Maryland Classic

Anyone watching the Maryland Classic on GCN?

Give me strength …an example of how not to televise a bike race.

I’ve been watching for about 10 minutes and haven’t even seen the front of the race yet. Lots of shots of an empty finish straight.

Edit: it’s better now, I wonder if it was a TV Director wobble or if they had a problem with the motos. They’re focussing on the front group (thankfully) and it’s going to be an interesting finish.

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So to be fair - the last 3-4 laps were great racing. Some of the camera work seemed odd … wonky shots from the moto and an oddly silhouetted finish. But if they could fix the production quality, it would be good to see the race repeated next year. And good to see representation from a domestic team at the end too.

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I watched the race in person and really enjoyed it. We watched the start, then one of the KOM segments, then the downtown circuit. When we were waiting for the peloton to come through, we learned about the app, and that was helpful in following their progress. The news, the map, and the stats on the gap from the break to the peloton were all delayed by maybe 5-10 minutes, but the video was helpful. I don’t know whether it was the same footage as GCN or not, and I only watched it infrequently, but it was on-point during the times I was watching it.

Keeping pedestrians from crossing in front of the cyclists and motos during the circuit in downtown Baltimore is a work in progress–there were some close calls. There were a lot of great opportunities to watch the race up close, however, and to watch the teams sign in at the start.

The race was unpredictable, with surprising success/dominance by a break that had representation from all of the top teams. The hilly course may have had something to do with it.

It was neat to have a race of that caliber on US soil again.

And it was a good reminder that cycling can make some tweaks that would make it more fan-friendly, such as assigning racers the same race number for the season or their career (or putting their name on the bib), incorporating more circuits so in-person fans can see the bunch come through multiple times, etc. That’s off-topic, and I’m likely uninformed, so apologies O.P.; I don’t mean to detract from your original post.

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It ruined some of the strava segments I do when I bike near home :frowning:

At least no one left one of those powered scooters in the middle of the road

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haha the strava segements were absolutely destroyed. Really puts into perspective how fast the pros are. Guys that are former national champs that held some of those KOMs for years got slaughtered!

Was a great race and awesome to see a pro race locally! I only wish the downtown circuit was larger so half the field didnt get kicked out for the time cut. Anyone that was at risk of being lap traffic in the circuit got pulled. Makes for boring spectator racing when you only see the same few guys every 7 miles.

I live in Baltimore and am somewhat involved with the local scene. Word on the street was they were very limited in the number of cameras available. I’m not sure if some broke or that was the plan all along.

Although I was out of town for the race, they rolled right past my house. Limited video aside, it was really cool to watch the replay and see all the local roads and landmarks I know well. Hopefully, the race will return next year!

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