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Pro Cycling - Tour de France 2022

MalevolentPanda

By MalevolentPanda,
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metallicfrodo

metallicfrodo

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It's going to be a very interesting race this year, and it's going to be the first year since 2012 when Sky/Ineos are arguably not the strongest team in the race. I think that accolade really goes to Jumbo Visma who just look ludicrously strong even missing Kruijswijk. They certainly look to have the strongest rider in the race in Roglic (even with caveats about how well he has recovered from his crash at the Dauphine). However he did look head and shoulders above everyone else at the 2019 Giro and conspired to lose that, but the team he had then was nothing like the team he has at the tour. On top of that they've also got Dumoulin who is looking like he is riding back into some kind of form. Also if it wasn't for having to do domestique duties I believe that WvA would walk the green jersey.

 

Ineos Grenadiers do look strong and obviously they have the last year's winner in Bernal but he's coming in having also pulled out of the Dauphine because of Injury and has looked a distinct second best to Roglic since the restart. They also have quite a young team, and it's worth noting that the older heads in the team were the same riders that ended up getting blown out the back of pretty much every stage in the last week last year.

 

Of the others it will be interesting to see if Pinot can finally make it to the top step of a GT (I very much doubt it) and I'm very intriged to see how well Pogacar can do in his debut tour after his stellar performance in the 2019 Vuelta. I also expect to see Quintana end up disapointing again along with a 'free' Landa.

 

While he's not shown that much form early on I expect Sagan to take the Green (only because WvA won't be allowed to race for it) and the Polka Dots is anyone's guess.

 

It's certainly a very tough route that is hard right out the gate, so if people are carrying injuries they aren't going to be able to get away with it for long.

 

Having said all that about the riders who might make it interesting what will be on everyone's minds will be, will the race make it to Paris, and if it does how many teams will still be in the race?

 

 

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idiwa

idiwa

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Is anyone watching this on the GCN/ Eurosport App? Seems you either get 3.5hrs of a stage or a 10min highlight (both post race I mean, not live). 

 

Love racing etc but I've not got 3.5hrs a day for the next three weeks to watch racing. 

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Mike S

Mike S

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7 minutes ago, idiwa said:

Is anyone watching this on the GCN/ Eurosport App? Seems you either get 3.5hrs of a stage or a 10min highlight (both post race I mean, not live). 

 

Love racing etc but I've not got 3.5hrs a day for the next three weeks to watch racing. 

 

I was going to try the GCN app as I quite like the idea of having the race running on the ipad as I work but a) the app is not configured for an ipad screen which seems incredibly backwards in 2020 and b) it times out when trying to create an account so I can;t use it anyway.

 

ITV highlights it is then,

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Pmccee

Pmccee

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There is eurosport highlights on at 930am for an hour or so from yesterdays stage? I imagine the same highlights is on at 8-9 in the evening and you get access to that with the gcn pass? 

 

Loving wfh with tdf in background. 

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idiwa

idiwa

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8 minutes ago, Pmccee said:

There is eurosport highlights on at 930am for an hour or so from yesterdays stage? I imagine the same highlights is on at 8-9 in the evening and you get access to that with the gcn pass? 

 

Loving wfh with tdf in background. 

 

Not that I can see. And you get access to the GCN content (supplied by Eurosport) you don't get access to Eurosport itself. 

 

Previous seasons I've gone with Eurosport and the UX on PS4 was terrible. Miss among of stages and shit. Royal pain in the tits. In that regard GSN's app is better, just that you're either watching 4hrs of a race or 15mins. 

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metallicfrodo

metallicfrodo

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I'm a eurosport subscriber, and while their app can occasionally be a bit flaky it's become a lot better recently. Also gives me the option to watch it on my PC while working at my desk, on the iPad if I'm moving around the house, on my Samsung smart TV via their app, or on a firestick via the app on the other TV! So pretty much every base covered.

 

With regards to highlights there is definitely a highlight show every evening on Eurosport so I'm surprised that isn't on GCN. Although to be honest Eurosports highlights aren't worth the name, they just seem to chunk up bits here and there with no particular rhyme nor reason as long as they fit into an hour.

 

With regards to not being interrupted by Ads (which is great) my wife was laughing about the fact that they are constantly interrupting the commentary telling you that you can get uninterrupted coverage if you sub to GCN or eurosport.

 

 

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metallicfrodo

metallicfrodo

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With regards to the racing, fantastic stage win by Alaphillpe on stage 2, and the route certainly made up for missing out on the last stage of Paris-Nice this year. Hirsch just needed a couple more metres though and would have taken the stage, Yates looked like he ran out of gears, his cadance was fine just didn't have the gear necessary (although I still don't think he would have been near the other two).

 

Ewan was just a beast yesterday after what was a pretty boring stage. The distance he came from and the speed was really something to behold. What made me laugh was that yesterday was denoted as a 'flat' stage. I'm not sure I'd call three 3rd cats and a 4th cat meaning over 3000m of climbing can be referred to as flat!

 

Anyway first mountain top finish today, really looking forward to it, will be interesting to see if Alaphillipe can hold on to yellow.

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Graham S

Graham S

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14 hours ago, idiwa said:

Yeah the lack of commercial breaks is fantastic. 

Over the weekend on the ITV app I saw more adverts for donkey sanctuaries and cat lotteries than any man alive. £6 for Eurosport so I'm not personally being blamed for the state of those poor, poor donkeys every 20 minutes is proving to be money well spent. Although the commentators had a lot of time to fill yesterday. A lot of wild boar recipe talk along with an occasional desperate throw to an Oxford graduate to tell them about a chateau on a hill "err.. I've got all my notes laid out in front of me but I don't see anything about that chateau... I have pages and pages of research but I'm not seeing anything. it must be some kind of chateau which is now in private hands I guess". 

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metallicfrodo

metallicfrodo

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Bit of a slow burn yesterday but ended up as an exciting finale. It was only Roglic's third ever Tour stage (having only raced the tour twice before including his 4th place in 2018), and yet it seemed almost like business as usual having seen him win so many races in just that style over the last couple of years. It's obviously early in the race but he's looking to have much better form than his rivals, but it's a long way to go and the real tests are going to be in the third week. Jumbo-Visma though look so strong, Sepp Kuss is such a beast. Although I think Beast Mode of the day has to go to Tim Declercq, it seemed like he was on the front of the Peleton for the entire race until the last climb, just an absolute monster.

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imp

imp

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On 01/09/2020 at 13:12, Graham S said:

Over the weekend on the ITV app I saw more adverts for donkey sanctuaries and cat lotteries than any man alive. £6 for Eurosport so I'm not personally being blamed for the state of those poor, poor donkeys every 20 minutes is proving to be money well spent. Although the commentators had a lot of time to fill yesterday. A lot of wild boar recipe talk along with an occasional desperate throw to an Oxford graduate to tell them about a chateau on a hill "err.. I've got all my notes laid out in front of me but I don't see anything about that chateau... I have pages and pages of research but I'm not seeing anything. it must be some kind of chateau which is now in private hands I guess". 

 

I love that during yesterday's 42km/h tootle through the stage the oxbridge presenter gave his recipe for "very rich paté" to fill time during an ad break, only to be called upon to repeat the recipe for the wider audience just to fill a few minutes while absolutely nothing continued to happen!

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metallicfrodo

metallicfrodo

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Well today’s stage certainly wasn’t boring. Action from start to finish thanks to Bora. I’ve said it before but WvA is ridiculous, it’s only the fact that he has to ride for the team that means he won’t walk the green jersey.

 

I worry now that not much will happen tomorrow as everyone will be pretty tired after that stage, and the fact it’s a downhill finish tends to neutralise gaps a bit.

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Pete

Pete

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So my sister and her partner are obsessed with this and after being baffled for so long I think I finally understand what's going (almost). Is there a more complex and baffling sport?

 

The adverts on ITV4 are driving me mad though, they seem to go on for ever or I manage to leave the room and return as a new set starts? who knows.

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Mike S

Mike S

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18 minutes ago, Pete said:

So my sister and her partner are obsessed with this and after being baffled for so long I think I finally understand what's going (almost). Is there a more complex and baffling sport?

 

The adverts on ITV4 are driving me mad though, they seem to go on for ever or I manage to leave the room and return as a new set starts? who knows.


The no ad GCN app is worth its money if you plan on watching evn only a few hours live racing in the remaining two week. Otherwise it is borderline intolerable on either ITV or Eurosport, not helped by a seemingly very limited pool of ads being shown.

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christaylor

christaylor

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On 05/09/2020 at 09:04, Pete said:

So my sister and her partner are obsessed with this and after being baffled for so long I think I finally understand what's going (almost). Is there a more complex and baffling sport?

 

The adverts on ITV4 are driving me mad though, they seem to go on for ever or I manage to leave the room and return as a new set starts? who knows.

This GCN video is brilliant to get an idea of how it all works:

 

 

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