Sky Atlantic - British Cycling Road To Glory

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  • TMR
    TMR Posts: 3,986
    Just finished watching this 5 episode documentary and must confess to feeling very disappointed. No where near enough proper behind the scenes footage for my taste, and the interviews were far too guarded. It's ended up being a reflection of how Sky ride, controlled and boring.

    Was interesting see how Cav behaves in the team though - complete prima donna. Poor Bernie.

    What did the rest of you think?
  • Richmond Racer
    Richmond Racer Posts: 8,561
    edited September 2012
    I'm watching the whole thing in one splurge tomorrow but is there lots of Cav moaning that he's not getting a team built around him and racing every race for him?
  • rebs
    rebs Posts: 891
    It's not aimed at the die hard cycling fans. I's a fairly cost approach to everything some of the insight is nice to see even it's just seeing how certainly people react around each other..

    But I've enjoyed watching it
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,462
    Richmond Racer wrote:
    I'm watching the whole thing in one splurge tomorrow but is there lots of Cav moaning that he's not getting a team built around him and racing every race for him?

    I didn't get that from it at all. He seemed frustrated at his lack of form (particularly at MSR) and there was possibly a bit in the Tour but when he was talking away from the highs and lows of a race he understood the realities of the situation. To me it highlighted the difference in him when he is calm to when he has just finished a bike race with the adrenaline of charging for the line at 40mph surrounded by other nutters who are hell bent on beating him, far more eloquent and considered. I was actually surprised by how insecure he came across at times.

    It wasn't the most insightful documentary you'll see and you wouldn't expect a Sky production to do anything to make the team look bad but I certainly learned a lot about the work that goes on behind the scenes by the forgotten staff members like the driver and soigneurs. It was also interesting to see the team pursuit squad training - I didn't think they would be doing hill efforts in Tenerife!
  • inkyfingers
    inkyfingers Posts: 4,400
    My fiancee is away for her hen weekend (my stag is next week) so I have the final instalment of this to watch tonight, along with a BBC documentary about the economist Friedrich Hayek. It's going to be a bit wild here tonight.

    Cavendish has come across as a bit of a sulk, but I guess the team/sponsors don't care so long as he keeps winning bike races.

    The series has been ok, not great but not terrible either. The last episode (set during to TdF) was the best as we got to see a little more of the background to the Froome/Wiggins dynamic, but nothing really that earth shattering.
    "I have a lovely photo of a Camargue horse but will not post it now" (Frenchfighter - July 2013)
  • Mikey23
    Mikey23 Posts: 5,306
    And fortunately no blood bags nailed above the beds then ...
  • plectrum
    plectrum Posts: 225
    you can see why the teams and the sponsors love dope though ....

    Team Sky - spend spend spend; riders flown to race start in helicopters, room completely personalised including bed r]linen at each stage etc in the pursuit of marginal gains .... or just take EPO and blood transfuse and sleep on the sofa passed out infront of the TVs white snow with drool dripping down the chin, ambling to the race start in your slipper.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,661
    plectrum wrote:
    you can see why the teams and the sponsors love dope though ....

    Team Sky - spend spend spend; riders flown to race start in helicopters, room completely personalised including bed r]linen at each stage etc in the pursuit of marginal gains .... or just take EPO and blood transfuse and sleep on the sofa passed out infront of the TVs white snow with drool dripping down the chin, ambling to the race start in your slipper.
    The impression I got from the Hamilton book was the opposite. Those who look for those marginal gains just take doping as part of exploiting every avenue to the fullest.

    Doping isn't for lazy riders. If anything, the hassle of doing it makes it only for those ready to put everything, career, reputation, health on the line in order to be more competitive.
    _
  • fudbeer
    fudbeer Posts: 118
    Bit late but have to say I enjoyed every episode.

    Think it is quite hard to make a good doc about cycling (ok a spring day in hell was better)but I found this pretty good,well put together and not trying to be sensationalist.Really enjoyed the stuff about training and seeing them climbing the great climbs in majorca.

    Confirmed 2 of my suspicions ie Cav although a great rider is a bit of a big kid at times and there is a bit of tension between Fromme and Wiggins,really think Fromme is being a bit childish at times the plan was always for Brad to win,he is a better time trialist anyway so he should have accepted his main job was to do everything to help him at all times from the start,sure he will have his chance in the future.
    Currently I have been mostly riding a Specialized Roubaix Comp
  • Abdoujaparov
    Abdoujaparov Posts: 642
    Mildly entertaining I thought - especially the domestiques and TdF episodes.

    For all the talk of marginal gains, there seems to be a big shortcoming on the tactical front. We've been seeing it all season and this doc, I reckon, underlined it. Maybe the filmmakers didn't want to focus on stuff that joe public wouldn't understand or be interested in, but I was left with the impression that the DSs didn't really have much more to offer the riders than what we saw.

    On the plus side, and we knew this already, they've clearly nailed the physical and mental training of their riders, and their rider recruitment is excellent (helped of course by their deep pockets, but impressive nonetheless). End of the day, these aspects are more important to create a winning team, but I think as Brailsford said, tactics comes next.

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