Until about this time last year I'd only experience the Versus crew over about eight years, mostly "in July." Then Universal Sports began covering many of the races Vs didn't, and here in Chicago I get it free OTA as an NBC sub-channel.
The Universal Sports team is Steve Schlanger, a general sports broadcaster who also does at least swimming and ski-jumping as well as cycling, and Todd Gogulski, a former Pro rider. Schlanger calls the race and Gogulski comments and provides background and insights.
They've really grown on me, and do their work well. As I posted here last week, Schlanger does his homework and his pronunciation of foreign names keeps getting better. That he brings a general American Sportscaster style to the race, full of violent competitive metaphors and such, kind of adds to the charm for me--makes watching cycling seem almost normal in an American context, which it isn't. And Gogulski is excellent, evenhanded and shrewd about what's going on.
They really do make P & P seem outclassed. I notice that Phil makes no real effort to pronounce foreign names, of either teams (Leaky Gas?) or riders correctly for the language they originate in. I saw a comment here a few weeks ago that S & G "overpronounce" these foreign names, somewhat like a beginning language student, but so what? Seems like evidence of commitment to me.
I've gone back to using my VCR for the Giro stages, since my DirectTV package includes Vs but not Universal, and so I can't record it on my DVR. The digital feed from a converter box to the VCR and then to the analog TV, produces a pretty decent picture.