Why I hate the Tour Down Under

[red_flanders]

No sports which I watch explain the sport…other than American cycling broadcasts during the TdF. And those are invariably shallow, and done by talking heads who know the least about the sport imaginable.

Figuring out a sport always seemed part of the appeal to me.

 

[Unchained]

This is surprising to read. Not in 2011 when I was last there. Australian beer thanks. And on coffee, has Starbucks had an upgrade?

But thanks for trying to explain the sport of cycling.

As far as scale , Starbucks store locations have exploded globally but the products they sell are mostly garbage in my opinion. Nothing is fresh, all pastry and sandwich items come out of plastic bags, no knife skills in @75% of all American food, so lettuce, tomatoes, fruit, onions were likely cut and prepared off site, employees can't be trusted with using a knife and cutting board, meat or cheese slicer because of liability fears and most certainly cut off fingers. Some US food slingers advertise that they cut their meats fresh to order and American consumers have just been conditioned that nothing is fresh or handmade and doing something like cutting some lettuce, tomato, onion, cold cuts is special, something extra, something premium. It's ironic that I know 5 Australians who own and operate coffee houses in Philadelphia, NYC, San Diego and Los Angeles. Getting a flat white or good cup of coffee is still a challenge but in @20 years, dare I say because of Starbucks permeating every market, people are not as puzzled if you order a latte.
I enjoy Coopers, Americans don't have international beer legs and in an unfortunate marketing mistake the only export Australian beer brand Yanks are familiar with is Fosters which for the most part has not been made in Australia for US export in years if not decades. Molson brewing took over long ago and flavors like Sapporo, Fosters, and Asahi are mostly brewed in Canada and people don't bother to read the label, don't follow that beer for export has been controlled by Belgium and Brazilian beer giants for a long while.
US has way more, way better craft beer than Australia hands down.. Be willing to bet you beer for beer that if you were to do a pub crawl in Washington, Oregon, San Diego especially or NY state you would find dozens and dozens if not hundreds of glasses of cold crafted deliciousness! San Diego, even with some market contraction in craft beer is still a micro brew epicenter with brewery per capita ratio really high.
Not all bread and bakeries suck in the US, just most, but good bread and pastries are more available than previously.
Here's another heartbreaking story of something that got strained from Covid and ultimately ended up breaking.

Opening up about closing down Rouleur Brewing - San Diego Beer News®

After fighting the good fight for nearly eight years, the owner of Carlsbad's Rouleur Brewing makes the tough decision to close the business

sandiegobeer.news

Lots of combo people went here , people who like bikes and beer

 

[Cookster15]

If you look at the fields in the race, it's quite clear that the teams don't find it important.

I agree but the teams don't run the sport but are obliged to play by the rules set by the UCI. Comes back to what is the business case for the TDU. Europe is already saturated, The US isn't interested in a world tour race. In Australia there is a relatively small but very enthusiastic following.

The TDU and the following Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race are the only mens UCI world tour races in the Southern Hemisphere. The latter only happens due to the TDU. Hopefully cycling doesn't end up like baseball who has a 'world' series limited to teams from two countries. The TDU is shown live on free to air television in Australia. They even dust off Phil Liggett to do the commentary.

In January we have the choice between these and the Valencia races. Obviously Valencia has much more to offer for non sprinters. But they are just more races in a cycling country. Some people who run the sport think broadening English speaking markets is important. Because potential growth in 4 central non English speaking European countries is limited (France, Italy, Spain and Belgium).

Teams want to save their riders for more important races in the season proper. Teams send riders to TDU because they are obliged to not because they want to.

I also agree with the other poster's point about UCI points. TDU should not be higher than races like Catalunya. But if they lowered the points to 300 would that dilute an already weak field further?

Then there is "important" versus physically demanding. The heat and the hills seem physically demanding.

Would a change in TDU scheduling from January to October (swap with Guangxi) help? This puts it after the worlds right at the end of the season. Climate wise also much less of a shock to the riders. October in South Australia is quite mild.

p.s. - apologies for the long post, just wanted to share my thoughts.

 

[ingsve]

Tour Auvergne - Rhône Alpes etc...

What race? Does not compute.

 

[ingsve]

But to the OP: I wouldn't dream of watching a game of Australian football without reading up on some basics of the sport first.

I think that generally depends on what type of game it is and who is covering it. It comes down to how likely the commentators feel that there might be new people watching for the first time. If it's a big final being broadcast on national TV that doesn't normally show the sport every week then I would expect them to be more new viewer friendly whereas if it's a paywalled sports site showing multiple games every week then ya, it would mainly cater to regular viewers.

Or in terms of cycling. For the broadcast of Ruta de la Ceramica I wouldn't expect to much basics but for the coverage of a home race like TDU on national Australian TV (if that is who shows it) then I would expect more new viewers to be potentially watching so then I would expect some more basics to be covered.

That's what we normally see here as well. If it's a big monument or Tour de France during the summer then more of the basics will be covered than if it's stage 3 of Alula Tour.

 

[Panda Claws]

Welcome to the forum bro

 

[Rockestar_33]

As far as scale , Starbucks store locations have exploded globally but the products they sell are mostly garbage in my opinion. Nothing is fresh, all pastry and sandwich items come out of plastic bags, no knife skills in @75% of all American food, so lettuce, tomatoes, fruit, onions were likely cut and prepared off site, employees can't be trusted with using a knife and cutting board, meat or cheese slicer because of liability fears and most certainly cut off fingers. Some US food slingers advertise that they cut their meats fresh to order and American consumers have just been conditioned that nothing is fresh or handmade and doing something like cutting some lettuce, tomato, onion, cold cuts is special, something extra, something premium. It's ironic that I know 5 Australians who own and operate coffee houses in Philadelphia, NYC, San Diego and Los Angeles. Getting a flat white or good cup of coffee is still a challenge but in @20 years, dare I say because of Starbucks permeating every market, people are not as puzzled if you order a latte.
I enjoy Coopers, Americans don't have international beer legs and in an unfortunate marketing mistake the only export Australian beer brand Yanks are familiar with is Fosters which for the most part has not been made in Australia for US export in years if not decades. Molson brewing took over long ago and flavors like Sapporo, Fosters, and Asahi are mostly brewed in Canada and people don't bother to read the label, don't follow that beer for export has been controlled by Belgium and Brazilian beer giants for a long while.
US has way more, way better craft beer than Australia hands down.. Be willing to bet you beer for beer that if you were to do a pub crawl in Washington, Oregon, San Diego especially or NY state you would find dozens and dozens if not hundreds of glasses of cold crafted deliciousness! San Diego, even with some market contraction in craft beer is still a micro brew epicenter with brewery per capita ratio really high.
Not all bread and bakeries suck in the US, just most, but good bread and pastries are more available than previously.
Here's another heartbreaking story of something that got strained from Covid and ultimately ended up breaking.

Opening up about closing down Rouleur Brewing - San Diego Beer News®

After fighting the good fight for nearly eight years, the owner of Carlsbad's Rouleur Brewing makes the tough decision to close the business

sandiegobeer.news

Lots of combo people went here , people who like bikes and beer

Australia has plenty of Craft Beer. Also would expect a country with roughly 13 times the population to have more craft beer.

But Australian beer is much better