Cycling Dot Television is Awesome
So I paid about 50 bucks to get a premium subscription to www.cycling.tv. The price seems pretty steep, but if your job is as tedious as mine is, an hour of live cycling coverage can really change a lot. Plus you can watch archived highlights on demand, which is also cool. I'm tellin' 'ya, there is nothing like the live drama of the finale of a bike race, it is just so exciting, straight up. Take the stage broadcast yesterday of the Swiss Tour. If you check for the results, you get this typical photo of Nuylens winning a stage from a four rider break. Today, you see how two dudes slipped the field with a few K to go, and hung on for a win. Ho-humm. So what?But man, you go and watch those serious throwdowns live and it is just jaw droppingly amazing. Those four guys yesterday went clear over the top of a col. The speed they took the descent at was blinding. Fairly defining the word careen. They hit the run in into town and there are these two sharp corners that they take at about 40 miles an hour and you are like wow! You think you're pushing the envelope in your local criterium. Uh, I don't think you have anything on those guys. Then, you know Nuylens is the favorite for the sprint but to watch what he had to do to actually win, taking the sprint from the front from a really long way out was very, very impressive.
And today, the field rips itself to shreads, then comes back together and a couple field sprinters are there, Friere and Bennati. You think there is no way after busting it to get back up there that they'd let anything go. Then two dudes attack. Bam they have this tiny gap and you're like, oh, in a local race that gap wouldn't stick, they'd get caught. But no, the race was so hard they opened a gap on the run in. They hit 1K to go and have 13 seconds. They cat and mouse till the last 500 meters and then they have to go. Vicioso from the Wurth squad steals it from Euskatel's Herrero in the last few meters. Thats what you get for leading it out instead of getting caught by the pack! 2nd place. Bennati and Friere settle for 3rd and 4th, and a their team directors must be pretty disappointed in their squads for letting those two guys slip the field.
Starting to (ahem) get the picture? This is some amazingly cool stuff and not necessarily what you'd get in the Tour de France, a bit more seat of the pants kind of racing, not so diagrammed. So go get third in a Cat three race and spend the money on cycling tv, not diapers!
posted by Mark @ 12:09 PM
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