What is cycling TV coverage like where you live?

[knewcleardaze]

I'm just outside Washington DC. I learned about the Sporza feed from this forum. The computer appears to be the way to go for me.
Versus is just plain irritating. Too many commercials. The nonstop Lance worship.
Universal Sports is so-so. The two commentators strike me as they are aspiring Phil and Paul wannabes. One of them has a tone of voice that when I hear him, he sounds like the way LLeipheimer looks. Universal doesn't have as many commercials as Versus.
Overall, cycling coverage here stinks.
I'll be setting my alarm to get on the computer for Paris-Roubaix.
The Ronde was a real treat. I tuned in at 7a.m. EDT with 141 kilometers to go.

 

[joy118118]

only recorded TDF

 

[skidmark]

What is cycling TV coverage like where I live?

Well, there are two commentators. One is decent. The other is awesome but is rarely ever there.

And then there's Paulo Martins, the whole reason why I prefer internet streams to the TV. When he doesn't know something, he'll never admit it. He'll always lie about it, make something up

Here are some of his gems:

- Paulinho isn't with the main group anymore because he he worked extremely hard for his team leaders before the TV feed began, and got dropped because he was exhausted of course. In fact I just talked to him on the phone this morning and he said that X and Y an Z and (...) [Paulinho wasn't at that race, the 2006 Vattenfall Cyclassics]

- He's riding at a good pace. You can see he's not in a deficit of difficult [someone should tell him what deficit means]

- A very extremely highly pace

- It's a climb that is far too hard for any sport. Or for cycling, in this case

- This man might come close to Di Luca, if Di Luca can't do a time like the one this man just did

- Especially the second stage, which is right after the first one

- Simoni is the most experienced. He's the one with the most "maturism"

- [after some guy attacks] And everyone counters! [camera pans to show everyone slowing down to a crawl waiting for someone to take up the chase]

- [camera shows Moerenhout in his dutch champion jersey] Here's Rabobank's belgian champion

- Thor Hushovd is becoming a specialist in short prologues [as opposed to 50km prologues, maybe?]

- It's not just the 3rd place that's at stake...there's also the fight for the 3rd place on the podium!

- Very huge

- [The graphic on the TV shows the best placed Dutchman in each previous edition of the Amstel. There's an obvious mistake on the graphic, since Rölf "Ego" Sorensen is shown for 1993. He refers to him as] The flying dutchman Ricky Sörensen

- [Brandt attacks. is brought back. Then his teammate Aerts attacks. Brought back. Then their teammate Lloyd attacks. is brought back. Every single time, he says "there goes van summeren again". Then Van Summeren attacks] There he goes again! Unending energy! What a fabulous rider. [I should note all those riders are somewhere around average height. Van Summeren is 1,97m. He's also a long-haired, light-haired rider. All the others have short hair, most of them black)

- There's australian champion Peffaberga [That would be austrian champion Pfannberger]

- [In the same race as the two above, LBL 2008] That's austrian champion Matteo Floyd [no prizes for guessing who he meant. Australian champion Matt Lloyd, of course]


- [Frank Schleck and Karsten Kroon both get in the same move] There's the two schlecks, they're like carbon copies of each other, it's very hard to tell them apart
[I remind you that
A. it's actually F. Schleck and K.Kroon and
B. even if it were the two schlecks, they're not really all that similar. The hair colour being an obvious giveaway;
After about 10 minutes he finally relents and admits it's not the two schlecks. Then tries to say he was right all along because]
It's not the same schleck as before!This one's a little bit different.

- Kirchen won with clarity [I think he meant "won clearly"]

- The first time he won that win

- There's a response by two CSC riders: Cunego and Evans

- Kim Kirchen has been very disappointing today [Kirchen is right there at the front in the winning move]

- Plus the ten trillion mispronounced words (I'm talking words as common as the local word for "water"...which is one of the ones he can't pronounce)

- Plus switching the syllables of EVERY foreign non-spanish name


And my favorite of all time:

Landis is away on his "epic" comeback stage win in 2006. He goes over the Joux-Plane and starts descending to the finish. Sastre's 5 minutes behind. The genius commentator chimes in:

Of course, he's already descending while the others are still going up the climb, so of course he gets to go faster, so of course the time gap is "false", it's much bigger than what the REAL gap is. When the chasers start descending the gap will of course become much smaller. That's when we'll know what the real time is.

The co-commentator starts explaining to him how moronic that is and why exactly the gap is the gap and whether one is descending or ascending has nothing to do with it.

He's having none of it. He continues to insist that he's right.

In the end they never convinced him.

Oh my god. Wow. Thank you sir, for making me aware of this phenomenon of Paulo Martins. I have never experienced it before. Please, do tell what network this man works for so I can tirelessly search for these streams for every single race ever.

 

[craig1985]

Yes, but your hills make Australia’s look like the Alps!

Its such a shame that where I live, in a city of over a million people, I can ride for 15 mins and be on hills up to 10 kms long, in 30 mins I can be riding along beautiful beeches. I've travelled over a fair chunk of the earth and I can honestly say that this is one of, if not the best pace to ride.

HOWEVER, there is F-all cycling culture here, and I doubt there ever will be. Stuck at the arse end of the world geting covered in shit!

The Gold Coast is not a bad place to ride.

 

[craig1985]

To make you all a bit jealous:
i'm from belgium, so i have almost every major race live on tv, from the moment the network that is covering the race, starts broadcasting

also we have quite a few side-programs and documentaries on cyclists - important races - cycling in general (we even had tour de Burkina Faso here)

so far this year we had:
- almost every cyclocross
- tour down under
- think we had qatar too
- omloop het nieuwsblad
- kuurne-brussel-kuurne
- milano-sanremo
- paris-nice
- tirreno-adriatico
- driedaagse van west-vlaanderen
- dwars door vlaanderen
- Nokere Koerse
- E3 prijs
- gent-wevelgem
- catalunya
- driedaagse de panne
- criterium international
- ronde van vlaanderen
maybe i'm forgetting a few races

upcoming

- pais vasco
- scheldeprijs
- brabantse pijl
- liege-bastogne-liege
- fleche wallone
- grand prix de la wallonie
- amstel gold race
- rund um Henniger turm
- romandia
- giro
- switzerland
- dauphiné libéré
- everything else worth (and not worth) showing

*Shakes fist in jealousy*

 

[craig1985]

What is cycling TV coverage like where I live?

Well, there are two commentators. One is decent. The other is awesome but is rarely ever there.

And then there's Paulo Martins, the whole reason why I prefer internet streams to the TV. When he doesn't know something, he'll never admit it. He'll always lie about it, make something up

Here are some of his gems:

- Paulinho isn't with the main group anymore because he he worked extremely hard for his team leaders before the TV feed began, and got dropped because he was exhausted of course. In fact I just talked to him on the phone this morning and he said that X and Y an Z and (...) [Paulinho wasn't at that race, the 2006 Vattenfall Cyclassics]

- He's riding at a good pace. You can see he's not in a deficit of difficult [someone should tell him what deficit means]

- A very extremely highly pace

- It's a climb that is far too hard for any sport. Or for cycling, in this case

- This man might come close to Di Luca, if Di Luca can't do a time like the one this man just did

- Especially the second stage, which is right after the first one

- Simoni is the most experienced. He's the one with the most "maturism"

- [after some guy attacks] And everyone counters! [camera pans to show everyone slowing down to a crawl waiting for someone to take up the chase]

- [camera shows Moerenhout in his dutch champion jersey] Here's Rabobank's belgian champion

- Thor Hushovd is becoming a specialist in short prologues [as opposed to 50km prologues, maybe?]

- It's not just the 3rd place that's at stake...there's also the fight for the 3rd place on the podium!

- Very huge

- [The graphic on the TV shows the best placed Dutchman in each previous edition of the Amstel. There's an obvious mistake on the graphic, since Rölf "Ego" Sorensen is shown for 1993. He refers to him as] The flying dutchman Ricky Sörensen

- [Brandt attacks. is brought back. Then his teammate Aerts attacks. Brought back. Then their teammate Lloyd attacks. is brought back. Every single time, he says "there goes van summeren again". Then Van Summeren attacks] There he goes again! Unending energy! What a fabulous rider. [I should note all those riders are somewhere around average height. Van Summeren is 1,97m. He's also a long-haired, light-haired rider. All the others have short hair, most of them black)

- There's australian champion Peffaberga [That would be austrian champion Pfannberger]

- [In the same race as the two above, LBL 2008] That's austrian champion Matteo Floyd [no prizes for guessing who he meant. Australian champion Matt Lloyd, of course]


- [Frank Schleck and Karsten Kroon both get in the same move] There's the two schlecks, they're like carbon copies of each other, it's very hard to tell them apart
[I remind you that
A. it's actually F. Schleck and K.Kroon and
B. even if it were the two schlecks, they're not really all that similar. The hair colour being an obvious giveaway;
After about 10 minutes he finally relents and admits it's not the two schlecks. Then tries to say he was right all along because]
It's not the same schleck as before!This one's a little bit different.

- Kirchen won with clarity [I think he meant "won clearly"]

- The first time he won that win

- There's a response by two CSC riders: Cunego and Evans

- Kim Kirchen has been very disappointing today [Kirchen is right there at the front in the winning move]

- Plus the ten trillion mispronounced words (I'm talking words as common as the local word for "water"...which is one of the ones he can't pronounce)

- Plus switching the syllables of EVERY foreign non-spanish name


And my favorite of all time:

Landis is away on his "epic" comeback stage win in 2006. He goes over the Joux-Plane and starts descending to the finish. Sastre's 5 minutes behind. The genius commentator chimes in:

Of course, he's already descending while the others are still going up the climb, so of course he gets to go faster, so of course the time gap is "false", it's much bigger than what the REAL gap is. When the chasers start descending the gap will of course become much smaller. That's when we'll know what the real time is.

The co-commentator starts explaining to him how moronic that is and why exactly the gap is the gap and whether one is descending or ascending has nothing to do with it.

He's having none of it. He continues to insist that he's right.

In the end they never convinced him.

 

[thehog]

I get it all. EuroSport 1, 2 and HD. Along with Euro sat dish with over 300 European channels. I miss nothing.

 

[auscyclefan94]

Hopefully I will find out who is Pippo Podzato and martin maaskrant!

 

[issoisso]

Oh my god. Wow. Thank you sir, for making me aware of this phenomenon of Paulo Martins. I have never experienced it before. Please, do tell what network this man works for so I can tirelessly search for these streams for every single race ever.

Portuguese Eurosport. Every. Single. Goddamned. Race.
Notice he's not a random suit pulled in to comment. He's a former pro (who defines himself as a pure sprinter even though he never actually did much in any bunch sprint and even though he once actually attacked from a select group of climbers on a 30km mountain climb finish at the national Tour)

Hopefully I will find out who is Pippo Podzato and martin maaskrant!

I'm still trying to find out who these "Trushóve", "Gennie Aiezêngah", "RRRRoberrrrt Jesinking", "Guustah Poshtooooomah" and "Tadége Valgevéke" Paulo Martins keeps talking about, are. Among many, many, many, many, many others.

 

[Beech Mtn]

Hey our Versus commentators made the Toto this week:

http://velocitynation.com/content/toto/2010/toto-turns-177

Phil and Paul and Bob tRoll

 

[coppiman]

What??? Looks like that has not yet been rolled out here you jammy git. Think I need to call Virgin Media as soon as possible.

Well when i looked it said it will be released on 1st April in 'some areas'. Fortunately mine was one of them. It won't be too far away Dave, i reckon you'll have it for the Giro at least.

 

[coppiman]

Ireland

Have Eurosport through Satellite. All the classics...Worlds...Grand Tours obviously...Paris Nice, Eneco, Qatar and Basque Tour this week.
Commentary is poor imo.

I think David Harmon does an excellent job. Sean Kelly is monotone beyond belief but Harmon is the best in my opinion.

 

[Christian]

In Luxembourg it's pretty great. You can choose between:

RTL Luxembourg (for the races where lux. riders have a chance of winning)
Eurosport Germany (all big races)
RTBF Belgium (big races)
France 2 (TdF, Paris-Roubaix, Ardennes, P-N)
France 3 (TdF)

I think that's about it. They're all pretty good, except Eurosport has annoying commercials, the others don't so much. For TdF I usually choose France 2 and 3 !

 

[delgado]

I think David Harmon does an excellent job. Sean Kelly is monotone beyond belief but Harmon is the best in my opinion.

well there is a problem with Harmon. He cannot for the life of him admit to not recognizing riders, even the most obscure ones. So you get gems like <speaking of a sub-domestique from a 3rd tier bahraini squad> "I tought it was Al Abu Hassan, what with the typical left knee posture on right hand-turns", while you hear him frantically sifting through the startlist papers to match the numbers.

Having said this, he navigates through most pitfalls of hour-long broadcasts of nothingness with relative grace, so I am not complaining. It is just depressing how illiterate his german-speaking eurosport fellows are, in comparison.

 

[thehog]

well there is a problem with Harmon. He cannot for the life of him admit to not recognizing riders, even the most obscure ones. So you get gems like <speaking of a sub-domestique from a 3rd tier bahraini squad> "I tought it was Al Abu Hassan, what with the typical left knee posture on right hand-turns", while you hear him frantically sifting through the startlist papers to match the numbers.

Having said this, he navigates through most pitfalls of hour-long broadcasts of nothingness with relative grace, so I am not complaining. It is just depressing how illiterate his german-speaking eurosport fellows are, in comparison.

I've thought about this. Cycling needs to learn from test cricket. They have so many stats, camera angles and slow motion replays to get through those slow rolling hours. Cycling needs something to liven up the parts between the start, the early breakaways, the attack, the reel-back and then the sprint. They need to modernise the coverage. I feel sorry for Harmon and Kelly. Commentating for 4 hours straight on a flat stage of a 2nd rate stage race is harder than the riding.

 

[delgado]

I've thought about this. Cycling needs to learn from test cricket. They have so many stats, camera angles and slow motion replays to get through those slow rolling hours. Cycling needs something to liven up the parts between the start, the early breakaways, the attack, the reel-back and then the sprint. They need to modernise the coverage. I feel sorry for Harmon and Kelly. Commentating for 4 hours straight on a flat stage of a 2nd rate stage race is harder than the riding.

Oddly, while I have complained about the german Eurosport commentators, I taped and watched the FULL Rund-um-Koeln coverage from yesterday (german public TV broadcast nonstop from start to finish). It may not have been the biggest race, but it was by FAR the best (most entertaining) coverage of a bike race I have seen to date. Great camera empathy, and the entertaining tidbits/stats thrown in were perfectly timed and presented.

If they had broadcast Flanders like that, I probably would have died.

 

[usedtobefast]

I've thought about this. Cycling needs to learn from test cricket. They have so many stats, camera angles and slow motion replays to get through those slow rolling hours. Cycling needs something to liven up the parts between the start, the early breakaways, the attack, the reel-back and then the sprint. They need to modernise the coverage. I feel sorry for Harmon and Kelly. Commentating for 4 hours straight on a flat stage of a 2nd rate stage race is harder than the riding.

anything like that would be an improvement. the HD from Flanders looked amazing, so that helps.

 

[auscyclefan94]

Hey our Versus commentators made the Toto this week:

http://velocitynation.com/content/toto/2010/toto-turns-177

Phil and Paul and Bob tRoll

Hilarious though they could of used the line "A certain lance armstrong"!

 

[Ferminal]

well there is a problem with Harmon. He cannot for the life of him admit to not recognizing riders, even the most obscure ones. So you get gems like <speaking of a sub-domestique from a 3rd tier bahraini squad> "I tought it was Al Abu Hassan, what with the typical left knee posture on right hand-turns", while you hear him frantically sifting through the startlist papers to match the numbers.

Having said this, he navigates through most pitfalls of hour-long broadcasts of nothingness with relative grace, so I am not complaining. It is just depressing how illiterate his german-speaking eurosport fellows are, in comparison.

90% of the time he just has a guess "Ooh is that Dan Martin" "I think it's Dan Martin" ... "I'm not sure who that was we will get the update for you soon, it might be Dan Martin".

Occasionally he makes mistakes, like not picking up which group Lance was in on Sunday when it's clear he was in the main bunch. He's not bad, I probably couldn't have kept full attention through the first 2 hours on Sunday if it was someone lesser.

 

[Tugboat]

Sky Sports in New Zealand is getting better with its coverage...

Last year we had (from memory)...

- Daily highlights of TDU and live coverage of the final stage,
- Live coverage of ToC with evening highlights and rebroadcast of last hour or two of each stage
- 1/2hr highlights of L-B-L
- 1hr highlights of P-R
- Live coverage of every stage of the TDF with evening highlights and rebroadcast of last hour or two of each stage
- Daily highlights of the Vuelta
- Daily highlights of the Tour of Britain
- daily highlights of the Tour of Southland

This year so far...

- Highlights of the NZ Road Nationals
- Daily highlights of the TDU and live coverage of the Willunga stage and delayed coverage of the final stage (would have been live if there wasn't cricket on).
- Highlights of the Tour of Wellington
- Highlights of the Tour of Qatar
- Highlights of the Tour of Oman
- Live coverage (every stage) of Paris-Nice + rebroadcast of the last 2hrs of each stage and evening highlights
- Highlights of the Track Worlds
- Delayed coverage of P-R (next monday morning) + rebroadcast of the last 2hrs.

Expecting to also get coverage of:

ToC (every stage live)
TDF (every stage live)
Vuelta (highlights)
Road worlds (maybe live)
and maybe other race highlights eg L-B-L.

 

[Mellow Velo]

Out today.
Brit Eurosport has the Tour of Romandie back.
This is the third stage race to make a return to their schedules.
I'm not sure who is making the decisions at HQ, but it's obviously a person of taste.
(pity about the naff Romandie parcours, though)

 

[Jonathan]

It's great here. We got Eurosport, VRT and ofcourse the Dutch channels. This year, we got T-A coverage for the first time on VRT. The most important races that are missing are the smaller Spanish stage races and various Italian races. Some small races aren't on Belgian TV, like Nokere Koerse. I'm not sure if we can watch the Dauphine Libere or Climber's Trophy (does it still exist?) somewhere.

Best commentator, in my opinion, is Michel Wuyts.

 

[marinoni]

world's worst

Non - existent.

As was mentioned once, above, in Canada we get the Tour in July and 28 solid days of His Lanceness.

Then we are back to bull riding and fishing.

We get one race per year, it is re-broadcast 4 times a day, but come the end of July.

Done.

Yeah, from the other posts it seems that Canada is pretty much the worst in the developed world. I'd be happy with OLN if it wasnt broadcast from LA's anal cavity. Of course you're forgetting CBC's excellent coverage of the Olympic RR. They showed the first couple minutes rolling out of Beijing, then the last 500-600 metres. Awesome!

 

[marinoni]

Smackdown!

To make you all a bit jealous:
i'm from belgium, so i have almost every major race live on tv, from the moment the network that is covering the race, starts broadcasting

also we have quite a few side-programs and documentaries on cyclists - important races - cycling in general (we even had tour de Burkina Faso here)

so far this year we had:
- almost every cyclocross
- tour down under
- think we had qatar too
- omloop het nieuwsblad
- kuurne-brussel-kuurne
- milano-sanremo
- paris-nice
- tirreno-adriatico
- driedaagse van west-vlaanderen
- dwars door vlaanderen
- Nokere Koerse
- E3 prijs
- gent-wevelgem
- catalunya
- driedaagse de panne
- criterium international
- ronde van vlaanderen
maybe i'm forgetting a few races

upcoming

- pais vasco
- scheldeprijs
- brabantse pijl
- liege-bastogne-liege
- fleche wallone
- grand prix de la wallonie
- amstel gold race
- rund um Henniger turm
- romandia
- giro
- switzerland
- dauphiné libéré
- everything else worth (and not worth) showing

OH YEAH?! This one time in Canada we got a 1hr highlight show from the world championship. That included men's and women's RR and TT. Now who's jealous?

 

[superconfex]

How is the image quality of pictures elsewhere?

So far on Eurosport a lot of the races have been pretty bad quality. In Paris-Nice it was very difficult to make out riders with all the big blotches. These days I watch all my sport in full HD, but there is no Eurosport HD here.

Is what I describe the same for Eurosport (SD) everywhere, is the HD much better? What about Channel Lance? I'm just wondering whether Eurosport are beaming **** quality pictures down here, or if it's the same everywhere early in the season.

Eurosport HD is the mutts nuts.
The Mrs doesn't complain anymore and will sit down and watch the countryside roll by as it's so clear