Road race television coverage

hammerite

I think the BBC would get a lot more complaints from people annoyed that their favourite Sunday evening BBC2 programme was delayed by "a silly bike race with no Brits in*" for 30 mins without delaying it further by showing the medal ceremonies.

You could watch the ceremonies on the red button.

*this is a joke as none managed to get as far as the finish.

I remember Harmon swearing at someone a couple of years back for Eurosport doing exactly the same thing after a race over ran.

majormantra

It was all on the live feed on the BBC website though. Complete with long silences and various random squawking radio sound effects.

afx237vi

hammerite wrote:

I think the BBC would get a lot more complaints from people annoyed that their favourite Sunday evening BBC2 programme was delayed by "a silly bike race with no Brits in*" for 30 mins without delaying it further by showing the medal ceremonies.

You could watch the ceremonies on the red button.

*this is a joke as none managed to get as far as the finish.

I remember Harmon swearing at someone a couple of years back for Eurosport doing exactly the same thing after a race over ran.

I was watching on the red button until it stopped with an hour to go and told me to watch BBC2.

And yeah, I remember Harmon having a bit of a swear when Eurosport ditched the podiums in Mendrisio, and that was a load of tosh too.

awavey

Mikey23 wrote:

I told you, Carlton is a god...

yes I must admit I was watching the races thinking, Im missing Carlton (or a Harman) calling this, poor old Simon Brotherton appeared to be confused into thinking it was a football match and was having a competition with Chris at who could spot which rider first (again as someone pointed out earlier all very well if you know which kit they are wearing)

why does the Beeb get in such a mess over these longer races, it was just as unsatisfying as the Olympic RR coverage again. the Melbourne world champs werent live were they, as I think I watched the highlights, but they obviously had more chance to produce a programme that covered the relevant bits.

Im not sure team radio is such a good idea, it doesnt actually add anything in F1 imo, as they still keep all the interesting chit/chat to a private channel,and just use the public channel for the "leave me alone I know what Im doing stuff", the Americas cup stuff was just as things were but someone shouting hydro on a radio really makes no difference as a non 100million pound yacht owner myself I hadnt a clue what they were talking about and some of those Americas cup OSGs were a bit intrusive, Im sure at one point there were blue sparkles on the screen for no apparent reason during the race other than to indicate spray.


in a RR what you want to know is who is in which part of the field (assuming a pre race favourite gets lost in the pack), what the gaps are, how many kms to go, gradient of the climbs, certainly on lap circuits some indication of the pacing of the laps, or various speed of the groups. and some commentators who know the sport or can comfortably gab away being jolly entertaining if a everyone is just rolling along waiting for an attack to happen.

Yellow Peril

I like Boardman and Brotherton and thought they did a good job in the circumstances. I also like the BBC because it's live uninterrupted coverage, long may that continue.

salsiccia1

Yellow Peril wrote:

I like Boardman and Brotherton and thought they did a good job in the circumstances. I also like the BBC because it's live uninterrupted coverage, long may that continue.

I thought Brotherton did OK. He's generally pretty good. I also thought Rochelle Gilmore was decent on Saturday (you know what I mean). But not showing the jersey presentation was pathetic IMO, all through the race it was all about 'winning the rainbow jersey', and then we don't get to see them get it. Hopeless.

dave milne

Yellow Peril wrote:

I like Boardman and Brotherton and thought they did a good job in the circumstances. I also like the BBC because it's live uninterrupted coverage, long may that continue.

this. was pleasantly surprised.

Richmond Racer

Salsiccia1 wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

I like Boardman and Brotherton and thought they did a good job in the circumstances. I also like the BBC because it's live uninterrupted coverage, long may that continue.

I thought Brotherton did OK. He's generally pretty good. I also thought Rochelle Gilmore was decent on Saturday (you know what I mean). But not showing the jersey presentation was pathetic IMO, all through the race it was all about 'winning the rainbow jersey', and then we don't get to see them get it. Hopeless.

That was spectacularly poor.

salsiccia1

Richmond Racer wrote:

Salsiccia1 wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

I like Boardman and Brotherton and thought they did a good job in the circumstances. I also like the BBC because it's live uninterrupted coverage, long may that continue.

I thought Brotherton did OK. He's generally pretty good. I also thought Rochelle Gilmore was decent on Saturday (you know what I mean). But not showing the jersey presentation was pathetic IMO, all through the race it was all about 'winning the rainbow jersey', and then we don't get to see them get it. Hopeless.

That was spectacularly poor.

That's a bit harsh, I thought I made a well-reasoned comment.

negativelycra

I don't think that endless explinations about e.g. drafting would add anything - it would work for the first time viewer, but be sooo tedius by the end of even a week long tour. I do think the current ITV / boardman level explinations are about right - simple enough for most, not overly repetitive for the more hardcore.
It's a similar level that the BBC have managed to find with the F1, technical enough, but doesn't skip e.g "what is DRS" for the casual fan.

What would I like to see? I'd love to be able to start (via red button if necessary) nearer the start of the race. I recorded the live footage of the worlds, but by the time the coverage started (at the start of the circuit), all our boys had already buggered off home. I would like to be able to watch the first flat 100km, because it puts everything else in context.

RichN95.

Negativelycra wrote:

I don't think that endless explinations about e.g. drafting would add anything - it would work for the first time viewer, but be sooo tedius by the end of even a week long tour. I do think the current ITV / boardman level explinations are about right - simple enough for most, not overly repetitive for the more hardcore.
It's a similar level that the BBC have managed to find with the F1, technical enough, but doesn't skip e.g "what is DRS" for the casual fan.

The trick that Boardman and Boulting have managed to pull off is that they make those explanation segments entertaining, so even it's old information to you they are still good to watch. (They're a bit like Dr Honeydew and Beaker from The Muppets)

deejay

afx237vi wrote:

The only graphics you need:
1. KM to go and time gap between groups. On screen all the time. I'm looking at you Tour of Poland.
2. Stage profile shown every 15-30 minutes.
3. Riders in break, their names, teams, and position on GC. The last bit never gets shown for some reason, despite being important.

That would do me, fine. !

Road race television coverage
Why do these Idiot M/Bike cameramen make the pictures as "Boring" as they possibly can.
Why are they showing a rider on a Turbo machine in pouring rain (would you like to argue that isn't so) and then with either a chainset or wheel being the only excitement for their little Brains. ??
On wide roads that's what you always get but in this weeks championships we had twisting narrow roads and those Dumb cameramen had to follow with the camera looking over the riders shoulders.
That's what I want to see the terrain in front and the body language of the riders as they negotiate the course.
The public might then get interested. It was said for many years how "Boring" televised F1 car racing had become with only pictures of the Lead car on each camera around the course.
Now at times they hold the shot of one camera looking down the course which shows a motor car race.
The times this last week the dumb M/B cameraman could have turned the camera to show the interest of a cycle race. (even the commentators were asking for visual information)

Many years ago I could watch the "Giro" on German satellite and the commentators would call the rider names as they came on screen with a little talk over, then quiet as the sound of tyres on the road took over.
Believe it or not but Duffield had that knack to shut up at times.
The present commentators want to talk endlessly so "Mute" as it's worthless repeats and garbage.

Noted, the Tour de France Helicopter cameras for the last 3/4 years have someone with imagination producing some wonderful sights of riders and the country.

phil s

deejay wrote:

Why do these Idiot M/Bike cameramen make the pictures as "Boring" as they possibly can.
Why are they showing a rider on a Turbo machine in pouring rain (would you like to argue that isn't so) and then with either a chainset or wheel being the only excitement for their little Brains. ??
On wide roads that's what you always get but in this weeks championships we had twisting narrow roads and those Dumb cameramen had to follow with the camera looking over the riders shoulders.
That's what I want to see the terrain in front and the body language of the riders as they negotiate the course.
The public might then get interested. It was said for many years how "Boring" televised F1 car racing had become with only pictures of the Lead car on each camera around the course.
Now at times they hold the shot of one camera looking down the course which shows a motor car race.
The times this last week the dumb M/B cameraman could have turned the camera to show the interest of a cycle race. (even the commentators were asking for visual information)

Many years ago I could watch the "Giro" on German satellite and the commentators would call the rider names as they came on screen with a little talk over, then quiet as the sound of tyres on the road took over.
Believe it or not but Duffield had that knack to shut up at times.
The present commentators want to talk endlessly so "Mute" as it's worthless repeats and garbage.

Noted, the Tour de France Helicopter cameras for the last 3/4 years have someone with imagination producing some wonderful sights of riders and the country.

I think the only idiot is you, as you clearly have feck all idea about the difficult job m/bike cameramen do and also the UCI regulations about what motos can do in race. Perhaps learn the basics before spouting off?

buckles

deejay wrote:

Many years ago I could watch the "Giro" on German satellite and the commentators would call the rider names as they came on screen with a little talk over, then quiet as the sound of tyres on the road took over.

That reminds me! In at lot of races e.g. the Tour Series there's no sound from the actual race! One thing I love about being in a race is the sounds that 140 tyres make on the tarmac, plus all the chains rolling over cassettes, the freewheels, the clicking of shifters. The whoosh of deep carbon wheels. The occasional shouting. Never get to hear any of it!