Women's Tour of Britain

[pjclinch]

This is getting better every year, I hope the increasing profile will let them get a bit further and build in a summit finish or something else to cut down the bunch sprint dominance. And kudos to Dani Rowe for hanging on the 3rd while clearly suffering!

[hondated]

Why we dont have more women races is beyond me !
Those that I have watched have involved some great racing and are usually shorter than the mens races which can make them far more exciting to watch.
Its about time the womens Tour de France was reinstated to its original format.

[Vorpal]

I'm really disappointed with the coverage. We're in the UK for a bit, and I turned on the telly, thinking I'd get the day's summary, and turned off again when 10 or 15 minutes later, I'd not seen more than 5 seconds of racing. They talked to several riders, then showed the days race route. This led me to believe I was going to see racing, but then, they talked about another event being planned in Wales. I thought, if they'd done that on a TdF summary, viewers would be up in arms. If that's the coverage of women's racing, I'd be surprised if they get enough of an audience to continue carrying it.

[thirdcrank]

I'm really disappointed with the coverage. We're in the UK for a bit, and I turned on the telly, thinking I'd get the day's summary, and turned off again when 10 or 15 minutes later, I'd not seen more than 5 seconds of racing. They talked to several riders, then showed the days race route. This led me to believe I was going to see racing, but then, they talked about another event being planned in Wales. I thought, if they'd done that on a TdF summary, viewers would be up in arms. If that's the coverage of women's racing, I'd be surprised if they get enough of an audience to continue carrying it.

I think this is more about the sport than the sex of the competitors. Even now, tv coverage of cycle racing is not brilliant in the UK, especially if you don't pay for your viewing. It's too non-U for the beeb. As for people being up in arms over poor TdF coverage, they often have been, to little effect. This isn't a racing forum and we don't have much discussion about the competitive side of the sport, but it was the final day before anybody mentioned it.

[Vorpal]

Maybe I've been spoiled by the coverage in Norway, which is generally good, and occasionally excellent. My only complaint is that it (of course) tends to favour the Norwegian cyclists. So they spend time interviewing the likes of Edvald Boasson Hagen, rather than Chris Froome or Simon Yates.

They tend to use Eurosport coverage, with Norwegian commentary and interviews. More races are covered for both men's and women's racing. They also get some English language programs, like Le Tour by Lemond, and subtitle it.

[thirdcrank]

Maybe I've been spoiled by the coverage in Norway, which is generally good, and occasionally excellent. My only complaint is that it (of course) tends to favour the Norwegian cyclists. So they spend time interviewing the likes of Edvald Boasson Hagen, rather than Chris Froome or Simon Yates.

They tend to use Eurosport coverage, with Norwegian commentary and interviews. More races are covered for both men's and women's racing. They also get some English language programs, like Le Tour by Lemond, and subtitle it.

Nationalist swine if you ask me. I bet these narrow minded bigots gave more coverage to Thor Hushovd than Cav.

AFAIK, Eurosport is only available in the UK by paying nowadays.

[Vorpal]

Nationalist swine if you ask me. I bet these narrow minded bigots gave more coverage to Thor Hushovd than Cav.

As for Eurosport, I'm not sure what is and isn't subscription only in Norway because I haven't tried freeview. We have a package that includes, phone, fiber broadband, and television.

I do know, though that the Norwegian companies, both public and private buy stuff from lots of sources and subtitle it, or add local content. Football, for example is mostly on Viasport, which is subscription only, but broadcasts stuff from lots of other companies.

[pjclinch]

We got Eurosport Player (for computers rather than TV) for the Giro. £30 for the year, and we'll be able to look at other Silly Sports that we're actually interested in rather than fitba, fitba, fitba, boxing, fitba, hose racing, fitba, rugby, fitba and fitba we get from the usual channels (we're on Freesat). It's been okay so far, though coverage of the Women's Tour was no better than ITV4 (a retrospective highlights programme for the day, watched ITV4's so don't know how good it was).

Roos and I both thought the Giro coverage was okay, but we prefer ITV4's GT coverage for the TdF and Vuelta. That's probably down to the current ITV team and it having bedded in over a while.

Pete.

[TrevA]

I've been watching it every day on the ITV player. I'm currently watching Sunday's stage. There's been some good racing, but I'd like to see more of a challenging course, with some big climbs close to the finish. The stages seem to be similar each year, whereas for the men's tour, it varies from year to year. I think the TV coverage has been quite good. Perhaps they could show more racing, but I like the interviews with the riders before the start.

[mjr]

AFAIK, Eurosport is only available in the UK by paying nowadays.

It's still visible free to air, but on a satellite with fewer English channels and only in German.

[thirdcrank]

... It's still visible free to air, but on a satellite with fewer English channels and only in German.

Is there a way of receiving that in a straightforward way with fairly standard equipment? When I used to be able to receive the earlier version of Eurosport, if I got exasperated with Duffers I used to switch to the German version. IIRC, they transmitted alternatives with and without the German commentary, ie you could just listen to the sound of the race.

Sooner or later I'll get round to working out how to get dependable internet telly.

[Mick F]

It's still visible free to air, but on a satellite with fewer English channels and only in German.

Do you need a TV Licence?
And/or a subscription for the sat?

If so, it's not free.

[mjr]

... It's still visible free to air, but on a satellite with fewer English channels and only in German.

Is there a way of receiving that in a straightforward way with fairly standard equipment?

Aim your dish further west than most in the UK (19.2°east instead of 28.2) or alternatively leave a pre-digital Sky dish pointing where it was and any digital receiver (Maplins used to be good for cheapies - I guess you'd need to buy online now) should be able to find it on 12226 H DVB-S MPEG-2 27500Msym/s FEC 3/4 (in case it's not found by scanning).

Do you need a TV Licence?
And/or a subscription for the sat?

If so, it's not free.

No subscription for the sat needed. UK law requires one to have a TV licence if you're watching from the UK, but you wouldn't have to have one if you were elsewhere and none of it goes to Eurosport, so I'd call that free.

[thirdcrank]

I've already got a licence so it's not an issue here. We've also still got our pre-digital satellite dish on the wall and the "box" is kicking about somewhere. Thanks for the pointers.

[mjr]

I've already got a licence so it's not an issue here. We've also still got our pre-digital satellite dish on the wall and the "box" is kicking about somewhere. Thanks for the pointers.

Let's start a new thread if there are more questions. The old dish might need a new antenna head on it if the wires were cut, but they're only a few quid, or it might have moved... but you don't know until you try