Are we ready yet?

helmutRoole2 said:

Are we Americans ready for some grown up commentary on the Tour?

I mean, Al and Bob are fine if you know nothing about the sport, but after seven years of Americans winning the Tour, do we really need those two guys explaining, for example, distances in terms of football fields, and, well, constantly missing the obvious as it unfolds in front of them?

Haven't we grown up enough yet to listen to a pair of adults discuss the Tour instead of Trautwig -- a total neophyte to cycling who really doesn't understand the sport and likely doesn't ride -- and Roll -- a guy who explains physiology and tactics with inane analogy after inane analogy?

I'm ready.

Oh I'd love to see something with more depth. On the other hand, I think cycling is in a growth period here in the US. For those people just getting into the sport.. it may be "more informative" in some ways. It would be nice to have a choice though.

I love this bit at the beginning of each day's coverage:

"Today's stage is 183 kilometers and that's the same as the distance from Keokuk to Fort Madison."

DiabloScott said:

I love this bit at the beginning of each day's coverage:

"Today's stage is 183 kilometers and that's the same as the distance from Keokuk to Fort Madison."

Yeah, I get sick of hearing that. It's like they think they're talking to people that have never ridden before? Or... don't know ANYTHING about measuring distance??? Perhaps they are? lol

Some of their stuff is useless and/or stupid. I tend to just look over it and watch the racing as much as possible. Fortunately I'm able to form my own opinions about it.

I'll give credit where it's due however, they sometimes throw some good information out there.

helmutRoole2 said:

Are we Americans ready for some grown up commentary on the Tour?

I mean, Al and Bob are fine if you know nothing about the sport, but after seven years of Americans winning the Tour, do we really need those two guys explaining, for example, distances in terms of football fields, and, well, constantly missing the obvious as it unfolds in front of them?

Haven't we grown up enough yet to listen to a pair of adults discuss the Tour instead of Trautwig -- a total neophyte to cycling who really doesn't understand the sport and likely doesn't ride -- and Roll -- a guy who explains physiology and tactics with inane analogy after inane analogy?

I'm ready.

Helmut,

Do you watch the evening re-broadcast of the day's stage? I think that one has Roll and Trautwig doing most of the commenting. If you watch (or record) the live version, it's all Ligget and Sherwin. Yes, they make some mistakes (Landis/Leipheimer :eek: ), but they are a far better alternative.

Deli said:

Helmut,

Do you watch the evening re-broadcast of the day's stage? I think that one has Roll and Trautwig doing most of the commenting. If you watch (or record) the live version, it's all Ligget and Sherwin. Yes, they make some mistakes (Landis/Leipheimer :eek: ), but they are a far better alternative.

I'll take Phil and Paul over Bob and Al any day.

Somebody needs to chop off Bob Roll's hands.

thebluetrain said:

Somebody needs to chop off Bob Roll's hands.

LOL

helmutRoole2 said:

I'll take Phil and Paul over Bob and Al any day.

Ditto!

DiabloScott said:

I love this bit at the beginning of each day's coverage:

"Today's stage is 183 kilometers and that's the same as the distance from Keokuk to Fort Madison."

I hope that was a joke, or maybe I'm just ignorant because I have no idea where those places are.

helmutRoole2 said:

Are we Americans ready for some grown up commentary on the Tour?

I mean, Al and Bob are fine if you know nothing about the sport, but after seven years of Americans winning the Tour, do we really need those two guys explaining, for example, distances in terms of football fields, and, well, constantly missing the obvious as it unfolds in front of them?

Haven't we grown up enough yet to listen to a pair of adults discuss the Tour instead of Trautwig -- a total neophyte to cycling who really doesn't understand the sport and likely doesn't ride -- and Roll -- a guy who explains physiology and tactics with inane analogy after inane analogy?

I'm ready.

Tune in to Eurosport at www.eurosport.com.

helmutRoole2 said:

Are we Americans ready for some grown up commentary on the Tour?

I mean, Al and Bob are fine if you know nothing about the sport, but after seven years of Americans winning the Tour, do we really need those two guys explaining, for example, distances in terms of football fields, and, well, constantly missing the obvious as it unfolds in front of them?

Haven't we grown up enough yet to listen to a pair of adults discuss the Tour instead of Trautwig -- a total neophyte to cycling who really doesn't understand the sport and likely doesn't ride -- and Roll -- a guy who explains physiology and tactics with inane analogy after inane analogy?

I'm ready.

I think anyone who posts here can handle some real commentators. I suppose, however, that the non-cyclist casual fans might actually like Al (who is the WORST) and Bob.

Personally, I'm getting sick of watching ads for AMD, Trek, etc. thinly disguised as behind the scenes reports.

I watched a couple of the races on cycling.tv/ and liked the two guys commentating. OLN uses Al and Bob because most of us Dorks in the USA still know nothing about cycling. I would love an alternative, but they seem to be all we have at the moment. Let's be honest, Paul and Phil are wrong about 90% of the time too.

tcklyde said:

Personally, I'm getting sick of watching ads for AMD, Trek, etc. thinly disguised as behind the scenes reports.

Word.

When they do stuff like that, you can no longer trust them as boradcast journalists.

You just can't.

Every word is now suspect.

azdroptop said:

Let's be honest, Paul and Phil are wrong about 90% of the time too.

Phil: "McEwin's got this one. Yet another win for the man from down under,, he just wins and wins and, oh, Freire pips him on the line."

helmutRoole2 said:

Phil: "McEwin's got this one. Yet another win for the man from down under,, he just wins and wins and, oh, Freire pips him on the line."

The UCI at their annual meeting during the World Championships this year will discuss two points of interest: 1) Riders to have there names on the back of the jersey's to assist commentators globally to recognise them and 2) to only allow 2 riders per team to carry a radio....

Trautwig has to go. The commentators yellow jersey competition also has to go.

Bob Roll is barely acceptable, maybe, if he reforms pronouncing Tour de France as "Tour D [alphabet letter] France".

musette said:

Trautwig has to go. The commentators yellow jersey competition also has to go.

Bob Roll is barely acceptable, maybe, if he reforms pronouncing Tour de France as "Tour D [alphabet letter] France".

With no offense meant, but you guys need to get real. I said it last year and will say it again this year, "It's all about money." Despite what each and every one of us thinks about the "sport" of cycling, what you are commenting on is the marketing and pormotion surrouding a staged "event." Least you not forget that the TDF was ostensibly created to help sell newspapers.

OLN is cheesy (changing its name to "Versus" in the fall changes nothing) and Bob, Al, Paul and Phil are cheesy as well for promoting all the "stuff" that keeps the on-air broadcast subsidized, but that's no different than having a "hearing aid" company sponsor a cycling team.

Without the "cheese" and the marketing dollars, we would have no event to witness like the TDF.

Now that the World Cup and TDF are over, bring on the Vuelta!!!!

Personally, I like Phil and Paul, althought they can get a bit repetitive. But they have yielded a few classic lines... "are you coming or not? And the answer is... Not!" Trautwig just doesn't belong there, but provides a familiar face for US sports fans in general. Bob Roll has his moments. I heard him tell the story of why he says 'tour day france'. And, yes, he does it in purpose. In his years of competition and now coverage, he's spent a lot of time in French restaurants. So he says: No matter how perfect you speak, they refuse to understand you if you speak French, or English. So he mangles his pronounciation as revenge on every rude French waiter he has ever encountered. Having encountered a few of that breed myself, I can sympathize.

I do think that if Roll is to remain in his position, they should handcuff his wrists behind his back.

OLN coverage is a bit childish because it has to appeal to the widest possible US audience. So it tends to be low level, repetitive, geared towards people with slight cycling knowledge. It's the price we pay for increasing interest in cycling - got to draw a few more people in. Watching the Tour with mediocre commentary is better than not watching the Tour at all.

I would modestly propose that the European coverage be made available in the US, on a pay-per-view basis. Personally, I'd love to hear Eddy's commentary (assuming English subtitles, of course...) Perhaps they could make DVD's of Euro based cycling coverage available?

If television networks were only broadcasting to those who knew something about the sport, then we would have someone better than Billy Packer and [censored] Vitale doing NCAA basketball. Do you think Al and Bob are really any worse than Howard Cosell, Al Michaels, or Denis Miller doing Monday Night Football? What about the idiot women who do the sideline commentaries during football and basketball games?

To OLN and any other network that broadcasts sporting events, it is all about viewership. The networks know that the hardcore fans will watch regardless of who they have doing the commentary, because they have exclusive rights to the broadcast in that territory. The networks want to draw in causal viewers by making it more "entertaining".

There has not been good television commentary in any sport in the US since PeeWee Reese and Dizzy Dean announced the major league baseball game of the week. For those of you who are too young to remember (which is probably most of the people on this board) that was when there were only two television networks, only one major league baseball game was broadcast each week (always on Saturday afternoon), and Chicago and St Louis were the cities farthest west that had a major league baseball team (and both cities had an AL and a NL team).