Carlton Kirby

yorkshireraw

blazing_saddles said:

DeVlaeminck said:

For me he's now only the third worst cycling commentator. Jose Been (in English language commentary at least) has joined the contest and is giving Ned Boulting a run for his money as the commentator that really does spoil the racing.

Bad luck for you then.
She's commentating again this afternoon. Bredene Koksijde Classic just beginning live coverage.
Don't mind her doing these small Belgian races at all, but when E3 rolls around this time, next week.................

I don't know why they don't just get Blyth on as much as possible for these sorts of races - he was riding them 2 years ago.
They are being very good in spreading round the gigs but when you've got better options why not use them?

sherer

my other issue with CK is he doesnt know how to use emotion properly. Listening to some classic Murray Walker last week, he just seemed to get the tone right. if he was an easy win with no effort he stopped the shouting and toned it down. CK just doesnt seem to know when to turn it up or down properly

gregster04

I was busy this afternoon so didn’t get to watch the stage live.

Did we get plenty of Lenny Kamnas?

m.r.m.

Unfortunately yes.

DeadCalm

In an interview a while back, one of his team mates referred to Kamna as Lenny, so it doesn't seem to be an entirely Kirby thing.

Pross

Not sure if it's because I've been listening to Hatch / Stephens recently or not but I've just been watching Catalunya whilst having lunch and he has been absolutely incessant. I've genuinely got a headache from listening to him rabbiting on with barely a pause.

yorkshireraw

Pross said:

Not sure if it's because I've been listening to Hatch / Stephens recently or not but I've just been watching Catalunya whilst having lunch and he has been absolutely incessant. I've genuinely got a headache from listening to him rabbiting on with barely a pause.

The contrast with insight and actual commentary on what's happening in De Panne from Hatch / Blyth is telling.

Pross

I switched off, my head was aching so much I was starting to feel ill. To be fair, it may not have been him that caused the headache to start with but it certainly wasn't helping just having a constant inane drone in the background.

blazing_saddles

He's already decided that today someone from the break will win because they have enough time in hand.
Which anybody who watches races, knows is complete rubbish.

m.r.m.

He was especially unbearable today. Condolences Pross! 👊

de_sisti

I think Carlton Kirby is a good cycling commentator. You try talking about a bike race for 3 to 4 hours and see how you find it.

kingstongraham

de_sisti said:

I think Carlton Kirby is a good cycling commentator. You try talking about a bike race for 3 to 4 hours and see how you find it.

That's the main problem - he thinks he needs to try and talk about the bike race for 3 to 4 hours without stopping.

yorkshireraw

de_sisti said:

I think Carlton Kirby is a good cycling commentator. You try talking about a bike race for 3 to 4 hours and see how you find it.

The team who did MSR managed it for 7 hours with very little action to talk about until the last 70K, and by all accounts kept it interesting and informative, without any random assertions, inappropriate comments or self-chuckles. Notably Kirby was not part of that.

Pross

As the song says, "you say it best when you say nothing at all". Yesterday he was almost hyperventilating as he was talking so much and so quickly. If there's not much to talk about and air to fill just slow it down and let the commentary reflect what is actually going on. One of the beauties of cycling is that you can just have it on in the background sampling the ambience whilst doing other things and rely on a change in tone to know something has happened but with Kirby it is impossible to guage the difference between a bog standard Tour transition day and Froome's Giro great escape.

Pross

I also don't get the "you try it" thing when criticising someone being paid for doing a job and not doing it well. If a dentist causes me pain whilst doing a filling I think it's reasonable to criticise and not stay silent because I couldn't do the job any better. If a builder leaves messy joints in a wall he builds for me should I remain quiet because the wall wouldn't even be straight if I'd built it myself?

kingstongraham

Pross said:

I also don't get the "you try it" thing when criticising someone being paid for doing a job and not doing it well. If a dentist causes me pain whilst doing a filling I think it's reasonable to criticise and not stay silent because I couldn't do the job any better. If a builder leaves messy joints in a wall he builds for me should I remain quiet because the wall wouldn't even be straight if I'd built it myself?

We'd still all be able to criticise Zakarin's descending though.

mrb123

kingstongraham said:

Pross said:

I also don't get the "you try it" thing when criticising someone being paid for doing a job and not doing it well. If a dentist causes me pain whilst doing a filling I think it's reasonable to criticise and not stay silent because I couldn't do the job any better. If a builder leaves messy joints in a wall he builds for me should I remain quiet because the wall wouldn't even be straight if I'd built it myself?

We'd still all be able to criticise Zakarin's descending though.

I for one do not accept that I couldn't do the commentary job better than Kirby anyway.

blazing_saddles

Best bit today was when he said: "I have been looking for Simon Yates but as yet I can't see him in the group."
(At the time the rear camera had been for some time, centred on the back of Simon Yates.)

Pross

I only watch the final 1.5k and it was just a series of sentences rolling into each other with no gap. I'm sure he's getting worse but it could just be that I've grown used to better from Hatch, Blythe, Stephens, Lloyd, Backstedt and even Been.

jam1e

I think the "you try it" thing is sort of fair - in a way he's very, very good at what he does but what he does isn't quite what most of the people posting on here want.

Pross

Well yes, if "what he does" is annoy the shit out of people for a living then he is doing a top job.

ddraver

If I was, for some as yet unexplained reason, forced to be a cycling commentator, I would at least attempt to improve at it...

bobmcstuff

Pross said:

As the song says, "you say it best when you say nothing at all". Yesterday he was almost hyperventilating as he was talking so much and so quickly. If there's not much to talk about and air to fill just slow it down and let the commentary reflect what is actually going on. One of the beauties of cycling is that you can just have it on in the background sampling the ambience whilst doing other things and rely on a change in tone to know something has happened but with Kirby it is impossible to guage the difference between a bog standard Tour transition day and Froome's Giro great escape.

Yeah exactly this - keep rushing back in to see what's happened when it is something thoroughly inconsequential happening.

The real shitter there is when something important does happen and he doesn't even notice.

The man is incompetent.

bm5

blazing_saddles said:

Best bit today was when he said: "I have been looking for Simon Yates but as yet I can't see him in the group."
(At the time the rear camera had been for some time, centred on the back of Simon Yates.)

Agreed. I also liked the way Brian Smith politely gave a reminder that Esteban was in a different jersey, it was clearly aimed at Carlton who couldn’t find him.

tailwindhome

tailwindhome said:

Much of CKs commentary is just meaningless word association

It's not cat and mouse, it's a cat fight, who will be the lion, well you have to have the heart of a lion....

daniel_b

Did I hear correctly in at least one of the stages him refer to Ineos as Sky....?
And then in the next sentence they were back to Ineos Grenadiers - or did I imagine it.
I'm fairly certain it was not a one off either.

If I hear another commentator inadvertently use a wrong team name, they realise and correct themselves.

daniel_b

Pross said:

I also don't get the "you try it" thing when criticising someone being paid for doing a job and not doing it well. If a dentist causes me pain whilst doing a filling I think it's reasonable to criticise and not stay silent because I couldn't do the job any better. If a builder leaves messy joints in a wall he builds for me should I remain quiet because the wall wouldn't even be straight if I'd built it myself?

Absolutely - I could not commentate on a race, but hey that's not my job.
Likewise I suspect Carlton Kirby could have a go at being a systems developer, but would be unlikely to be very good at it.

There are plenty of commentators out there who do a really good job of it imho.
Just he is not one of them.

takethehighroad

bm5 said:

blazing_saddles said:

Best bit today was when he said: "I have been looking for Simon Yates but as yet I can't see him in the group."
(At the time the rear camera had been for some time, centred on the back of Simon Yates.)

Agreed. I also liked the way Brian Smith politely gave a reminder that Esteban was in a different jersey, it was clearly aimed at Carlton who couldn’t find him.

I've noticed this from his co commentators. They've developed a way of correcting his mistakes without embarrassing him (too much)

The best one yesterday was when he corrected himself and announced that Rally Cycling and Raleigh were different spellings, after speaking for some time about the bike brand being in the race.

yorkshireraw

Pross said:

I only watch the final 1.5k and it was just a series of sentences rolling into each other with no gap. I'm sure he's getting worse but it could just be that I've grown used to better from Harmon, Blythe, Stephens, Lloyd, Backstedt and even Been.

Assume you mean Hatch, not Harmon (who was binned years ago).

jimmythecuckoo

gregster04 said:

I was busy this afternoon so didn’t get to watch the stage live.

Did we get plenty of Lenny Kamnas?

Someone clearly had a word with the great man as it was fully Leonard yesterday.

I hope that he hasn't changed just because of internet people.