Cycling 2011

[BonnieShels]

Summer as a kid was glued to Eurosport listening to the great Duffield and Sean Kelly. A cracking team and the way he seemed to idolise Kelly was great.
Having become an adult and not having 2 and 3 month holidays in summer makes it difficult to keep abreast now with him. Never could believe just how old he was.

[Dodge]

David Harmon is the main Eurosport guy, and to be fair he's very good. Kelly is co-commentator and Calton Kirby (i think thats his name) chimes in every now and again. Even if I had access to Liggett, I'd pick eurosport for the comms

[Macy]

Duffield was going ahead of the race in one of the Tour of Ireland's in a car with loudspeaker - he stopped where we were (by the first intermediate sprint), and he was just the same as eurosport, telling irrelevant stories. Legend.

Even if I had access to Liggett, I'd pick eurosport for the comms

I don't have the option, but the ITV coverage is alright apart from that. I only really watched some of the 1st stage live, but they spent a fair amount of the time talking over the live footage rather than with commentary - Imlach, Boardman, Rendell and Boulting are pretty good imo.

[Dodge]

Imlach, Boardman, Rendell and Boulting are pretty good imo.

Big fans of all them. Never checked to see if they were doing the podcast this year. Anyone know?

Eurosport have James Richardson with a variety of studio guests, ranging from Stephen Roche to Magnus backstedt to the guy who runs Endura racing.

[Macy]

Big fans of all them. Never checked to see if they were doing the podcast this year. Anyone know?

Yep. Same xml as last year, so it's coming into my zencast, even though they're only linking to itunes on the site. I can post it if people need it. A professional sounding real peloton (which I also like, if it's a bit infrequent).

No sign of cyclingnews doing one this year for the tour though. The monthly podcast never came back this season, but thought they might resurrect the daily tour one.

[Stuttgart88]

I still have sentimental respect for Liggett. He is similar in a way to Murray Walker, but MW became an irritant as bad as Peter Alliss, John Motson and mackerel once their sell-by dates had been passed. Liggett's love of the sport, for all of its faults, is contagious and I commend him. The same doesn't apply to Walker and the others, in my mind. For example, F1 is a glamourous sport and is easy to be passionate and enthusiastic about . Cycling isn't, except for a few weeks of the year maybe. Liggett can miss things and get things wrong as far as I'm concerned.

I do like watching Eurosport live though, and would watch it rather than ITV4 if watching live.

I don't know who my first cycling commentator was. My earliest memory was watching weekly highlights on ITV's World of Sport every Saturday lunchtime. Was that Liggett? There was eff all else to watch on World of Sport except the TdF! Did RTE / Sports Stadium / Jim Sherwin do something back then?

I remember in second year in school (1982 I think) my French teacher was telling the class all about the TdF. He got some bits right but plenty wrong and I corrected him so much from my desk he called me up to the top of the class to tell everyone about the Tour, the yellow jersey, the green jersey etc. I was basically a 14 year-old Jimmy Magee.

It was Kelly's era and Zoetemelk and Hinault were the top dogs afair.

I don't like Cavendish much but he's candid and actually very interesting. He knows and admits that he's an a$$hole, but let's all face it - he's absolutely brilliant. His interview on ITV tonight was top class. Jaysus, I wish football could be covered as well. The chat around sports like cricket and cycling makes football pundits sound like brain dead automatons.

[Mr A]

Used to dislike Cavendish but have really changed my mind about him- he's incredibly emotional and at times very funny.

[Macy]

Liggett's love of the sport, for all of its faults, is contagious and I commend him.

I think that is what has put me off in recent years as well though. I don't think I can take him getting over excited over another late Vino attack. He belongs to a more naive era of my cycling following.

On cav, I change my mind several times a day. I thought his whinging today about the stages so far - and how it's deliberately against htc - was absolutely pathetic, given the quality of the racing so far. But I always want to hear what he has to say, and agree he can be very funny at times. Brilliant win by him today.

[Mr A]

A few more "I'm not sure you want to be that honest" moments in today's diary from Roche: http://www.independent.ie/sport/othe...n-2814997.html

Still though, you seem to get more truth, honesty and insight in a single interview or column with a cyclist than you'd get from most footballers over their whole careers.

[Macy]

Was that motorbike crash on the TV? The ITV podcast basically blamed the rider, saying that the motorbike had no where to go and was even up on the grass trying to avoid contact.

Sounds crap with the transfers - I actually thought it'd be better for them with relatively close stages. Looks like it's made things worse.

[Dodge]

Yeah, there’s a whole heap of guys willing to speak their mind. Definitely ads to the intrigue. Of the English speaking guys; Roche, Cavendish, Miller, Wiggins, O’Grady and Evans are all good interviewees.

Like Macy I thought Cavendish saying the tour was being set up to stop HTC (and by that he means himself) was a bit off. As if he has a divine right to 6/7 completely flat stages. Listened to the ITV podcast earlier, and Chris Boardman said something along the lines of “maybe they did, but so what, the racing has been terrific”. He mentioned today's finish has another ‘anti-Cav kick’

[Stuttgart88]

It might not be anti-Cav in the personal sense, but the organisers realise that having one guy winning all the flat generic stage races would greatly reduce the Tour's appeal. They are therefore well within their rights to make changes. I'm sure they'd have done the same if any one rider / team was so comprehensively better than anyone else. I think they have the race's commercial interests in mind, not a personal vendetta against Cav, even if he doesn't help himself from a PR point of view. It's the classic "competitive balance" argument that dominates most sports (apart from F1 seemingly).

Anyway, Roche up a place to 23rd, but I'm not convinced he's on great form, judging by his remarks about getting dropped on Wednesday's climb.

[Macy]

I think it's that flat stages themselves can be pretty boring, rather than anything to do with Cav or HTC tbh. They've tried to spice up today's stage with the late intermediate, for example. I think that's been a great initiative btw (one intermediate, with more points), notwithstanding some of the stupid rulings that have been made.

Hope I'm wrong, but hard to see Roche doing much in the GC this year, but that might give him an option of going for stages. And then him and his cousin fighting it out for podium places at the Vuelta.

[cestlavie]

Roche is steadily rising up the GC, staying out of trouble. His form has been poor all year but I think he can push for top 10. Disasterous day for Sky and sorry to see Wiggins going out with suspected broken collar bone, he really looked like an outside bet for this years tour especially the way this first week has gone.

Horner and Levi Leipheimer chances in the overall GC have all but vanished over past 2 days.

Its still between Contador, Andy Schleck, C Evans and probably Kloden with outside bets on people like VAN DEN BROECK, Gesink and Vino. Going to be fascinating week to come.

Cav was really gutted when he heard today that Wiggins was out. He said that he thought Wiggins would have been up their for overall GC

[Macy]

Good to see Nico the right side of the split. Despite him riding for sky and the way he left garmin, I like wiggins (very confident he's clean, and always has been), so disappointed to see him go out like that. Whether he had enough for the podium I don't know, but he probably deserved to prove his form on the road. It could be a career defining "what if".

[Stuttgart88]

It'd have been interesting to see how Wiggins would have fared, but I can't help but feel that he's been close to most of this week's crashes so amybe he doesn't have the internal radar needed to avoid trouble on troublesome stages. The ITV guys said he must have been towards the front, but Cavendish didn't even know there was a crash.

Roche on the other hand is keeping towards the front and avoiding trouble. I think! 18th now, still 1:12 back, 53 secs of which was the TTT.

[Mr A]

Roche has done pretty well so far, consistently in and around the big guns. Another solid ride today and moved up the GC once again.

He has also commented on twitter that he's feeling better every day.

[Stuttgart88]

Roche up to 14th now I think. He finished with the main bunch after the Super-Besse climb, so he appears to be in decent shape. Nobody among the GC favourites has stood out yet, but much respect to Hushovd retaining yellow while the (other?) pure sprinters finished 20 minutes back. Gilbert having a great tour so far.

[Dodge]

Ah Hushovd has never been a pure sprinter, How can you be when you're half a Viking God...

Contador tried to get away a couple of times yesterday. Never really looked like he was going to.

Agree on Wiggins, not just anti-doping but angrily anti-doping. Another candid interviewee too

Can't see too much change in GC today. Long hilly day but I'd imagine a breakaway will do most damage and with no hilltop finish, the manin contendors will come in together

[Stuttgart88]

Mad stuff again today.

Footballers and whinging managers should be made to watch the KOTM's interview after the stage today after he was knocked into a barbed-wire fence at 60kph today and still shook himself off to get a high finish. Compare that to some tart who hasn't even been kicked rolling around like he's been axed, or Arsene Whinger's tiresome rants.