BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

I'm watchin the tour day francay on mah caaach.

^ samesies.

live streaming eurosport. Sean Kelly and Maggie

Backstead > phil & paul

I was delighted to discover yesterday that Direct TV was now again carring VS. sports channel, and the tour. It had stopped for quite a while. Arial shots of castles and the peleton are my fave!

anyone better than phil ligget? thats bold...

Anyone buy the versus online subscription? I'm thinking of shelling out the $30 but I've heard there may be quality issues. Interested in any feedback.

The Eurosport coverage is great, but I'm getting real tired of having to look for a new pirate stream every 30 minutes...

it was pretty neat listening to sean kelly about the cobbles. why didn't they go through the trench in arenberg, though? still, it was a pretty awesome race day.

Dang, between thhe Tour in the morning and the World Cup in the afternoon, it's hard to get any work done these days.

johnwheffner: I have the versus coverage. They had some horrible plugin this weekend and I couldn't get it to work at all. Now they got rid of the plugin and it works fine. Picture quality is decent; better than youtube, but not 720p. Audio is mostly Phil and Paul, but they have some other commentators like Matt Keenan too. Unfortunately they don't have background audio due to some technical problems, so you don't hear the crowds, bells, helicopters, etc.

The live coverage only starts at 9am or so every morning. You can only watch the last half of the race most days. They claim that nobody in the world has coverage from the start of the race. Today I watched the last two hours, which was fine with me. If login and watch the recorded bit later, they have some footage from the first half, kind of summary, followed by a recording of the actual live coverage.

I posted about it in that other TdF thread on here.

I am loving the internet subscription Versus coverage. I was really reluctant to pay up at first, but I don't have Versus on cable, can't always watch the stage live and wasn't sure I'd be able to find on demand streams at night from other sources. I haven't had any serious technical difficulties, and it's been totally fantastic to not have to listen to any advertising -- just a solid uninterrupted video feed for hours, with the usual great commentary from Phil and Paul. I do miss the lack of ambient audio sounds, but apparently Versus is working on that. And the other doodads are actually pretty nice, too - there's a liveblog, which was more accurate about what was happening today than cyclingnews, for instance.

I wish it were cheaper, sure, but basically I would find it hard to go back to regular TV ad-supported Versus now, not to mention the insufferable Bob Roll, etc.

@HV The Arenberg is basically a bike path, not a lot more. It's considered a risk even in Roubaix which makes it a big no no in the Tour.

"Never in my life did I think we'd turn down that road" Oscar Friere on the Arenberg Forest

cyclingfans.com worked well today.

Yeah, Watched the replay on versus when I got home from work and caught the last 50k Those cobbles were insane. After the tractor path yesterday and then this, whats next? I know lets give the fans paintball guns and make the peleton ride thru broken glass. I always thought of 'The Tour' as a road race not some kind of demented cyclocross event

aw man. don't ever watch paris-roubaix, then.

personally, i think it's great. though i didn't actually expect them to be routed through the trouee de arenberg.

Also, for those of you watching on Versus TV, I can totally relate to Lance's "tailpipe" commercial like everyday of my life.

I don't know about anyone else, but the commentary definitely makes it more enjoyable. It's almost up there with hockey commentary.

Today's most memorable quotes (IMHO):

- "They thought Fabian Cancellara had a motor in his bike over the spring. The motor wasn't in his bike...it was in his LEGS!"

- "They just came around the bend and it was an hors devours of what is going to come. A taste or appetizer if you will."

- "Italians never really ride well in the Tour de France. Maybe we don't serve enough spaghetti."

Oh, Bobke and Phil Liggett...how you warm our hearts and tickle our cochleae.

Too bad for Frank Schleck. El Pistelero apparantly roughed it for 20 km with a broken spoke / bad wheel... maybe the kid has some salt.

Also, +1 on the tailpipe commercial.

phil is terrible. after watching eurosport coverage of this stuff all year long and then listening to phil on vs, it's apparent that he has no idea what he's saying on a regular and consistent basis.

if you're getting paid to tell people what's happening, you better get it right. telling me that someone's trying to bridge up when they're getting dropped - uncalled for.

also, so pissed at versus getting cummings' nationality wrong - and not being able to spell his first name consistently.

vs sucks so much.

White man's burden there K.

i think the proper term for my frustrations is first world problem.

see also,

"i flatted my tubular."

"my powertap head unit is broken"

"the chocolate i won at the picnic included a bag of skittles, which are not chocolate."