:00 to watch a race—you’ll get an extra hour of viewing. Ironically, this Sat’s MSR is the big race race I’m least likely to get up early for. But we will get the benefit for watching Catalunya, Gent, E3, etc. But I wish they could wait one more day to change over, so that we could get the bonus hour for RvV!

 

[Carols]

Ironically, this Sat’s MSR is the big race race I’m least likely to get up early for.

Indeed if you start watching 20 km before the Cipressa 95% of the time you won't have missed anything. My alarm is set for 7:30AM EDT.

 

[Sciatic]

Indeed if you start watching 20 km before the Cipressa 95% of the time you won't have missed anything. My alarm is set for 7:30AM EDT.

True. I do like watching for the scenery as they over the capi.

 

[Potomac]

Indeed if you start watching 20 km before the Cipressa 95% of the time you won't have missed anything. My alarm is set for 7:30AM EDT.

slacker!

 

[Carols]

slacker!

OOOHHHHH!!! I was watching at 7:30 and nothing seems to have happened yet. Did anything?

 

[Carols]

slacker!

keep hiding from the in-laws with this Thrilling race

 

[Potomac]

Catalunya is on Peacock this week

 

[fbjim]

you could use those hundreds of $$$ and just sign up for Max ($15.99/month or possibly free if you have HBO on your cable plan), Peacock ($5.99/month) and Flobikes ($12.50/month) and get every single race without also having to pay for a VPN

if you were really dead set on doing a VPN with one subscription, it looks like Flobikes is picking up everything from GCN for Canadian viewers and they already had all of the Peacock races, so theoretically you could get everything with Flo + Canada VPN.

This is what I have done. Flobikes annnual + Mullvad, pretty much works for everything.

The benefit for this is Flobikes has by far the best archival stuff of any service, in case you really want to rewatch the 2018 Amstel or something.

 

[Nick2413]

This is what I have done. Flobikes annnual + Mullvad, pretty much works for everything.

The benefit for this is Flobikes has by far the best archival stuff of any service, in case you really want to rewatch the 2018 Amstel or something.

I went with Flobikes+VPN and it’s been perfect so far. I want to be able to access it all on one service and it has everything so far. Didn’t expect to see races 5 years old on it as a bonus either.

 

[houtdffan]

at least its McCrossan this time on Peacock not that boob, Bob Roll

 

[fbjim]

I like McCrossan because he reminds me of golf commentators. Roche is actually a really good color guy for him as well, unlike Simon Gerrans who was as exciting a color guy as he was a rider.

 

[SHAD0W93]

Catalunya is on Peacock this week

I just found that out today wondering if they’ll have it since Vuelta is shown.
Any news on ToBC?

 

[Potomac]

I like McCrossan because he reminds me of golf commentators. Roche is actually a really good color guy for him as well, unlike Simon Gerrans who was as exciting a color guy as he was a rider.

ha ha...I have house guests and I'm force feeding them cycling. They mention golf commentator as well.

 

[zlev11]

cant stand McCrossan most of the time lol, you guys are suckers for a british accent

he easily runs laps around Kirby though

 

[SHAD0W93]

cant stand McCrossan most of the time lol, you guys are suckers for a british accent

he easily runs laps around Kirby though

Beats hearing “Sepp Kuss the American from Durango Colorado!” every 10 seconds.

 

[Sciatic]

at least its McCrossan this time on Peacock not that boob, Bob Roll

For me they’re equally bad because I cringe at the parade of the same cliches all the time, even when they don’t come close to portraying reality.

Just one example from today: “he’s dancing on the pedals” — the rider is seated climbing at same pace as before but happens to be at the front of a group climbing.

I always imagine they have this big display board with different buttons in their heads like a cash register at McDonalds with pictures of the food on each button, and they hit a button that looks fitting and it spits the cliche out of their mouths.

Going back to watching Spanish broadcast for the rest of Catalonia stages (even though I don’t speak Spanish).

 

[Unchained]

For me they’re equally bad because I cringe at the parade of the same cliches all the time, even when they don’t come close to portraying reality.

Just one example from today: “he’s dancing on the pedals” — the rider is seated climbing at same pace as before but happens to be at the front of a group climbing.

I always imagine they have this big display board with different buttons in their heads like a cash register at McDonalds with pictures of the food on each button, and they hit a button that looks fitting and it spits the cliche out of their mouths.

Going back to watching Spanish broadcast for the rest of Catalonia stages (even though I don’t speak Spanish).

You have to keep in mind the ability to measure everything, and I mean everything. People are only semi aware that through big data ,they know who lives in your house, how much money they spend and make, ages,sex, and what you watch and for how long, YouTube for example has data for fraction of the second.. How deep you will go into a video or type of advertising before you click out. Television producers know that talking over the head of a big percentage of the audience is troubling, bike racing is ultra confusing to the majority of people who watch it.
In the US telling people that the guy who won the race,maybe multiple days is not the winner, he may have won 2 stages and had all the camera time but in the end is a semi nobody. In TV you almost need to repeat the basics daily and terms like breakaway, and peloton, domestique need to be defined for the audience..
Peacock and the rest know you, know how often people watch bike racing and what kind,how long do they watch, is it dependent on day of the week or time of day..
It's annoying but science says that the broadcast needs to be geared for everyone, not only the most knowledgeable!! Taylor Swift will have an effect, thousands of people who have never watched football will start and producers will need to bring the language in line with the entire audience instead of getting more and more technical w descriptions. I have watched bike racing in the VA hospital, in bars,houses of non cyclists and they are looking for example obvious stuff, needs to be NASCAR simple, it's not.

 

[fbjim]

McCrossan has a crappy sense of humor but he doesn't make the mistake of trying to pretend like cycling is some kind of high octane high excitement sport that the GCN/Eurosport guys do too often. I like a lower energy broadcast for cycling commentary generally.