ITV4 Tour Series tonight - Southend

NervexProf

http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/listings/itv4/2009-06-26/19-00/

19:00
 – 20:00: Cycling - Tour Series

High-octane, professional inner-city cycle racing from the final race of the Tour Series in Southend-on-Sea, as ten teams of five riders fight it out to place their top three men in the highest positions. Presented by Ned Bouting and Brian Smith.

Gazzaputt

Went to see this last night and it'll be well worth watching on TV tonight.

takethehighroad

The top three teams are separated by one point! I don't think the organisers could imagine this in their wildest dreams!!!

afx237vi

OK, I'll confess that I haven't really been watching this very closely, but I don't understand why there is no individual title for the series winner.

There's a team ranking, fair enough, but since when do cycling fans support teams rather than individual riders? It ain't football.

iainf72

afx237vi wrote:

There's a team ranking, fair enough, but since when do cycling fans support teams rather than individual riders? It ain't football.

Perhaps they're trying to football it up a bit to attract the non-cycling people. But I think that would confuse them even more.

afx237vi

iainf72 wrote:

afx237vi wrote:

There's a team ranking, fair enough, but since when do cycling fans support teams rather than individual riders? It ain't football.

Perhaps they're trying to football it up a bit to attract the non-cycling people. But I think that would confuse them even more.

Exactly. People will get all excited about Halfords-Rapha-CandiTV-Whateverthehell.co.uk winning the series, then turn up next year and half the field will be made up of new teams and new sponsors.

An individual competition based on points over the 10 races would be much easier to follow. You can have a yellow jersey too. People can understand that.

Agent57

I'm really annoyed that I saw the result of this race and the series before watching tonight's coverage. It just isn't exciting if I already know the result. Unfortunately, I was reading Twitter last night and saw a tweet from @cyclingweekly. There's another spoiler on the main page of BikeRadar, so don't go there if you want to avoid the result.

Gazzaputt

afx237vi wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

afx237vi wrote:

There's a team ranking, fair enough, but since when do cycling fans support teams rather than individual riders? It ain't football.

Perhaps they're trying to football it up a bit to attract the non-cycling people. But I think that would confuse them even more.

Exactly. People will get all excited about Halfords-Rapha-CandiTV-Whateverthehell.co.uk winning the series, then turn up next year and half the field will be made up of new teams and new sponsors.

An individual competition based on points over the 10 races would be much easier to follow. You can have a yellow jersey too. People can understand that.

After attending Southend last night many non cycling fans easily understood the concept and really enjoyed the race and the speed of it.

mgcycleguy

Seriously chaps don't knock it until you've been along to watch it... I found it a really enjoyable evening, because the circuits are short 1-1.5kms the riders are blasting around every couple of mins, so plenty to see. Also you could get real close to the action, so you could see the effort the riders were putting in....

... and above all there were loads of kids there really enjoying the action too, which in my opinion is great news for all forms of the sport for the future.

... and yes i saw the bloody result on twitter as well

afx237vi

mgcycleguy wrote:

Seriously chaps don't knock it until you've been along to watch it... I found it a really enjoyable evening, because the circuits are short 1-1.5kms the riders are blasting around every couple of mins, so plenty to see. Also you could get real close to the action, so you could see the effort the riders were putting in....

... and above all there were loads of kids there really enjoying the action too, which in my opinion is great news for all forms of the sport for the future.

... and yes i saw the bloody result on twitter as well

Who's knocking it? I was curious about the lack of an individual leader, that's all.

mgcycleguy

afx237vi wrote:

mgcycleguy wrote:

Seriously chaps don't knock it until you've been along to watch it... I found it a really enjoyable evening, because the circuits are short 1-1.5kms the riders are blasting around every couple of mins, so plenty to see. Also you could get real close to the action, so you could see the effort the riders were putting in....

... and above all there were loads of kids there really enjoying the action too, which in my opinion is great news for all forms of the sport for the future.

... and yes i saw the bloody result on twitter as well

Who's knocking it? I was curious about the lack of an individual leader, that's all.

... fair enough, i think it gives a different twist to have a team in a leaders jerseys though

GroupOfOne MkII

afx237vi wrote:

I was curious about the lack of an individual leader, that's all.

I think there was probably a worry that the individual leader would overshadow the team winner, which is the main concept of the Series. It would just naturally be the media and people's inclination to headline the individual, perhaps lessening the impact of the teams.

Also there was an individual sprints competition going on throughout the Series (Russ Downing won by some way), but for some reason throughout the programmes it was hardly mentioned (possibly only the once, in the Southend programme, that I heard) that the points from the sprints were ongoing throughout towards an overall sprints winner.