Well, Alexander Vinokourov keeps saying he’s back, and it seems that Count Vino’ ain’t just a-woofin’. He has the maglia rosa after three stages of the Giro, and poor Christian Vande Velde has another busted bone and some trainer time to look forward to.
I had to run the live update for a while today over at VeloNews.com in addition to writing the day’s stage report, and if the live was a tad spastic it’s because I do this almost, um, never. Happily, European correspondent Andrew Hood chipped in to supply some actual information to offset my ignorance.
Cuddles Evans is a mite pissed off after losing the jersey today, and who can blame him? He told Agence France Presse that he was doing just fine until the wind started up “and coming round a corner all the Sky team were on the ground. The rest of the guys fell on top of them.”
Now that’s what I call a tough day at the office.
Mad Blog Media 
Looks like some of JV’s grand tour luck has been rubbing off on the rest of the team. Damn shame.
Dean went down hard as well but looks like he’ll be back on Wednesday. Millar could be in pink at the end of the TTT … probably would be, if VDV was there to take his pulls.
Crazy race so far. I’m thinking everyone wants to know if the driver/ mechanic who saved Menchov’s bacon last year is for hire.
Isn’t it ironic that the very road “improvements” designed to make roads safer for cyclists make them more dangerous for for bike racing.
That just sucks for VDV. I really like that guy. Oh well. Opens the door for Millar and leaves VDV rested(?) for the TDF.
Patrick: Hoody’s at the Giro, right? Is Pelkey in the U.S. being a lawyer/dad/journo, or is he at the Giro as well? I really like you and Pelkey brother-in-lawing the coverage. You guys can be snarky, and I love to see people write in and get bent all outa shape because of it. FYI, cyclingnews.com has very bland play-by-play. Tell your too many bosses that they have my eyeballs because of your race coverage (and I have a subscription to the mag).
Hey, Jeff,
Yep, Hoody is at the Giro. Charles Pelkey is in Wyoming, doing the dad/shyster/journo trifecta, and I’m in Bibleburg, doing a little bit of this, that and the other.
I work the VN.com site full time as an editor on Saturday and a half day each on Sunday and Monday. If I’m on deck during a grand tour I usually follow the stage via streaming video and CP’s live update, then write a short report — augmenting with bits from Agence France Presse, our lone wire service — while Hoody runs around chasing quotes, writing sidebars and compiling info for the mag.
I used to have my doubts about whether this was kosher until Charles reminded me that if I were actually doing the job in Italy, Spain or France, I’d be watching the race on TV in the press room. So I’m OK with it, kinda, sorta. It’s not unlike the bad old days of newspapering, when a reporter would phone in from the field and a rewrite man would take his info over the horn and bang out a story. But I don’t give myself a byline. That would feel a little pretentious.
Charles normally runs the live ’cause he’s got it dialed and doesn’t mind getting up at 2 a.m. to crank up the infotainment machine. But today he had to dash off to get sworn in at federal court, and web editor Steve Frothingham had a doctor’s appointment, so I got press-ganged into doing a partial shift behind the wheel despite having only a learner’s permit. Glad I didn’t come off as a complete ’tard, ’cause I’ll have to do it a few times during the Amgen Tour of California.
I got off to a rough start, though. I had to create a new CoverItLive account at the last minute — my old one got croaked somehow — and then get a quick refresher from Pelkey on how to approve comments, upload pix and so on and so forth. And then the stage totally FUBARs the GC while I’m the only guy in the VeloBarrel. Talk about getting thrown into the deep end. …
You a ‘tard, never. Or always.
Nice job on the coverage.
You a ‘tard, never. Or always.
Nice job on the coverage.
In the “information age” why can’t EVERYONE just get on the ‘net and see the live coverage? Probably the same reason we don’t have those flying cars everyone used to talk about or the one you put an atomic pill into once a year and drove as far as you wanted. Thinking of you monitoring a wire service, taking instructions from the bosses, getting help from the other drones and juggling all this around makes me wonder just how far HAVE we come in the information age? Must be sort of comical to watch, maybe they should add a webcam for some further entertainment as you do all this AND mug for the camera! As long as you can understand some “bike-race Italian” it’s pretty great being here where it’s on live TV every day.
// In the “information age” why can’t EVERYONE just get on the ‘net and see the live coverage? //
Guessing you mean, why isn’t the live feed available to everyone?
Because no one with any smarts ever went into the entertainment business.
There’s this idea that ownership of a spectacle is like ownership of the Hope Diamond, something you have to protect. But folks forget that the only value of said spectacle is if you’re able to attract eyeballs and then turn said eyeballs into advertising dollars.
And an eyeball’s an eyeball, no matter where it’s viewing from.
Now, if they give it to everyone for free, will folks still subscribe to premium cable packages that offer the same thing? I think they will. Folks still prefer to watch the big events on the couch on the big screen. But there’s one more fly in the snake oil. Each country has its own version of laws covering advertising, so it’s not just as simple as selling ad time for the TV feed, then running those same ads during the web version, not without running it past a consortium of lawyers.
It’s a different flavor of the same problem we have with internet radio. When the interweb first got a-rolling, any station could simul-cast it’s show on the web. The Clear Channel and that whiner who owns the Dallas Mavs pushed some bill through our ignoramus of a representative federal legislative body (Congress, I believe these crooks call themselves) that required some fee to the FCC tied to your potential audience, meaning that every podunk radio station’s audience was now infinite, and only the big boys could afford the fee.
They say the web is still the wild west, meaning there are no rules, but they’re more right than they know, because on top of no rules, there are random sheriffs out enforcing their own rules as they see fit.
Back to bike race coverage …
Folks love to rag on Phil and Paul for blowing a call here and there, but I’m not sure what these fans would have them do — fly over the peloton in a hovercraft whilst monitoring a computer screen that’s picking up RFID readings? The only way to cover the race is from a van full of monitors, not from some actual observation point.
You’ve explained things pretty well there Steve O. We of course don’t get to hear Phil and Paul here in Italia, only on the WCP DVD’s much later. My complaing with those guys is that they seem to be “phoning it in” these days. I expect more from the “deans” of English-language cycling commentary than they provide, especially when they totally blow the pronunciation of the Italian words — how long have they been doing commentary on the Giro? And they still can’t get it even close so many times, like when they used to say Claudio CHEE-A-POOCHIE (do they drink CHEE-ANTY wine?) or still say Fausto COPPY instead of COE-PEE, Gino BAR-TALLY instead of BAR-toe-LEE, etc. It’s ain’t that hard and they do a much better job with French at the TdF so maybe it’s some cultural bias?
Correction to the above, it’s Gino BARTA-lee. BAR-toe-LEE is Michele “Il Guerriero” of the more recent past.
For a live demonstration of the pronunciation, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1116309232688134001#
Send the link to Paul and Phil! They eventually got Claudio’s name right and even stopped saying Johnny BUG-no…but Phil still can’t say Fausto’s name right. I got cranky with them years ago when ol’ Phil complained on a WCP video the Italians have different color jerseys for the race category leaders just to confuse people!
Larry, after living on Long Island for ten years, I can put up with a lot of bad pronunciation. Even the folks with vowels at the end of their name sometimes made a mess of it.
Patrick: Nope. You didn’t ‘tard it up at all.
stevo o and Larry T: I really love the ability to pick up the different broadcasts of bike racing on the internet. It reminds me of listening to my AM radio at night when I was a kid. I’m sure broadcasters will have their secure broadcasts dialed in by next year and I will have to pay someone. But, until then, I’m watching races live that I’d never see otherwise. It’s awesome.