Men's Olympic Road Race

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
There was some cobbles shown today with ejected bottles, supposidly because the bottle they had to use was wrong size.

Saw a bike over the fence at a corner on the cobbles, but might have been a spectators.

The crash, that was bad hitting the kerb with your ribs, glad she's ok.
Geraint seemed nonplussed with the thought of TT.

[Brucey]

'sportsmole' is presently reporting that Van Vleuten has concussion and three cracks in her spine. Very nasty indeed.

[Tonyf33]

She got the corner all wrong, really, really wrong. She was too fast and at too sharp an angle on approach so couldn't appreciate the bend despite the white line disappearing off almost at a right angle, she then panic braked locking her back brake then seemed to lock the front up also so over she went.
The riders knew beforehand that there was absolutely no run off and no barriers so many riders respected this and rode with an element of caution and finished the race just fine including the US rider described several times by the commentary team as a 'poor descender'

Chris Boardman said he was angry and it was dangerous, it was only dangerous if you pushed to the max and didn't respect the course and if you make a big mistake what do you expect, it's not like crashing on other races never happens with dire consequences does it? All those riders that come off in the TdF, Giro, Vuelta etc on fast descents, all dangerous
I respect Boardman's opinion on pretty much everything but he is wrong on this occasion.

[Postboxer]

I agree she seemed to get the corner wrong, couldn't see why though, but disagree that Boardman was wrong, he was right, it was a very dangerous course that the organisers could have made a lot safer by adding padding to those huge concrete curbs, after all, they were going down that stretch 3 times over both races, especially after having seen the injuries from the men's race they had plenty of time to do something. People are going to push the limit as it's for a gold medal, the American described as a poor descender, may have got down in one piece, but didn't have enough of an advantage to retain the lead, nor second, nor third, so goes home empty handed. Had Van Vleuten pushed the limits and made it down, she may well have had enough of a lead to take the gold medal. Likewise yesterday, had Majka still had the company of Nibali and Henao at the bottom, they should have been able to stay out and take the medals.

Bike racing is dangerous but the danger can be reduced by taking a few simple steps, especially when a quick glance tells anyone it's dangerous and when you've already had one race with serious injuries on the same course.

Edited because I'd used the word 'especially' lots of times for no reason.

[Si]

reminded me of the Beloki crash...highsided the bike rather than sliding it out from under her.....could have been much much worse (as in Beloki's case), hope she gets better soon.

[thirdcrank]

After decades of cycling being treated with contempt by the BBC, I allowed myself to be lulled into watching the men's race as advertised on BBC1.

I thought the racing - or the parts I saw of it - were brilliant, with no messing about almost from the start.
The BBC are obviously stuck with the race coverage provided by local TV and I thought that was poor. eg The limited and sometimes inaccurate onscreen info about time gaps etc., might have been a cunning plan to put us on the same footing as riders without radios.
As usual, Chris Boardman was excellent by my reckoning (I don't find myself shouting at him as I used to do with Duffers.)
I didn't find much added value in the contribution of Simon Brotherton.
I did find myself shouting at the buffoon responsible editing BBC1's output that afternoon. It's the old story of maximising the audience count by publishing schedules that are not followed. I do know there's more to the Olympics than cycling but why not just offer a short chunk and stick to it? When the cycling coverage moved to the red button (more about that below) we were treated amongst other things by the gripping news that the USA had jumped to the top of the medal tables with a gold for women's air rifle. Shortly after, it was sevens rugby with a team of Canadian giant(esse)s overwhelming some relatively tiny but undaunted Japanese women. (It's coincidental that these were both women's events. I'd have felt the same about American men with airguns.) Finally, the BBC is so obsessed with its own adverts that as pointed out by an earlier poster, the evening news was preceeded and followed by five-minute slots advertising the Olympic, including cycling.
Rant over
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RED BUTTON

I spend little time in front of the box and most of what I see is "passive viewing" (that's similar to passive smoking.)
I did attempt unsuccessfully to get the cycling with the red button.
My wife has been out with some of her friends today and for the first time I can remember in almost fifty years she volunteered that this hd been her fault. ie there have been some messages broadcast onscreen advising the need to do something to use the red button for the Olympics which she just cleared.
The issue now is that I'm under pressure to fix our red button so she can use it during the rest of the Olympics.
I've been online and I can't make any sense of it.

I've put this here because some posters have mentioned the red button so they must have cracked this already - simple advice would be appreciated.

[mjr]

I've put this here because some posters have mentioned the red button so they must have cracked this already - simple advice would be appreciated.

It's probably something like press Menu, select "Installation" and select "Rescan digital channels" but if you post the make and model, someone might be more help.

I understand that you will only get the full range of BBC red button services if you can receive "CBeebies HD". You'll probably need that if you want to watch the time trials or track cycling.

[thirdcrank]

... I understand that you will only get the full range of BBC red button services if you can receive "CBeebies HD". You'll probably need that if you want to watch the time trials or track cycling.

Thanks for this. According to the Cbeebies website the Cbeebies HD Freeview channel is 124 which is not shewn on my (newly retuned) channel list.

Fortunately, I can still get non HD Cbeebies so I'll stick with Mr Tumble and avoid any further risk of hypertension by anticipating cycling and being presented with camel racing (Greenland versus Paraguay) or similar

[Brucey]

my TV claims to get CBeebies HD (I've never watched it...) but of the cycling coverage on the red button there was no sign.

Many sets (mine included I think) will either

a) find new channels automatically (and give them weird numbers) and/or
b) do that and reallocate the correct channel numbers to them.

In that event there ought to be no need to retune your TV, the channels ought to be in the right places anyway.

It occurs to me that it would be a lot simpler for all concerned if (say) Freeview tuners were simply identified as being V3.2 compatible or somesuch. As it is, one is left guessing as to whether they are capable of doing any given thing.

cheers

[freeflow]

Be careful rescanning your channels. On my Humax box it means you lose any recording schedule you've already setup.

[mjr]

In that event there ought to be no need to retune your TV, the channels ought to be in the right places anyway.

I've not dug into the full reasons but it seemed like the BBC were a bit late in bringing the extra red button channels on air this time, after my TV last checked for new channels automatically, so a manual rescan was needed.

The problem with Freeview (and it's worse for Freesat) is that they have a particular British interpretation of the Digital Video Broadcasting standards and a trademark licensing/labelling scheme to extract money from viewers via manufacturers. It's a heck of a lot cheaper for a manufacturer to produce "digital TV" receivers and not have Freesat/Freeview test them - Freesat HD recorders cost from £185, larger-capacity "digital satellite TV" HD recorders cost from £70...

[Paulatic]

The problem with Freeview (and it's worse for Freesat)

Whilst the initial cost of Freesat may look high it's far less than a years subscription to Sky. Also I have 16 red button channels half of them HD.
Freeview is not an option for me as we can't receive a signal.

[thirdcrank]

I forgot to mention in my rant about the abysmal BBC coverage of this race that at one point the woman doing the studio presentation made a bit of an apology/ vague explanation about the red button problems some viewers were having.

Annoying that she chose to dress it up with something along the lines of "if you are as useless with technology as I am" but it gave me a bit of satisfaction to know that loads of disgruntled viewers had been ringing in, unless my animosity had set their ears burning.

Overall they couldn't care less about cycling and they never have.

[mjr]

The problem with Freeview (and it's worse for Freesat)

Whilst the initial cost of Freesat may look high it's far less than a years subscription to Sky.

Sure, but saying it's cheaper than Sky doesn't mean it's not high. Sky is a lot cheaper than giving your bank details to scammers and that doesn't make Sky a good deal! Freesat appears to be doubling the prices of receivers but I guess they're correct that enough people will rationalise the Freesat tax by comparing it with Sky.

I forgot to mention in my rant about the abysmal BBC coverage of this race that at one point the woman doing the studio presentation made a bit of an apology/ vague explanation about the red button problems some viewers were having.

Hazel Irvine with the second pathetic BBC cycling non-apology in two weeks, after Simon Brotherton's claim that losing pictures for a pivotal moment in Ride London made it more exciting or some such claptrap (but credit to him for creativity).

Overall they couldn't care less about cycling and they never have.

Oh that's not fair. The BBC loved seeing a cyclist crash and break her spine so much that they played it on the news again and again to remind everyone how dangerous cycling is.

[Paulatic]

reminded me of the Beloki crash...highsided the bike rather than sliding it out from under her.....could have been much much worse (as in Beloki's case), hope she gets better soon.

Good news ....She is out of hospital today.
http://www.annemiekvanvleuten.nl/nieuws ... -reacties/