Man that was one hell of a race. I think the heavy headwind helped as well as the fact that Pedersen Wout and visma were really strong.
Seems that MVDP was sick in the runn up to the race and the crash didn’t help. You could see it earlier in the race imo he wasn’t always in position which is not normal for Jim in these races and after the snap closes he looked like he was hurting… Happy to see Wout performing well but again he misses the podium.
I think RVV will just be hard for everyone against pogi the amount of climbing is a lot and the kwaremont is just a bit too long for the others the keep hanging on.
I would still see Roubaix. As Mvdp main favourite then Pedersen and Van Aert and after that maybe Pogi… We saw in San Remo if it does not go uphill enough he can’t really make the difference… I also think Küng and Ganna can be dangerous if they get in a move early…
Watching it live I was beating up trek and visma for not better leveraging their numerical advantage, particularly from like 110 km to 60 km. Pog was pretty isolated and mvdp had returned from his crash
After second kwaremont it was pretty clear everyone was dead, so while I wanted them to leverage it then I think I was too harsh to expect it
Love that we had a dynamic, competitive finale even if the heavy favorite still won
Even more, I love what it sets up for next weekend. Pederson and wout both seem in form enough to prevent another impressive but boring solo. No changes in mvdp as favorite or pog as over hyped contender (imo podium is his ceiling, can’t see a win this year)
The Tour of the Basque country wraps up today. I’m convinced there are no straight, flat roads in that part of the world. A couple of the one-man descents this year have been kind of scary to watch from the moto.
What US commentators does NBC have lined up to commentate on the women’s field? We can’t complain about Phil and then turn around complain if NBC puts someone on there even less knowledgeable than him on there for a women’s race.
I’ve watched US Pro nationals for several years now and the options NBC has available are very limited. I’m certainly for the women having the best broadcast we can get and it seems the fact that this is broadcast live in the first place is a solid step towards the end goal. It would make zero sense for NBC to invest funds when the viewership just isn’t there…YET
I know they’re using the world feed, I’m watching it. My question was what actual production would you like to see different from the world feed that NBC would do with available resources?
While we’re sitting here watching, the viewership is not there yet to justify investing more $ beyond putting on the world feed at this point.
Minimally in race interviews with DSs, airing pre race interviews with the racers, and (sigh) airing some of the pre produced segments they will inevitably use tomorrow
Also a pre and post race show with talking heads to explain the race and the season for the various teams
They have this largely in place for tomorrow, I assume, so it’s an iterative increase in cost
Given things may be in place, I actually assume the opposite. If it was just a small increase and the projected return would be larger than the investment then they’d do it without question. My assumption is the analysis has been done and we got the option that makes most financial sense for NBC - companies don’t generally do things that don’t have the goal of maximized return, I’d expect no less from NBC, despite the fact that I’d rather listen to Kristen Armstrong or similar.
I cursed the Basque Tour at lunch. When we were in the pub I said something about Basque County aside the races in Europe have had awful weather this year. The finish of the Basque Tour today looked very sketchy
Not certain. I do know that most of the feeds for the women’s races on Flo with a vpn are the world feed so I don’t think a separate broadcast is available for most, but not positive.
If the sport continues to grow in viewership though I anticipate it’ll get there - at least I hope it does
Given the piss poor job American “networks” do with cycling coverage I’d rather they saved their $$$ and didn’t produce their own programming but put the $$$ saved to expanding their men’s and women’s (especially women’s) race coverage. Don’t give us fewer poorly done races, but more races with announcers who understand the sport (world coverage)
