Hey guys,
Obviously we're a community from all over the world, and as such we don't all watch the races that we love when they're on live. I've noticed over the years that many posters have helpful links to highlight packages and even full-race replays not too long after the races themselves happen, which is always great and often includes stuff not on steephill or cyclingfans; but if I haven't seen the race yet, I usually don't have any way of knowing how to access that without going into the race thread, which is obviously spoiled since its purpose is to, well, talk about the race. That's a bummer, since for me the joy of cycling is in the tension of what might happen, and I'm not always gonna be there for it live. So I figured if other people have had this experience, this thread might be useful.
My idea is to create a thread that does the following:
1) Provide a thread that lists general resources that relatively new race fans might not know (see details below);
2) Post links to highlights/replays etc of races that have just happened, so people who haven't caught the race live can be easily linked to that, and have a gloriously unspoiled space on these boards to seek out that information;
3) Provide a thread where people who haven't yet seen the race can inquire about those things. Beyond where to find them, let's say I didn't see last week's Volta a Catalunya live, and on Tuesday I posted here and asked 'is it worth downloading the whole race or should I watch the last 4km on steephill'? People would tell me to watch the last 4km and I'd save a few hours. Or on Wednesday I could find out there was no live coverage due to weather without waiting and waiting for highlights/downloads before cluing in. Or if you've seen the race, you can pop in and say 'whoever's reading this - you HAVE to see today's stage to L'Aquila/Fuente De/Saint-Amand-Montrond'. Stuff like that.
For points 2) and 3), I hope this thread can be a place of information sharing. For point 1), here's some starter information for relatively new cycling fans:
Live Streams, Highlights, etc
steephill.tv is a fantastic source for live streams (they helpfully tell you which ones are geo-restricted and globally accessible, which ones have malware, etc), spoiler-free highlights (they have a non-spoiler mode for several hours usually) and other information, like startlists, parcours, etc.
cyclingfans.com is a similar source for live streams and highlights/videos, although all its videos (I think) are non-spoiler if you click the 'videos' link on the race page and not the 'results' page.
Subscription Services
cycling.tv is an english-language subscription website that offers live, on-demand, and highlight coverage of many races throughout the year. I was a subscriber for a few years, and found it to be both great and frustrating. It's great because having on-demand access, often quickly after a race, is very useful. It's frustrating because they are the worst customer-service business I've ever seen. Like, ever. Beyond that, their race schedule changes from year to year, and they often don't know at season's start which races they have rights to. However, to a new cycling fan that wants to do nothing but binge on races, their back catalogue - assuming they still have it, it's been a couple of years - is quite impressive and probably worth a temporary subscription alone.
Other Sources
cyclingtorrents.nl. That is all.
Anyway, I trust that I'm not the only one who will find this thread useful, as I've thought of it many times in the past but am finally deciding to do something about it. Please let me know if there are other resources that should be included in the links above as well. Enjoy watching, everyone.
Links to race videos
Tour of Cali 1-5: and Giro d'Italia 2-7: http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=1462289&postcount=51
2014 Amstel Gold:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCmqZ...ature=youtu.be
2014 LBL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcjjjLH0t1M
2014 Tour of Norway: http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=1470822&postcount=70
Obviously we're a community from all over the world, and as such we don't all watch the races that we love when they're on live. I've noticed over the years that many posters have helpful links to highlight packages and even full-race replays not too long after the races themselves happen, which is always great and often includes stuff not on steephill or cyclingfans; but if I haven't seen the race yet, I usually don't have any way of knowing how to access that without going into the race thread, which is obviously spoiled since its purpose is to, well, talk about the race. That's a bummer, since for me the joy of cycling is in the tension of what might happen, and I'm not always gonna be there for it live. So I figured if other people have had this experience, this thread might be useful.
My idea is to create a thread that does the following:
1) Provide a thread that lists general resources that relatively new race fans might not know (see details below);
2) Post links to highlights/replays etc of races that have just happened, so people who haven't caught the race live can be easily linked to that, and have a gloriously unspoiled space on these boards to seek out that information;
3) Provide a thread where people who haven't yet seen the race can inquire about those things. Beyond where to find them, let's say I didn't see last week's Volta a Catalunya live, and on Tuesday I posted here and asked 'is it worth downloading the whole race or should I watch the last 4km on steephill'? People would tell me to watch the last 4km and I'd save a few hours. Or on Wednesday I could find out there was no live coverage due to weather without waiting and waiting for highlights/downloads before cluing in. Or if you've seen the race, you can pop in and say 'whoever's reading this - you HAVE to see today's stage to L'Aquila/Fuente De/Saint-Amand-Montrond'. Stuff like that.
For points 2) and 3), I hope this thread can be a place of information sharing. For point 1), here's some starter information for relatively new cycling fans:
Live Streams, Highlights, etc
steephill.tv is a fantastic source for live streams (they helpfully tell you which ones are geo-restricted and globally accessible, which ones have malware, etc), spoiler-free highlights (they have a non-spoiler mode for several hours usually) and other information, like startlists, parcours, etc.
cyclingfans.com is a similar source for live streams and highlights/videos, although all its videos (I think) are non-spoiler if you click the 'videos' link on the race page and not the 'results' page.
Subscription Services
cycling.tv is an english-language subscription website that offers live, on-demand, and highlight coverage of many races throughout the year. I was a subscriber for a few years, and found it to be both great and frustrating. It's great because having on-demand access, often quickly after a race, is very useful. It's frustrating because they are the worst customer-service business I've ever seen. Like, ever. Beyond that, their race schedule changes from year to year, and they often don't know at season's start which races they have rights to. However, to a new cycling fan that wants to do nothing but binge on races, their back catalogue - assuming they still have it, it's been a couple of years - is quite impressive and probably worth a temporary subscription alone.
Other Sources
cyclingtorrents.nl. That is all.
Anyway, I trust that I'm not the only one who will find this thread useful, as I've thought of it many times in the past but am finally deciding to do something about it. Please let me know if there are other resources that should be included in the links above as well. Enjoy watching, everyone.
Links to race videos
Tour of Cali 1-5: and Giro d'Italia 2-7: http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=1462289&postcount=51
2014 Amstel Gold:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCmqZ...ature=youtu.be
2014 LBL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcjjjLH0t1M
2014 Tour of Norway: http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=1470822&postcount=70