Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Tour de France - Who’s Watching?

Le Tour this year has been superb.
Who else is watching?
Chapeau to all the riders.

Been watching on ITV4.there seems to be a lot of adverts breaks ?
Shame Mark Cavendish was not picked by his team owner !
At least it has not been dominated by the old sky team under a new sponsor.

I always enjoy watching the tour de France, for the beautiful French countryside as much as for the cycling

Yep - it's looking like a vintage year, week 3 and still a handful of genuine GC contenders. Ned Boulting and David Millar have been good commentators on ITV4, Millar especially who despite his laconic delivery is articulate and very insightful. Like Giles, I also enjoy the views of the countryside and the commentators' briefings on local chateaux, churches and other landmarks.

As the weather is fine I can`t stand watching it.
After five minutes I have to hop on my bike...

If I want to see hordes of Lycra clad cyclists in a massive peloton blocking the roads, I’ll try leaving my house at the weekend.
I have tried watching cycling live twice, I can never get that time back. They all wizzed passed in a couple of seconds the first time, the next time on a steep hill full of numpties making a gap about a metre wide for the cyclists.
It’s probably a sport far better on TV than in reality

I'm with Neptune here, the best place for cycling is (A) On the tele or (B) in another country. I'm fed up with hordes of lycra louts riding 3/4 abreast holding up long queues of traffic. They are so arrogant but best of all, after a couple of hours of eco exercise, they go back to a car park, load up the bikes onto stupid Tonka toys and proceed to continue creating more smog.
You can't believe how much of London is being shut down just so they can have a ride around. Why can't the same parts of London be permanently traffic free for pedestrians to enjoy.
Rant over, normal service will be resumed.

I've been a big TdF fan since watching the UK stage up the hill through the village of Wherwell, outside Andover, in 1994. I first watched the TV coverage on EuroSport in 2003, when a combination of injury and brand-new parenthood made it a preferable alternative to any other daytime TV on offer.

Coverage in Canada is on a very expensive paid subscription streaming service, so we've had to be a little creative with DNS masking services to stream the ITV4 coverage on catch-up. Of course, the commentary isn't the same since Liggett decamped to NBC and the sad death of Paul Sherwen late last year - but Boulting and Millar are growing on me, with David Millar especially seeming more at ease with his own fluency. We stream the 1-hour highlights show in the evenings here, so try hard not to look at online or social media reports in the afternoons!

This year's Tour is awesome. I can't quite work out why nobody rated Julian Alaphilippe as a serious contender at the outset - he's performed consistently well this season, is a known climber (king of the mountains at last year's Tour and this year's Critérium du Dauphiné). It'd be great to see Geraint Thomas defend his title, but it'd probably be better for cycling altogether if Ineos were seen to be beatable - and especially if it's a Frenchman who beats them!

And I’m with Lowebird if I’m honest. Cyclists cause havoc with their selfishness around our local villages (not all I hasten to add). I emphasise I believe I’m a considerate driver, always ensuring that I leave a good doors width when overtaking on the country lanes, no matter how long I have to wait til a suitable gap arises. Lady HB made the point over the weekend that in all the 20 years we have been together not a single cyclist has thanked me for my consideration. Not one in 20 years. Whereas every single horse rider thanks us. Why is that? There are often cycle races arranged around here. On one occasion we were stuck behind one rider for over 6 miles as he insisted on riding on the broken white lines down the middle of the road. I stopped to point out to one of the race stewards that the cyclist was risking his life by riding like this on public roads that weren’t closed to the public. The marshall simply shrugged and said it was nothing to do with him and if I felt strongly enough I could report it to the organisers. He then turned his back to me. Strangely enough it didn’t really make me too happy . I only gritted my teeth and walked away because Lady HB was with me. Unfortunately I have had several negative experiences like this which I appreciate could colour my view of things.
Rant over and normal service will also be resumed here....
Thanks for listening
HB

I totally sympathise with you all we get exactly the same down here although I have never confronted one of them they never acknowledge your courtesy unlike all the horse riders, and there are rather a lot of them up on Dartmoor which I love to see together with the other wildlife.

This is a recent trend down here that really took off when they decided to run a leg of it across Dartmoor National Park, I may be missing something here but how this was part of the Tour De France fails me quite frankly. Ever since then it seems anyone with a pulse is on a bike on our narrow roads trying their level best to become a statistic.

Wishing you all many happy miles of bike free motoring.