If you're wondering why we made no mention of Biniam Girmay's win on yesterday's stage, it's because we were recording the show before the finish. We weren't expecting such an historical win! Congrats to Biniam, what a legend.
@@Stefan_W. Daryl's win was very much celebrated, as was Robbie Hunter's before him. But becoming the first black African to win a stage of Le Tour is a HUGE moment for the race, and for the whole sport.
I enjoy even quiet and slow bits of the 5 hours because I can enjoy seeing the countryside and special topics that pop up in regional areas or towns. It's a change to learn about hometowns for cyclists or museums dedicated to cycling.
You are just competition nuts. I only started watching cycling for the stunning scenery of Le Tour and the soothing serenity of the peloton snaking its way mile after mile. And I converted a number of my friends, who then ended up peppering me with questions about the rules. Leave well alone. There’s always the highlights for those who only want the exciting bits!
Fixing boring football would be easy just get rid of the off side rule and you would have way more goals making it exciting not the snooze fest it is now. Cycling on the other hand would benefit like cricket did from shortening things up for flat stages. As an ex-sprinting racer myself I can well remember sitting in and just going through the motions in flat races just so that eventually I could get to the last few kms to do my thing. If the flat stages were like 120km then there would be a lot more for breakaways to be excited about.
@@WillPower46 Football is boring if one team just defends all the time. Allowing the attackers to push those defenders even further back towards their own goal doesn’t feel like it would help.
If your only desire is to see the end result, then yes longer is boring. However, to take your LeMans reference, there's a LOT going on in that 24 hours, and not all of it is directly racing related. In their case it's a 24 hour (or longer) massive party, with lots of off-track activities to go do. Related to racing, you can view the race from multiple points, there's almost always someone doing a pit stop (an excellent source of drama and excitement.) I do agree that, shorter stages are generally more exciting because the probability of being able to pull off some stunt increase, since the modern Tour era no longer germinates insanity like Landis' 2006 Stage 17 ride. Irrespective of the ultimate outcome (right or wrong) it was, at least at the time, MASSIVELY entertaining.
In Sweden the commentators (that have been at it since 93-ish) are so freaking good so I love having them on in the background for the whole stage, even when it's a sprint stage. Don't change anything!!
The point at which Kirby starts commentating is, for me, a mute point. Rob Hatch is so much better (though not as good as Dan) despite his quirky pronunciation.
Swede here and this is so true. Basically only reason I watch cycling is to listen to the commentators. It is basically a 5h podcast with beautiful scenery on the TV
Similarly here in Oz we're blessed to have Matt Keenan, Simon Gerrans, and Bridie O'Donnell commentating. Not always exciting, but always very interesting to the point that Mark Renshaw currently DS for Astana (aka Cav's boss) texted Gerrans during the stage to ask about the run in to the sprint finish course (the one where Girmay won) because he knew Simon had ridden that part of the course earlier that morning.
I watched the last hour of the TDF Stage 1 live, the first time ever watching it live. It was amazing. The highlights did not do it justice. I could feel their pain, and I was really invested in the breakaway winning. You don't get that from a short recap.
Agreed - the opening two stages were fantastic, as was stage 4. And we do love the sprint finishes, it's just that there's often very little happening for the first few hours of those stages. Dan
As someone who is stuck what Peacock's coverage of the Tour, I can guarantee you don't want a director choosing when to pull away from the race coverage to show something else. Peacock keeps showing interview and mini documentaries mid race. It is always during the worst time and is poor quality. I will watch 5 hours of boring race coverage if it meant I didn't have Peacock's race coverage anymore.
I've also noticed that the NBC commentators have a stricter script. You'll hear them go off on a bit of a tangent during a quiet part of a stage about the scenery and suddenly go quiet, then switch to talking about stats. Eurosport commentators will talk about pizza for 15 minutes during the quiet part of a stage and it seems like no one cares.
@@megatronknits I believe that it was yesterday (Stage 6), Liggett and Rolle said that they had run out of pages in the Tour's Guidebook for descriptions of points of interest along the parcours.
I wouldn't mind mid game interviews with cyclists in the race. "Hey, we know you guys are about to hit this monster climb, what's going on in your head right now?" Kinda like baseball but with them out in the field. Lol
Simple answer surely is if it's a sprint stage, have more sprints throughout the stage that count big towards the points jersey. May also see more competition for the jersey as breakaway specialists will get involved. But to be honest I don't find the stages boring and as a 90kg cyclist I don't only want to see the smallest guys racing up hills every day (although I love that too).
For anyone wondering about Jorgensen’s “worst day” story. It WASN’T a 170km stage and it WASN’T 4,000m of climbing… it was 212km and 4,700m of climbing. 🤯 The winner took nearly 6 hours. Matteo was only 27 mins behind that. Not bad, having given the peloton a 15min head start. His memory clearly refuses to recall the full horror of it!
Hard disagree that it’s boring. We love the sprint day in our house. The riders are relaxed. You get to see them having a bit more fun and some mischief. They’re also very chatty and we get to hear some of it. You get to admire the scenery and discover landmarks. It’s just slow tv with commentary, which is excellent on the slow days. Both Si and Dan say it’d be boring for someone seeing it for the first time but you’re both wrong. I started watching and it was precisely this that sucked me in. Same for my hubby. I kept calling him on to look at the scenery and listen to the chat. It’s very inviting actually. We have to watch the Tour on catch up at night and we try to watch as much as possible, especially on sprint day, instead of just watching the last hour or so. I’m not adverse to having some intermediate sprints and KOMs and like an InterGiro, but let’s not play around with it too much.
What ‘boring’ sprint stages have that football doesn’t is amazing scenery and views. Learn a little about the country with the commentators help. Include some peloton tech with interludes and mechanics interviews.
Sport is sport and it should answer to the rules and needs of the game/sport itself. The length of stages is part of the amazing sporting feat that the cyclists go through and we should all appreciate that the final sprints come after so many kms. I think that changing sport for viewers can be driven by wrong values and criteria, more focused on short attention spans and commercial needs rather than what the sport in question stands for. Of course I understand that viewers bring money and money keeps the sport alive, but this shouldn't come at the detriment of the purity, beauty and values of the sport.
I enjoy the boring stage’s too. That’s when I appreciate good commentators that talk and show the local architecture and history and landscapes, etc. Talk about the other parts of a grande tour that aren’t immediately on screen and it’s still enjoyable. It’s called a tour for a reason. These stages are good to explain to the new fan just what the heck bike racing is about
As someone who got into cycling only 3 years ago I distinctly remember my first viewing of the tour which was also the first race I watched. Like the two gentlemen said, on the sprint stages I thought at first that the exciting bits were soon to come, then after 20 mins I stopped focusing on the race and did other things. Once that stage ended, and that happened another time, I didn’t want to watch full stages. I started watching highlights instead, and if the highlights were great, looked for extended highlights. Now if I watch a full stage it’s only if it’s projected to be a much contested stage, or one with iconic/hard climbs. People will accuse me of being a casual watcher, and I am, but I don’t think the casual watching crowd should be brushed off. Maybe offer time bonuses throughout the stage to create multiple smaller finish line sprints?
Once upon a time, they raced without radios. Much better to watch because the break was not so easily managed. Despite the riders being given time updates, they weren't given continual real-time instructions from the Directeur Sportif (except if a team member dropped back to get same). Drop the radios, I say!!
On flat stages, sprint every 30 kms. 10kms to recover, 20kms to position and sprint. Enought points on offer to affect the overall winner. Mountain stages, increase the cut off time to give the sprinters a chance to recover from their exertions.
Making stages whizz-bang every single stage is just catering to the short attention span generation... it's a Grand Tour... three weeks of tactics and pain ... it's just like a 5 day Test match in cricket ... if you want a slog-fest, watch 20-20 or a limited over match... if you want cycling sprints and breakaways, watch a one day cycle classic... don't cater to the lowest common denominator all the time... you're cheapening the sport by just making it a non-stop greatest hits package ... maybe you should trim off the waffle and crap from the GCN Show if you want to attract more subscribers. Leave ALL the Tours alone.
Golf is one of the most boring sports to watch except it’s also the most exciting because of the TV coverage which has been supercharged to keep your attention. Much harder for cycling where there is not staggered start. But the facts and discussions on cycling commentary is always interesting and one reason I like watching full stages even all the boring bits.
The Trek Madone SL8 has only increased bike anxiety, not reduced it. With a Madone & an Emonda in the garage, the choice is very easy for the day's ride - flat or climbing - with each bike setup, gear & tyre wise accordingly. With only one bike, the decision is which wheels to put on, and if the gearing is different, the change to the chain, the Di2 settings & possibly the Garmin settings. Give me 2 bikes for reduced anxiety
So here's my half-baked, only recent cycling fan idea: Formalize the "Most Aggressive Rider" award, but make it one of the big overall jerseys rather than just a stage-by-stage jury thing. You set up some kind of a system where if a rider is leading a stage by a certain minimum gap, they start earning points for every km they stay ahead of the pack. That way, they're still getting something even if the sprinter's teams eventually catch up with them. The problem with the current system is threefold: First, the team structures seem pretty rigid. Each team has "their guy" and that guy is there to do "their thing" whether that's the GC, sprinting, climbing, or just winning a stage. The main job of riders who aren't "the guy" seems to be, as near as I can determine, "keep him out of trouble and don't do anything risky or exciting," which doesn't make for exciting viewing. Second, all of important things tend to be determined by what happens at the *end* of something, rather than the middle. The GC guys only care about where they are at the end of a race. Sprinters and stage-goers only care about the end of a stage. The climbers only care about the end of a mountain, etc. That means that the 99% of a stage that isn't the end doesn't really matter? I'm sure there's plenty of tactics and stuff going on I don't really understand, but most of the stage doesn't really have significance on its own. Third, the format strongly disincentivizes breakaways because if a rider gets caught, it's all wasted effort. I have to image teams frown upon support riders doing that unless they're specifically told to.
You might be on to something here. Could be as extreme as awarding average position across a whole stage vs just at the finish. So riders will have to be aggressive for the whole stage vs just at the end.
@@Headhunter_212I like chaos agent idea. Maybe there should be invited riders on top of teams that are like per-event temporary teams, with the riders getting a salary but also bonuses for stuff like breakaways, intermediate sprint and KOM points, etc…will never happen but would be fun
Nonsense. Keep cycling as it is. You don't have to watch if you find it boring. Just tune in for last 3km. For Gods sake don't go down cricket route where they introduce new formats to try and "jazz" it up for short attention span zombies.
I don't see lavaliers or podcast mics, and yet...this is the high-quality audio I know GCN has always been capable of providing. Boom mics? No clue, but kudos! Now take this approach to the GCN Tech Show, please!
I’ve been thinking the TdF needs an award focused on the teams to make early parts of the stages more exciting. I suggest a points contest for the teams, modeled after the pooka-dots and green jerseys. The teams are awarded point, like for the pooka-dot/green sprinters’ contest. The 5th rider of a team that crosses the team contest line determines the points awarded in the team as part of the team contest. The top three teams are giving a podium place at the ends of the TdF. This will give some of the smaller teams something to chase during the race and could lead to exciting racing and maybe lead to some break-aways from the smaller teams. The points could all be awarded in the early parts of the stages to make the them more watchable.
If Hank's song doesn't become the intro to the GCN show now every week, I'll be sorely disappointed... And the tour coverage even on the "boring" days is great, no need to change it. I love hearing about the history of the different villages and regions as they go. American sports don't need to be shortened either, they just need to be less commercialized. 48 minutes for an NBA game or 60 minutes for an NFL game are fine, just don't have a commercial break every 3 plays.
We have folks who wear have nose covers to keep the Sun off and to prevent getting skin cancers. Integrating them with glasses means you don't forget them.
I see no reason for sprint stages to change. It's a 'Tour' de France, and these stages just happen to be flat and have been adopted as 'sprint' stages. You can't have a Tur de France without the tour bit. The increased load and cumulative strain over the 3 weeks is what makes the great riders show their strengths towards the end of the race.
You can have a Tour de France without long flat stages. This isn’t an immutable law of physics, nor is it some sort of strict religious ceremony, contrary to what some luddites would believe. The tour used to be 18 hour, 400km overnight rides. We got rid of that. Time to evolve some more.
If you don't televize the boring bits, you're liable to miss the "Super Streaker"( streaker on a bicycle). The way to keep eyes interested, you need some kind of cheerleader. But, if that fails, send in the streaker. Works like a charm, every time. Especially , in major sports events.
I've watched all stages from Sat - now Thursday and not been bored once, I love the TV footage, the views, the cycling and after Wed's stage am the happiest person in the world
I'd love to see a "breakaway ranking" with either a special bib/helmet or even jersey. It could be the amount of kilometers raced in the head group. It sounds a bit similar to combativity award but I think that it could be a good incentive for riders to go in the break during flat stages.
I thought this also, possibly 6 even 8 intermediate sprints. Tacticts would really need to used and would definitely make the whole stage more interesting.
The best thing about July is the Tour de France podcast. 6 hours a day of Carlton Kirby, Rob Hatch and friends during a sprint stage. Truly a treasure. I drive many hours a day with work, as soon as a race kicks off I’ll pause and watch when I get home, but until then I’ll listen to it as a podcast. It’s golden.
Did something similar while I was travelling during the Giro: I only listened to the live stream. And while doing that I was getting aware what a brilliant job they are doing. If you are a little into cycling and the tactics you almost don't need the video footage! SO Chapeau to them. BTW even being German I prefer the English commentators :)
The big races should do city/ provincial themed primes, where the location gets a 15-minute spotlight just before the peloton/ breakaway arrives. Pepper in some small interviews there of riders' thoughts about the locations while they were doing their recon ride, or memory from a previous visit, and it'll be golden. Make a Tour actually feel like a tour, in a broadcasting sense. Heck, make the prize for the prime a local feature too (wine, cheese, sweets, etc).
Changing sports to attract decreasing attention spans or educate audiences to enjoy sports for what they truly are... The tour and the other stage races are three week events which need to cater for all sorts of stages, including easier ones. If you don't understand that, you simply need to be educated into what the sport is about, not moan about one day's slightly less exciting stage. Not sure about how broadcasters should tackle the new to the sport, but they should focus on getting them attracted to the sport, not on delivering a vanilla, easier to digest version.
How to make a sprint day less dull? Make the whole stage about sprinting! If there an intermediate sprint every (say) 20km, those wanting to contend for the green jersey have to be at the front of the race and have to get themselves into a position to sprint, so there will always be action. You could even go one further and change the format of a sprint stage so that instead of the stage winner being whoever crosses the line first, it could be who accumulates the most sprint points in the day (the time at which riders cross the line would then only impact on GC standings). Imagine how it would change a boring sprint stage if every sprinter had to contest 20 sprints to stand a chance of being the stage winner!
I am fine with sprint stages. For the first 4 hours, I watch them as a sort of zen program, mostly in the background. After the looooong build-up, I then really enjoy the intensity and suspense of the last 20 kilometers
I wouldnt want to change too much, the climbers need their day and the sprinters need theirs. 2 Small-ish changes but i think it would add a little of fun: change a mountain day into a team relay. Place your riders throughout the distance, all teams have one rider at the start line, brings in tactics of playing into different riders’ strengths. If youre worried about the time differences being too great you can do total team time divided by 8 = individual GC time, similar time totals to TT. Maybe b/c im american and we love it here but i’d love to see a flat or hilly day turned into a criterium. You can do it similar to the WC last yr in Glasgow, maybe 20-50k into a a city, then 10 10-15k laps around the city. Im sure there are plenty of cities that would love to host that, hell, i bet Monaco would love to host that and that practically turn it into a mini mountain stage with the climbing around there
SBS in Australia do a great job of coverage in big races. 3 options. 1- Full stage(obviously live and replay) 2- 50 min highlights - the choice for mountain or dynamic stages 3 - 20 min highlights - use these for obvious sprint stages.
We forget this is a sport that was invented to sell news papers…I like the up and down cadence of the grand tours. Sprint stages give me a chance to tune out for the day and just watch 15min of racing rather than 3hrs and perhaps, for the commentators sake, you don’t need to show every stage start to finish. If you want something that’s constant entertainment then we should throw more TV weight behind track cycling. Track cycling was actually designed as a spectator sport to be watched start to finish.
Here in Australia, late at night! I usually only watch the mountain stages in full and watch the fabulous SBS channels’ hour long highlight package every evening at 5pm
The TDF is no longer broadcast here in Canada on a non-pay channel. Too long for networks to broadcast as folks dont have the time. Recording and fast forwarding is a nightmare for advertisers. They wont spend and therefore networks wont eat up 5+hours of “will this ever end” type content. 90 minutes in Prime Time. Edit it, show it and sponsors will pay. Otherwise, the watching comment is way too long for 95% of the viewers and broadcasters!
Just scrub the sprint stages all together. I'm bored of watching pampered primadonnas getting drafted to the line to do their stuff. There's more than enough mountains for real racing and it's way more exciting to watch!
wrt how to make boring stages more entertaining...responsibility of the broadcaster IMO to have enough interviews, clips of Contador riding up mountains, highlights of past stages, etc., all with the boring stage in picture-in-picture in the corner, or something like that. They're already doing this... just more of this i think
I agree in flat stages at the TdF or any other grand tour, the distance should be limited to roughly a 100k. This would increase the speed and as you mentioned, it would give breakaways at any time of the race a more realistic chance to actually win the stage.
I agree with Si, it's a coverage thing, where highlights will fix the issue. True for most racing, it's boring 99% of the time, and has a few fun bits. Alternatively, watch it on the weekend in the background.
I'm a casual cycling fan and watching highlights of the TdF is enough for me. I'd never watch more than 30 minutes of a bicycle race, unless there were several intermediate sprints, KOMs, exciting descents, crashes, etc. worth watching. Seeing the pelotón moving down the road is only slightly better than watching paint dry
TdF should look to this year's Giro. The "shorter" stages really did set up aggressive racing from the off. Also puts the pressure on the sprint teams who can no longer assume that it will be a sprint train finish
NOOOOOoooooo, NOT the "entertainment" bullshit that has blighted once great sports like F1 and turned it into "every child gets a prize" bullshit! Besides the only way to guarantee constant, short-attention span, ADHD generation, constant EXCITING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ENTERTAINMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is to make sprint stages just 10km long. And for mountain stages, they race up a mountain, hop on a bus, go the next mountain, race up that mountain, hop on a bus, repeat until Netfux decrees they have enough ENTERTAINNNMEEENNNTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. And of course, those pesky boring Time Trial stages, just make everyone race againstttt eachhh oth.............ohhhhhhhhhh. Oh and as others have mentioned, one of the truly great parts of the Grand Tours is the scenic travelogue and history aspects. I love the competition, but I also love that side of the races as well. As for just showing an hour's highlights package, well SBS here in Australia not only shows full stages live, but within a few hours of the stage ending have available to watch a replay of the complete stage, an (and this will blow your minds and cause you coffee to boil over) hour long replay show, and finally a more traditional short highlights show. All available free to stream.
Shorter stages. I know this is an endurance sport, but if its about viewership, 100km stages would be ideal keeping stages around 3 hours, which is the perfect time to watch a sporting event.
Sprint stages could be made more fun, in my opinion, by making them AT MOST 75km to 100km. Perhaps less (60!?)? Because listen, the riders aren't doing much for the first 75% of a pan flat day anyways. It would only hurt the breakaways slightly I feel and well, how often do they steal a real sprint stage? Not that often. So, if they're all much shorter, it would compact all the action. Everyone would be happier too, the riders would have less time on the bike and more recovery, the fans wouldn't have to watch the first eye gougingly boring 2-3 hours and even the broadcasters, who you said yourself Dan, wouldn't be so bored.
I love boring stages! They are excellent wallpaper when working from home. I've embraced the Stockholm syndrome I acquired during lockdown, held hostage by Carlton Kirby's cheesy commentary. Gratuitous helicopter shots of beautiful countryside accompanied by Kirby's meandering drivel has become a comfort blanket for me that makes working from home a real joy.
Lantern Rouge apparently entertained themselves by watching the pissing match between UAE and Visma about who was going to ride on the left hand side of the road... Pretty serious stuff! But in more important news, I remember waiting for busses when I was growing up in Canada and having my eyelids freeze shut. No longer living in Canada... for some reason... (Traded it for 35 C heat and 80% humidity... I think there may be something wrong with me...)
How about this: a stage that's 5 TT of 20-25km each distributed as A➝B, B➝A, A➝B, B➝A, A➝B going through 2 different routes. A total of 100-125km, much harder than that same distance done in a single continuous ride. Could be done as an ITT, or as a TT by heats, in which heats are organized based on the top riders of the previous stages (ie.: average top10, 11-20, 21-30, etc, and as usual, slowest riders go out first). Winner of the stage is the rider with the lowest overall time. It's a sprint stage, you can have bunch sprints if it's done in heats, safer because it's limited to 10 riders per heat, and it makes 100+km not boring. You can even add bonuses for the winner of each of the time trials, or for the rider with the overall fastest time on each of the 2 different routes (regardless of the heat). The details would need to be refined to make it viable, safe and not too draining for riders, but it's possible to make these stages more entertaining without changing the soul of the race, because you'd still have your other typical stages, and this would be just one that would take the spot of a boring, filler kind of stage. I still love the "boring" stages and think they should always have a prominent presence in the Tour, much like normal ITT and hard mountain stages. Similarly, a normal stage of ~150km could also be divided in several parts and have several finish-line sprints/climbs across the stage with a rest of 20 minutes or so in between, with the winner being the rider with the best overall time across all parts of the stage. This would also be fun to watch because a stage like that would be ridden hard on a variety of formats (flat sprint, climb, technical twisting roads, etc). Just some ideas.
I don't purchase the ability to watch the whole race, but I love it. Like almost all Olympic events. NBC sports has a nice 30-50 minute recap. I wish I could watch more and I wouldn't change anything. I'm no expert, but they do a good job of planning the routes and do have various premiums and points by stage, so I think it's fair and good.
$1000 from Uber for ditching the car for 5 weeks? in my city, they added a $90 transit levy to car insurance. And then cut bus service to my neighbourhood. So I have to ride or walk. Won't fly, although it is a noble idea, that I fully support. People have to stop thinking public transit is costly. It is NOT, considering the cost associated with car ownership; not to mention accompanying accidents, that society has to pay the costs of.
Who watches a test cricket match from start to finish? Like any grand tour stage you try and grab the last hour live if you can. All the grand tours and major classics run in the background in our home. It is the commentators that make the best of a boring stage. Carlton, Sean, Dan and Adam are regular voices in our house. Even Aussie Robbie. Also, most cycling fans have to pay for the privilege of watching live cycling. After the death of gcn+ and the final days of eurosports our only option will be, God forbid, discovery+. More helicopter shots of Chateaus and vineyards, yes please. Recipes and wine suggestions from Jonathan Harris-Bass. We even miss Orla and her grand tour specific attire.
Nobody needs 200+ km. Make the race more like 90 - 120 minutes. Love the sport but life too short for watching "nothing happening" for like five hours (or even longer). Especially when you want appeal to a younger audience > make it shorter AND more entertaining.
I always thought the complaint of 'professional cycling is boring to watch' is similar to the complaint that 'nascar is boring to watch' because both are endurance events that are all about the strategy of trying to place yourself for the finish with out burning yourself out through the multi hour race. And let's be fair, that the commentary on cycling events is pitched closer to a golf tour than a horse race is part of why it's seen as boring.
I wouldn’t do anything to pro-cycling stages that are long and boring. Most people who watch pro-cycling are cyclists themselves and probably are used to long rides themselves. So hopefully the pro-cycling audience, by the aforementioned categorisation, doesn’t suffer from too much ADHD! 😅 If I know that it’s going to be a long boring ride, I just follow it on ProCyclingStats till the point where I feel it’s gonna start getting interesting. After that I switch over to the live video. Also only grand tour races are broadcast from start to end. Spring classics and other WT races are usually broadcast live only much later in the race. Although I would add that after watching the Giro this year, I would like to see something like the Intergiro in all grand tours, with a special jersey as well. That would definitely give more motivation than just a combativity award!
5 weeks in a northern californian summer. It's been almost 110F every day for the past 10 days. Didn't get below 100F in our back yard tonight until midnight and as a lad from Bolton, it's not the best cycling weather. Tarmac temps were around 140F. You don't want to ride in that. I'd take the Canadian winter. At least you can add clothes.
In Australia SBS broadcast Live in full, offer a 52minute highlight, a 30minute highlight or a 3minute finishing line option. Personally with work the 52minute suits me. Couldn’t commit the time to watch the whole stage. Agreed, TV needs to do more to hold attention. We don’t have Phil Ligget anymore as he’s moved to the dark side but, I did used to love the shots of Tour art by farmers etc and points of interest, so they try but should do more.
Dan. Don't worry about the sports fan that stumbles across le tour whilst channel surfing (or any other bike race for that matter). Le tour is behind a pay wall. No chance of "growing the game" if exclude the non-cycling sports fan. And in an unrelated note: Why does my ID show up with "9577" behind it?
To improve boringness you'd start thinking about doing more/other stuff along the cours. In that spirit I always like the "Golden KM" (three boni and point sprints 500 meters apart) in the Benelux tour and some Belgian stage races. That only really works when the GC is close, so early in the tour, before the largest time gaps have been made, so would have limited use in this stage 3. Maybe the UCI can have the allowed jerseys upped, making room for making intermediate classifications higher profile. Otherwise it's on the broadcasters really.
If you're wondering why we made no mention of Biniam Girmay's win on yesterday's stage, it's because we were recording the show before the finish. We weren't expecting such an historical win! Congrats to Biniam, what a legend.
Can we get a pin on this?
He smashed it 🙌
📌
@@Stefan_W. Daryl's win was very much celebrated, as was Robbie Hunter's before him. But becoming the first black African to win a stage of Le Tour is a HUGE moment for the race, and for the whole sport.
Thanks, are you gonna be back on Eurosport at all?
I enjoy even quiet and slow bits of the 5 hours because I can enjoy seeing the countryside and special topics that pop up in regional areas or towns. It's a change to learn about hometowns for cyclists or museums dedicated to cycling.
Me too 100%
You are just competition nuts. I only started watching cycling for the stunning scenery of Le Tour and the soothing serenity of the peloton snaking its way mile after mile. And I converted a number of my friends, who then ended up peppering me with questions about the rules. Leave well alone. There’s always the highlights for those who only want the exciting bits!
That's cool, but I hope you can appreciate that you're in the minority. I'd rather spend that time out riding.
Totally agree 👍
@@rlm4471millions of non cycling fans tune in just for the scenery and history.
Asking if the tour should/shouldnt have long boring stages is like asking if the 24hrs of la mans needs to be 24 hrs
Fixing boring football would be easy just get rid of the off side rule and you would have way more goals making it exciting not the snooze fest it is now. Cycling on the other hand would benefit like cricket did from shortening things up for flat stages. As an ex-sprinting racer myself I can well remember sitting in and just going through the motions in flat races just so that eventually I could get to the last few kms to do my thing. If the flat stages were like 120km then there would be a lot more for breakaways to be excited about.
@@WillPower46 Football is boring if one team just defends all the time. Allowing the attackers to push those defenders even further back towards their own goal doesn’t feel like it would help.
Hahahaha very true! It's part of the fabric of the race, those long stages can throw up some real issues 👀
If your only desire is to see the end result, then yes longer is boring. However, to take your LeMans reference, there's a LOT going on in that 24 hours, and not all of it is directly racing related. In their case it's a 24 hour (or longer) massive party, with lots of off-track activities to go do. Related to racing, you can view the race from multiple points, there's almost always someone doing a pit stop (an excellent source of drama and excitement.) I do agree that, shorter stages are generally more exciting because the probability of being able to pull off some stunt increase, since the modern Tour era no longer germinates insanity like Landis' 2006 Stage 17 ride. Irrespective of the ultimate outcome (right or wrong) it was, at least at the time, MASSIVELY entertaining.
@@johnhufnagel but some of us have brains and use thoughts. those boed literally dont and thry wantto deny us those thoughts lol.
In Sweden the commentators (that have been at it since 93-ish) are so freaking good so I love having them on in the background for the whole stage, even when it's a sprint stage. Don't change anything!!
The point at which Kirby starts commentating is, for me, a mute point. Rob Hatch is so much better (though not as good as Dan) despite his quirky pronunciation.
@@stevemawer848nobody fills boring stages better than Carlton Kirby, his anecdotes are legendary, Rob is good but a bit vanilla
Swede here and this is so true. Basically only reason I watch cycling is to listen to the commentators. It is basically a 5h podcast with beautiful scenery on the TV
That makes all the difference 🙌
Similarly here in Oz we're blessed to have Matt Keenan, Simon Gerrans, and Bridie O'Donnell commentating. Not always exciting, but always very interesting to the point that Mark Renshaw currently DS for Astana (aka Cav's boss) texted Gerrans during the stage to ask about the run in to the sprint finish course (the one where Girmay won) because he knew Simon had ridden that part of the course earlier that morning.
It's a tour, they need to travel distance and it can't be all in the mountains or TT.
We all wish it could be though 😔 Sprints can be exciting to watch though!
I watched the last hour of the TDF Stage 1 live, the first time ever watching it live. It was amazing. The highlights did not do it justice. I could feel their pain, and I was really invested in the breakaway winning. You don't get that from a short recap.
Agreed - the opening two stages were fantastic, as was stage 4. And we do love the sprint finishes, it's just that there's often very little happening for the first few hours of those stages. Dan
Nothing beats watching a full stage 👌
Trust me: A long sprint stage is MUCH more interesting than most contemporary F1 races.
To make the Tour less boring, how about this compromise: you can use performance-enhancing drugs if you pair them with the psychedelic ones.
You can use whatever you like, but you have to compete on a Brompton.
@@Toastybear1 Or maybe make it like "Squid Game."
Best comment! 😂
As someone who is stuck what Peacock's coverage of the Tour, I can guarantee you don't want a director choosing when to pull away from the race coverage to show something else. Peacock keeps showing interview and mini documentaries mid race. It is always during the worst time and is poor quality. I will watch 5 hours of boring race coverage if it meant I didn't have Peacock's race coverage anymore.
VPN, Flobikes, and Canadian or UK feed. Back to Eurosport coverage and your sanity. 🫡
I've also noticed that the NBC commentators have a stricter script. You'll hear them go off on a bit of a tangent during a quiet part of a stage about the scenery and suddenly go quiet, then switch to talking about stats. Eurosport commentators will talk about pizza for 15 minutes during the quiet part of a stage and it seems like no one cares.
We're stuck with Peacock 🦚 until 2029!
@@megatronknits I believe that it was yesterday (Stage 6), Liggett and Rolle said that they had run out of pages in the Tour's Guidebook for descriptions of points of interest along the parcours.
I wouldn't mind mid game interviews with cyclists in the race. "Hey, we know you guys are about to hit this monster climb, what's going on in your head right now?" Kinda like baseball but with them out in the field. Lol
Simple answer surely is if it's a sprint stage, have more sprints throughout the stage that count big towards the points jersey. May also see more competition for the jersey as breakaway specialists will get involved. But to be honest I don't find the stages boring and as a 90kg cyclist I don't only want to see the smallest guys racing up hills every day (although I love that too).
yep
Sprints make for amazing viewing, perhaps it would be cool to see more points of interest on route 👀
#captioncompetition - Good to see streaming back on GCN !
This better get you a water bottle xDDD
For anyone wondering about Jorgensen’s “worst day” story. It WASN’T a 170km stage and it WASN’T 4,000m of climbing… it was 212km and 4,700m of climbing. 🤯 The winner took nearly 6 hours. Matteo was only 27 mins behind that. Not bad, having given the peloton a 15min head start. His memory clearly refuses to recall the full horror of it!
Caption: On “exhibition” in France this week, Monet’s lost work: Tadej Amongst the Water Lillies
A boring stage? The soothing sounds from the helicopter rotor blades is perfect for napping
Hard disagree that it’s boring. We love the sprint day in our house. The riders are relaxed. You get to see them having a bit more fun and some mischief. They’re also very chatty and we get to hear some of it. You get to admire the scenery and discover landmarks. It’s just slow tv with commentary, which is excellent on the slow days. Both Si and Dan say it’d be boring for someone seeing it for the first time but you’re both wrong. I started watching and it was precisely this that sucked me in. Same for my hubby. I kept calling him on to look at the scenery and listen to the chat. It’s very inviting actually. We have to watch the Tour on catch up at night and we try to watch as much as possible, especially on sprint day, instead of just watching the last hour or so. I’m not adverse to having some intermediate sprints and KOMs and like an InterGiro, but let’s not play around with it too much.
Caption: "I drew a line ... I drew a line for you
Oh, what a thing to do ... And it was all yellow" - Coldplay
It seems like Pog is on a higher power this year 😉
@@gcn Indeed 🤩
I love a boring stage😊
Beers books and relax enjoy the scenery
In the Tour Suisse the Tissot watch prize proved popular with the riders 😊
Oh yes please!
What ‘boring’ sprint stages have that football doesn’t is amazing scenery and views. Learn a little about the country with the commentators help. Include some peloton tech with interludes and mechanics interviews.
Long boring stages are a perfect time to work on your bikes while you watch. That's what a shop is for:)
Sport is sport and it should answer to the rules and needs of the game/sport itself. The length of stages is part of the amazing sporting feat that the cyclists go through and we should all appreciate that the final sprints come after so many kms. I think that changing sport for viewers can be driven by wrong values and criteria, more focused on short attention spans and commercial needs rather than what the sport in question stands for. Of course I understand that viewers bring money and money keeps the sport alive, but this shouldn't come at the detriment of the purity, beauty and values of the sport.
I enjoy the boring stage’s too. That’s when I appreciate good commentators that talk and show the local architecture and history and landscapes, etc. Talk about the other parts of a grande tour that aren’t immediately on screen and it’s still enjoyable. It’s called a tour for a reason. These stages are good to explain to the new fan just what the heck bike racing is about
As someone who got into cycling only 3 years ago I distinctly remember my first viewing of the tour which was also the first race I watched. Like the two gentlemen said, on the sprint stages I thought at first that the exciting bits were soon to come, then after 20 mins I stopped focusing on the race and did other things. Once that stage ended, and that happened another time, I didn’t want to watch full stages. I started watching highlights instead, and if the highlights were great, looked for extended highlights. Now if I watch a full stage it’s only if it’s projected to be a much contested stage, or one with iconic/hard climbs. People will accuse me of being a casual watcher, and I am, but I don’t think the casual watching crowd should be brushed off. Maybe offer time bonuses throughout the stage to create multiple smaller finish line sprints?
I like them
Once upon a time, they raced without radios. Much better to watch because the break was not so easily managed. Despite the riders being given time updates, they weren't given continual real-time instructions from the Directeur Sportif (except if a team member dropped back to get same). Drop the radios, I say!!
On flat stages, sprint every 30 kms. 10kms to recover, 20kms to position and sprint. Enought points on offer to affect the overall winner. Mountain stages, increase the cut off time to give the sprinters a chance to recover from their exertions.
You were on the toilet when you thought of that weren’t you?
Wow! That would shake things up 👀
Making stages whizz-bang every single stage is just catering to the short attention span generation... it's a Grand Tour... three weeks of tactics and pain ... it's just like a 5 day Test match in cricket ... if you want a slog-fest, watch 20-20 or a limited over match... if you want cycling sprints and breakaways, watch a one day cycle classic... don't cater to the lowest common denominator all the time... you're cheapening the sport by just making it a non-stop greatest hits package ... maybe you should trim off the waffle and crap from the GCN Show if you want to attract more subscribers. Leave ALL the Tours alone.
Golf is one of the most boring sports to watch except it’s also the most exciting because of the TV coverage which has been supercharged to keep your attention. Much harder for cycling where there is not staggered start. But the facts and discussions on cycling commentary is always interesting and one reason I like watching full stages even all the boring bits.
The Trek Madone SL8 has only increased bike anxiety, not reduced it. With a Madone & an Emonda in the garage, the choice is very easy for the day's ride - flat or climbing - with each bike setup, gear & tyre wise accordingly. With only one bike, the decision is which wheels to put on, and if the gearing is different, the change to the chain, the Di2 settings & possibly the Garmin settings. Give me 2 bikes for reduced anxiety
So here's my half-baked, only recent cycling fan idea:
Formalize the "Most Aggressive Rider" award, but make it one of the big overall jerseys rather than just a stage-by-stage jury thing. You set up some kind of a system where if a rider is leading a stage by a certain minimum gap, they start earning points for every km they stay ahead of the pack. That way, they're still getting something even if the sprinter's teams eventually catch up with them.
The problem with the current system is threefold: First, the team structures seem pretty rigid. Each team has "their guy" and that guy is there to do "their thing" whether that's the GC, sprinting, climbing, or just winning a stage. The main job of riders who aren't "the guy" seems to be, as near as I can determine, "keep him out of trouble and don't do anything risky or exciting," which doesn't make for exciting viewing.
Second, all of important things tend to be determined by what happens at the *end* of something, rather than the middle. The GC guys only care about where they are at the end of a race. Sprinters and stage-goers only care about the end of a stage. The climbers only care about the end of a mountain, etc. That means that the 99% of a stage that isn't the end doesn't really matter? I'm sure there's plenty of tactics and stuff going on I don't really understand, but most of the stage doesn't really have significance on its own.
Third, the format strongly disincentivizes breakaways because if a rider gets caught, it's all wasted effort. I have to image teams frown upon support riders doing that unless they're specifically told to.
I LOVE this idea!
Maybe add 20+ unaffiliated riders as chaos agents who compete on this aggressive rider category.
You might be on to something here. Could be as extreme as awarding average position across a whole stage vs just at the finish. So riders will have to be aggressive for the whole stage vs just at the end.
@@future62 This is a terrific idea. Chapeau!
@@Headhunter_212I like chaos agent idea. Maybe there should be invited riders on top of teams that are like per-event temporary teams, with the riders getting a salary but also bonuses for stuff like breakaways, intermediate sprint and KOM points, etc…will never happen but would be fun
#captioncompetition "Tadej tackles todger in Tour transit to Turin" ..... bit too "tabloid-esque" maybe? 🤔😅
Dan has had more mentions on commentary than when he was on Discovery +. Sounds like the team miss him. Good luck guys
We're happy to have Dan fully back on GCN 🙌
Nonsense. Keep cycling as it is. You don't have to watch if you find it boring. Just tune in for last 3km. For Gods sake don't go down cricket route where they introduce new formats to try and "jazz" it up for short attention span zombies.
I don't see lavaliers or podcast mics, and yet...this is the high-quality audio I know GCN has always been capable of providing. Boom mics? No clue, but kudos! Now take this approach to the GCN Tech Show, please!
We don't let our secrets out 😉
@@gcn I don't need to know how the trick is done. I just want to be wowed by the magic.
I’ve been thinking the TdF needs an award focused on the teams to make early parts of the stages more exciting. I suggest a points contest for the teams, modeled after the pooka-dots and green jerseys. The teams are awarded point, like for the pooka-dot/green sprinters’ contest. The 5th rider of a team that crosses the team contest line determines the points awarded in the team as part of the team contest. The top three teams are giving a podium place at the ends of the TdF. This will give some of the smaller teams something to chase during the race and could lead to exciting racing and maybe lead to some break-aways from the smaller teams. The points could all be awarded in the early parts of the stages to make the them more watchable.
If Hank's song doesn't become the intro to the GCN show now every week, I'll be sorely disappointed... And the tour coverage even on the "boring" days is great, no need to change it. I love hearing about the history of the different villages and regions as they go. American sports don't need to be shortened either, they just need to be less commercialized. 48 minutes for an NBA game or 60 minutes for an NFL game are fine, just don't have a commercial break every 3 plays.
Hahahaha you want more of Hank's tune?
Where can I find Hank's reel?
Long stages are boring. Skeletons on bikes going up mountains is boring. Cycling without drugs is boring. Sprints are awesome, unless you can sprint!
Think of the aero shades as preventing skin cancer and I could wear them. Mountaineers have worn similar contraptions for decades.
We have folks who wear have nose covers to keep the Sun off and to prevent getting skin cancers. Integrating them with glasses means you don't forget them.
That's a really interesting take! 🙌
I see no reason for sprint stages to change. It's a 'Tour' de France, and these stages just happen to be flat and have been adopted as 'sprint' stages. You can't have a Tur de France without the tour bit. The increased load and cumulative strain over the 3 weeks is what makes the great riders show their strengths towards the end of the race.
You can have a Tour de France without long flat stages. This isn’t an immutable law of physics, nor is it some sort of strict religious ceremony, contrary to what some luddites would believe.
The tour used to be 18 hour, 400km overnight rides. We got rid of that. Time to evolve some more.
If you don't televize the boring bits, you're liable to miss the "Super Streaker"( streaker on a bicycle). The way to keep eyes interested, you need some kind of cheerleader. But, if that fails, send in the streaker. Works like a charm, every time. Especially , in major sports events.
Hahaha there is always something going on 👀 Side winds can also cause GC chaos!
I've watched all stages from Sat - now Thursday and not been bored once, I love the TV footage, the views, the cycling and after Wed's stage am the happiest person in the world
Dan is the man, give this man a joint, best presenter by far
Is just far away
I'd love to see a "breakaway ranking" with either a special bib/helmet or even jersey. It could be the amount of kilometers raced in the head group. It sounds a bit similar to combativity award but I think that it could be a good incentive for riders to go in the break during flat stages.
A points competition would be great. Have 4 intermediate sprints worth as much as the finish in total
I thought this also, possibly 6 even 8 intermediate sprints. Tacticts would really need to used and would definitely make the whole stage more interesting.
Yes, I agree with this
Like crit Primes!
#Captioncompetition: "if you look closely, there are five 1's in this picture"
The best thing about July is the Tour de France podcast. 6 hours a day of Carlton Kirby, Rob Hatch and friends during a sprint stage. Truly a treasure.
I drive many hours a day with work, as soon as a race kicks off I’ll pause and watch when I get home, but until then I’ll listen to it as a podcast. It’s golden.
Did something similar while I was travelling during the Giro: I only listened to the live stream. And while doing that I was getting aware what a brilliant job they are doing. If you are a little into cycling and the tactics you almost don't need the video footage! SO Chapeau to them. BTW even being German I prefer the English commentators :)
You know summer has hit when their voices come on 🙌
Where do you listen to this? Had a quick search and can't find it.
@@londonbornuk I subscribe to Eurosport and watch/listen there :)
Caption:
Tadej: “Hey peloton, pee, no?”
FDJ “He’s not riding this year, he retired!”
The big races should do city/ provincial themed primes, where the location gets a 15-minute spotlight just before the peloton/ breakaway arrives. Pepper in some small interviews there of riders' thoughts about the locations while they were doing their recon ride, or memory from a previous visit, and it'll be golden. Make a Tour actually feel like a tour, in a broadcasting sense. Heck, make the prize for the prime a local feature too (wine, cheese, sweets, etc).
Changing sports to attract decreasing attention spans or educate audiences to enjoy sports for what they truly are... The tour and the other stage races are three week events which need to cater for all sorts of stages, including easier ones. If you don't understand that, you simply need to be educated into what the sport is about, not moan about one day's slightly less exciting stage. Not sure about how broadcasters should tackle the new to the sport, but they should focus on getting them attracted to the sport, not on delivering a vanilla, easier to digest version.
How to make a sprint day less dull? Make the whole stage about sprinting! If there an intermediate sprint every (say) 20km, those wanting to contend for the green jersey have to be at the front of the race and have to get themselves into a position to sprint, so there will always be action. You could even go one further and change the format of a sprint stage so that instead of the stage winner being whoever crosses the line first, it could be who accumulates the most sprint points in the day (the time at which riders cross the line would then only impact on GC standings). Imagine how it would change a boring sprint stage if every sprinter had to contest 20 sprints to stand a chance of being the stage winner!
I tune in on “boring” stages to hear the commentary stories and analysis. Also, I like to view rider positions, cadence, etc.
We spy a true cycling nerd... and we love it!
I am fine with sprint stages. For the first 4 hours, I watch them as a sort of zen program, mostly in the background. After the looooong build-up, I then really enjoy the intensity and suspense of the last 20 kilometers
Bring back the red jersey. And the combine for that matter.
100% agree
I wouldnt want to change too much, the climbers need their day and the sprinters need theirs. 2 Small-ish changes but i think it would add a little of fun: change a mountain day into a team relay. Place your riders throughout the distance, all teams have one rider at the start line, brings in tactics of playing into different riders’ strengths. If youre worried about the time differences being too great you can do total team time divided by 8 = individual GC time, similar time totals to TT. Maybe b/c im american and we love it here but i’d love to see a flat or hilly day turned into a criterium. You can do it similar to the WC last yr in Glasgow, maybe 20-50k into a a city, then 10 10-15k laps around the city. Im sure there are plenty of cities that would love to host that, hell, i bet Monaco would love to host that and that practically turn it into a mini mountain stage with the climbing around there
Use it equal
Caption. Wee won´t stain this kit, what a relief!!
£13 a month for some oldish cycling documentaries? Come on eh lads, get real.
timeless!
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of boredom, we shouldn’t need to be entertained constantly! 8:52
Distance makes the heart grow fonder 🙌
msg for Hank - meth's a bytche
#captioncompetition "Weeictory"
SBS in Australia do a great job of coverage in big races.
3 options.
1- Full stage(obviously live and replay)
2- 50 min highlights - the choice for mountain or dynamic stages
3 - 20 min highlights - use these for obvious sprint stages.
Wrong. They need to show every stage.
We forget this is a sport that was invented to sell news papers…I like the up and down cadence of the grand tours. Sprint stages give me a chance to tune out for the day and just watch 15min of racing rather than 3hrs and perhaps, for the commentators sake, you don’t need to show every stage start to finish. If you want something that’s constant entertainment then we should throw more TV weight behind track cycling. Track cycling was actually designed as a spectator sport to be watched start to finish.
I wish more people had the opportunity to go to a velodrome and watch track cycling. It's super fun to watch in person.
@@rlm4471 the biggest thing I miss from GCN+ is the track cycling coverage 😢…
That Hank rap though. Could be a good one for a ride motivator! lol #captioncontest "Help me Jonas, I can't find it."
#CaptionChallenge "Weeeee..."
Here in Australia, late at night! I usually only watch the mountain stages in full and watch the fabulous SBS channels’ hour long highlight package every evening at 5pm
#CaptionCompetition Tadej still producing yellow and hoping to be "number 1" by the end of the tour.
I will get a membership but I've watched all the docs previously so when will new gcn+ docs be coming out or is that something in the pipeline
The TDF is no longer broadcast here in Canada on a non-pay channel. Too long for networks to broadcast as folks dont have the time. Recording and fast forwarding is a nightmare for advertisers. They wont spend and therefore networks wont eat up 5+hours of “will this ever end” type content. 90 minutes in Prime Time. Edit it, show it and sponsors will pay. Otherwise, the watching comment is way too long for 95% of the viewers and broadcasters!
#CaptionChallenge "Checking hydration level, if it's yellow, keep winning"
Just scrub the sprint stages all together. I'm bored of watching pampered primadonnas getting drafted to the line to do their stuff.
There's more than enough mountains for real racing and it's way more exciting to watch!
I miss Dan as commentator. It's hard to listen to Carlton Kirby for hours and hours. I want Robbie and Dan!
wrt how to make boring stages more entertaining...responsibility of the broadcaster IMO to have enough interviews, clips of Contador riding up mountains, highlights of past stages, etc., all with the boring stage in picture-in-picture in the corner, or something like that. They're already doing this... just more of this i think
I agree in flat stages at the TdF or any other grand tour, the distance should be limited to roughly a 100k. This would increase the speed and as you mentioned, it would give breakaways at any time of the race a more realistic chance to actually win the stage.
Caption Competition---- They said the steroids wouldn't do this !!!!!!!!!!
I agree with Si, it's a coverage thing, where highlights will fix the issue. True for most racing, it's boring 99% of the time, and has a few fun bits. Alternatively, watch it on the weekend in the background.
I'm a casual cycling fan and watching highlights of the TdF is enough for me. I'd never watch more than 30 minutes of a bicycle race, unless there were several intermediate sprints, KOMs, exciting descents, crashes, etc. worth watching. Seeing the pelotón moving down the road is only slightly better than watching paint dry
Conor and myself will need a full size frame pump to fix a slipping seat post.
I
Was Hank trying to get a spot with Astana for next year?
haha! The Astana Rap was golden
#captioncompetition In the tune of Hank's new dance hit, "I'm looking for an ant to pee on, pee on, pee on."
I have a new reason to watch the GCN Show: it's just so weird watching the Tour and not hearing Dan's dulcet tones. So I come here to get my fix.
You know it makes sense
You can fill your boots here 🙌
Extra boring stage.... Common GCN, cheap criticism. It's a TOUR, not a one day course. Maybe GCN is becoming the boring one? Always the same stuff...
TdF should look to this year's Giro. The "shorter" stages really did set up aggressive racing from the off. Also puts the pressure on the sprint teams who can no longer assume that it will be a sprint train finish
#captioncontest: can we win the TdF, yes wee can
GCN channel membership is like GCN+-
NOOOOOoooooo, NOT the "entertainment" bullshit that has blighted once great sports like F1 and turned it into "every child gets a prize" bullshit! Besides the only way to guarantee constant, short-attention span, ADHD generation, constant EXCITING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ENTERTAINMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is to make sprint stages just 10km long. And for mountain stages, they race up a mountain, hop on a bus, go the next mountain, race up that mountain, hop on a bus, repeat until Netfux decrees they have enough ENTERTAINNNMEEENNNTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. And of course, those pesky boring Time Trial stages, just make everyone race againstttt eachhh oth.............ohhhhhhhhhh.
Oh and as others have mentioned, one of the truly great parts of the Grand Tours is the scenic travelogue and history aspects. I love the competition, but I also love that side of the races as well.
As for just showing an hour's highlights package, well SBS here in Australia not only shows full stages live, but within a few hours of the stage ending have available to watch a replay of the complete stage, an (and this will blow your minds and cause you coffee to boil over) hour long replay show, and finally a more traditional short highlights show. All available free to stream.
Shorter stages. I know this is an endurance sport, but if its about viewership, 100km stages would be ideal keeping stages around 3 hours, which is the perfect time to watch a sporting event.
Sprint stages could be made more fun, in my opinion, by making them AT MOST 75km to 100km. Perhaps less (60!?)? Because listen, the riders aren't doing much for the first 75% of a pan flat day anyways. It would only hurt the breakaways slightly I feel and well, how often do they steal a real sprint stage? Not that often. So, if they're all much shorter, it would compact all the action. Everyone would be happier too, the riders would have less time on the bike and more recovery, the fans wouldn't have to watch the first eye gougingly boring 2-3 hours and even the broadcasters, who you said yourself Dan, wouldn't be so bored.
Loved the Brompton special Si, are you going to be doing some more of this
Would you like to see more? We're all ears 🙌
Paris Roubaix is the best cycling day of the year. Flat sprint stages in grand tours are the usually the dullest. (IMHO)
I love boring stages! They are excellent wallpaper when working from home. I've embraced the Stockholm syndrome I acquired during lockdown, held hostage by Carlton Kirby's cheesy commentary. Gratuitous helicopter shots of beautiful countryside accompanied by Kirby's meandering drivel has become a comfort blanket for me that makes working from home a real joy.
Lantern Rouge apparently entertained themselves by watching the pissing match between UAE and Visma about who was going to ride on the left hand side of the road... Pretty serious stuff!
But in more important news, I remember waiting for busses when I was growing up in Canada and having my eyelids freeze shut. No longer living in Canada... for some reason... (Traded it for 35 C heat and 80% humidity... I think there may be something wrong with me...)
How about this: a stage that's 5 TT of 20-25km each distributed as A➝B, B➝A, A➝B, B➝A, A➝B going through 2 different routes. A total of 100-125km, much harder than that same distance done in a single continuous ride. Could be done as an ITT, or as a TT by heats, in which heats are organized based on the top riders of the previous stages (ie.: average top10, 11-20, 21-30, etc, and as usual, slowest riders go out first). Winner of the stage is the rider with the lowest overall time.
It's a sprint stage, you can have bunch sprints if it's done in heats, safer because it's limited to 10 riders per heat, and it makes 100+km not boring. You can even add bonuses for the winner of each of the time trials, or for the rider with the overall fastest time on each of the 2 different routes (regardless of the heat). The details would need to be refined to make it viable, safe and not too draining for riders, but it's possible to make these stages more entertaining without changing the soul of the race, because you'd still have your other typical stages, and this would be just one that would take the spot of a boring, filler kind of stage. I still love the "boring" stages and think they should always have a prominent presence in the Tour, much like normal ITT and hard mountain stages.
Similarly, a normal stage of ~150km could also be divided in several parts and have several finish-line sprints/climbs across the stage with a rest of 20 minutes or so in between, with the winner being the rider with the best overall time across all parts of the stage. This would also be fun to watch because a stage like that would be ridden hard on a variety of formats (flat sprint, climb, technical twisting roads, etc). Just some ideas.
I don't purchase the ability to watch the whole race, but I love it. Like almost all Olympic events.
NBC sports has a nice 30-50 minute recap. I wish I could watch more and I wouldn't change anything. I'm no expert, but they do a good job of planning the routes and do have various premiums and points by stage, so I think it's fair and good.
$1000 from Uber for ditching the car for 5 weeks? in my city, they added a $90 transit levy to car insurance. And then cut bus service to my neighbourhood. So I have to ride or walk. Won't fly, although it is a noble idea, that I fully support. People have to stop thinking public transit is costly. It is NOT, considering the cost associated with car ownership; not to mention accompanying accidents, that society has to pay the costs of.
Who watches a test cricket match from start to finish? Like any grand tour stage you try and grab the last hour live if you can. All the grand tours and major classics run in the background in our home. It is the commentators that make the best of a boring stage. Carlton, Sean, Dan and Adam are regular voices in our house. Even Aussie Robbie. Also, most cycling fans have to pay for the privilege of watching live cycling. After the death of gcn+ and the final days of eurosports our only option will be, God forbid, discovery+. More helicopter shots of Chateaus and vineyards, yes please. Recipes and wine suggestions from Jonathan Harris-Bass. We even miss Orla and her grand tour specific attire.
Nobody needs 200+ km. Make the race more like 90 - 120 minutes. Love the sport but life too short for watching "nothing happening" for like five hours (or even longer). Especially when you want appeal to a younger audience > make it shorter AND more entertaining.
Caption: Tadej Pogacar does his best Bernard Hinault impersonation
I always thought the complaint of 'professional cycling is boring to watch' is similar to the complaint that 'nascar is boring to watch' because both are endurance events that are all about the strategy of trying to place yourself for the finish with out burning yourself out through the multi hour race.
And let's be fair, that the commentary on cycling events is pitched closer to a golf tour than a horse race is part of why it's seen as boring.
I wouldn’t do anything to pro-cycling stages that are long and boring. Most people who watch pro-cycling are cyclists themselves and probably are used to long rides themselves. So hopefully the pro-cycling audience, by the aforementioned categorisation, doesn’t suffer from too much ADHD! 😅
If I know that it’s going to be a long boring ride, I just follow it on ProCyclingStats till the point where I feel it’s gonna start getting interesting. After that I switch over to the live video. Also only grand tour races are broadcast from start to end. Spring classics and other WT races are usually broadcast live only much later in the race.
Although I would add that after watching the Giro this year, I would like to see something like the Intergiro in all grand tours, with a special jersey as well. That would definitely give more motivation than just a combativity award!
5 weeks in a northern californian summer. It's been almost 110F every day for the past 10 days. Didn't get below 100F in our back yard tonight until midnight and as a lad from Bolton, it's not the best cycling weather. Tarmac temps were around 140F. You don't want to ride in that.
I'd take the Canadian winter. At least you can add clothes.
In Australia SBS broadcast Live in full, offer a 52minute highlight, a 30minute highlight or a 3minute finishing line option. Personally with work the 52minute suits me. Couldn’t commit the time to watch the whole stage. Agreed, TV needs to do more to hold attention. We don’t have Phil Ligget anymore as he’s moved to the dark side but, I did used to love the shots of Tour art by farmers etc and points of interest, so they try but should do more.
Dan. Don't worry about the sports fan that stumbles across le tour whilst channel surfing (or any other bike race for that matter). Le tour is behind a pay wall. No chance of "growing the game" if exclude the non-cycling sports fan. And in an unrelated note: Why does my ID show up with "9577" behind it?
To improve boringness you'd start thinking about doing more/other stuff along the cours. In that spirit I always like the "Golden KM" (three boni and point sprints 500 meters apart) in the Benelux tour and some Belgian stage races. That only really works when the GC is close, so early in the tour, before the largest time gaps have been made, so would have limited use in this stage 3. Maybe the UCI can have the allowed jerseys upped, making room for making intermediate classifications higher profile. Otherwise it's on the broadcasters really.