[Closed] itv 4 now,the cycle show

"Karinofnine - Member

I've seen better telly but absolutely support a show about cycling on the tv at last. Graham Obree is brilliant, and so is The Fish."

Was Marillion on as well?

LMNH is far to pretentious a location.....Orbree is on crack and Gary F is dealing it !!

Polluza was good though.

I noticed they scoottered past the stretch on Box Hill where someone has sprayed the HUGE c0ck on the road !! Can't wait to see that on the TV coverage next saturday !!

Cycle show on the tele, its got to be a good thing.

cyclistm - Member

Cycle show on the tele, its got to be a good thing.

did ya see it 😯

watching that, I get the impression it was cobbled together in the last few days to ride off the back of the wiggin's victory and keep all these new viewers tuned in. ITV4 must have quadrupled their viewing figs in the last week or two and now they're trying to milk it. The Mega only happened yesterday, I bet it's not recorded from last years.

Utter drivel Mansell promoting his own team which his son rides for, comparing cycling to F1 ...come on? Fisher needs to be punched in the face, Obree appears pissed, setting doesn't work and hey lots of different thongs make it look like they are filling space. Rob Hayles mentions his riders of different abilities but doesn't introduce them. had to turn off at 20 mins made me fringe.

Could have been worse, safety bit was vague,pointing out danger areas around lorries could save some lives.
Gotta support a cycle show & they're bound to read this so a bit constructive criticism rather than just slating it may help it develop into something good?

Painfully bad.

when does it come on ITV4 player?

Gave up after a while. Mansell unfortunately comes across as boring as ever. Obree is ace, but not enough introduction to him for the non-cyclist viewer who will just see a very odd Scotsman.

And Gary Fisher is clearly crazy, but too American for these shores without some better/stronger content.

I like the idea of a cycling programme. I dislike the thought of it being as bad as this one.

Oh Dear!

Mansell promoting his interests, GF promoting TREK, terrible setting, the only saving grace was Obree, who just makes me laugh.

I lasted just under 20 minutes.

Fingers crossed for next week, if it's the same again, then I'm out.

Lighten up guys! Its the first show, and they'v obviously allowed the entire 1st episode to be dedicated to talk of the Tour.

LMNH is actually a very good cafe, and yeah might not be some peoples cup of tea, but it is for a much larger proportion of riders than you'd think.

Also bare in mind the variety of riders and their tastes, there must be at least 30 competitive disciplines in cycling, let alone the HUNDREDS of different forums and their tones/attitudes. So give it some time and see how far it goes, if it fails, ah well, at least someone had the balls to get on and do something about a dedicated cycling show!

Obree though, wow, I thought I talked fast.

Starting off with Mansel seemed a bit bizarre... maybe for the people that don't know anything about cycling?

Crowd babbling in the background was off-putting.

Presenter needs a bit more charisma, is he into cycling?

Seemed to gloss over Fisher and Obree's places in cycling history... needs only one of these type of people on per week, in a quieter and more personal / direct situation.

They seem to have some more interesting stuff coming up, female presenter MTBing looks like she'll be more entertaining.

I'll be watching and supporting, but hope it improves considerably. Wobbly start.

so what would folks ideally want to see on a cycling programme that has to cater for all types of cyclist?seeing as even on a mountain bike forum like this there is always pissing and moaning even between gears/singlespeeders/downhillers/xcracers etc.... Whatever show was made, everyone would hate it because it didn't conform to their narrow world view of cycling.

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Margin Walker - Member
cyclistm - Member
Cycle show on the tele, its got to be a good thing.
did ya see it

yeap. not sure people that spend hours on cycling forums are strictly target audience

d4:

Gotta support a cycle show & they're bound to read this so a bit constructive criticism rather than just slating it may help it develop into something good?

Fair point,and I do support it and will keep watching. My constructive critisism

1 - Too much chat, not enough substance, with only half an hour it needs a strong structure.
2 - Please don't patronise (how to put a helmet on your head), less gloss and that safety bit could have been really informative.
3 - In fact 90 seconds a week on safety could actually be very valuable from a public service point of view 1 week, lorries, next week - roundabouts, third week - catching drivers eyes and clearly communicating with them. I felt you wasted that bit, and 60 seconds up front with a silly introduction that just made me dislike the guy presenting it
4 - Olympic road race bit, as said above introduce your riders, give us a map of the route you're riding. Give us a sense of the challenge. That segment just kind of stopped with no conclusion.
5 - Rather than a rag tag group of mixed ability maybe you could have got a local road group to race 2 laps of the course. Proper road riders, who know can say how the hill will play out in a race from a knowledgeable point of view.

those are bit negative, so positives

6 - Heck you're trying something new. great stuff. Please don't give up, please play about with the formula.

7 - You do have a compus mentus adult presenting it, not some kid using hip words and trying to be 'down' with me. In that regard the tone was bang on.

For more idea please see Rob Warners course rides for last years Downhill World cup, there's segment in there, hopefully your journalist attempted the mega??

Rome wasn't built in a day.

I thought it was OK.

I thought it was fine for a first attempt.

Presenters were ok, good guests, decent attempt at appealing to newbies.
Needs to be an hour.
Needs to be a bit more in depth.

Let's give it a chance eh?

Illustrated the gap between mtb and road imo. Fisher was typical American and Obree was strange, possibly has genuine fixation problems.

100 + years to finally get cycling in the public domain, wiped out in 45mins of absolute crap. Cant believe this programme had any input from true cyclists

just appeared a bit chaotic, no structure, slightly pointless stuff. it needs some much better ideas for content

Who ever decided to film it in a cafe of loud mouthed spectators was totally wrong, even Obree and Mansell seemed to having a problem hearing what was being said, just like me,

Did they really need to waste time showing the opening film twice.

Can the presenter have a transfusion of personality,and a bit more go, eg try Duracell,

What was the point of the film about riding up and down Box hil, it didnt make sense, and seemed disjointed,

Then there was the bit about so called cycle safety, riding round quiet streets two abrest,with a bloke on a ladies bike,and somebody chatting to him what did that show, just no car parking spaces available.

ITV 4, a very poor effort.

People aren't complaining it is wrong discipline, it just Target any audience. Obree; new/aspiring cyclists no doubt will have no clue who he is. it was clear he was struggling to hear what was being said in that environment. I don't doubt the cafe isn't good but as already mentioned there is a reason why Top Gear audience don't talk.
Mansell..what did he bring? I can't see any benefit to having had him on. harming on about his own team and F1.

exactly as highclimber says, all for more cycling programmes and all for stuff to encourage and promote more riding but that programme did nothin for any group of cyclists.

Utter utter shite. Anyone that says otherwise is just being nice.
Was like a sixth form 'media' project gone wrong.
Second most cringeworthy moment on tv in lastvfew days. Close second behind tht fat lass singing god saves the queen in france.
Terrible. Had potential but was shit. 'Olympic hopefulls' earlier today had a spot about mtb in Olympics and it was 50 times better than that box hill crap.

I think it'll be a grower and improve over the weeks to come. Needs to be an hour long though to give each item enough time.

yeah, mansall spent most of the interview time staring up into space somewhere, presumably at a monitor/tv screan

thegnumpts5 - Member

100 + years to finally get cycling in the public domain, wiped out in 45mins of absolute crap.

Half an hour, wasn't it?

There is a fine line between 'characters' and 'eccentric' sometimes. And I am certainly not lumping Mansell in as a 'character' btw...

I'll give it time to bed in, it is good that cycling has gone mainstream enough to warrant trying. The commute article was okay, and at least tried to portray cyclists as a sensible road user group.

I had assumed they'd be going fully mainstream... Look how normal people ride bikes, sort of thing. Aside from obvious Wiggo and Olympics angle, I thought it was a tad too oddball personally.

Having been short changed big time, watch this 🙂

When it opened with a load of people in daft caps my immediate thought was 'turn it off NOW!!'

Sadly, I decided to persevere and give the show a chance. What a crock of pure shite. It can only get better next week but I won't be watching to find out.

If you can do better why not pitch it to the TV execs yourselves and see how you get on.

STW users should be better predisposed to this programme than the general public, we had a PSA thread as we were all keen to see "our" hobby given mainstream coverage. Joe "ooh the tour was good" Public will be less accommodating. Posts here have echoed similar themes. If we think Gary Fisher looks like a prat, Graeme Obree sounds drunk, Nigel Mansell is an ex-car racer famous for being boring with no knowledge of cycling other than bankrolling his sons ambitions, what would someone who doesnt even know who Obree and Fisher are make of it?

Plenty of programmes with a similar studio-chat and pre-recorded VT format manage basic things like, you know, having the presenters audible. Even discounting Top Gear purely on the grounds it is hated by STW, low rent stuff like 5th Gear (often shot in a public cafe) and The Gadget Show manage it.

I think it'll be a grower and improve over the weeks to come

The TdeF has given ITV4 its biggest ever ratings (over a million IIRC), so much so that ITV1 snatched the coverage for the final weekend. They have hoped that this audience will stay for the cycling show. Be interesting to see what the viewing figures are. If it lasts the full series it is only because so much of ITV4's content is unoriginal and no doubt dirt cheap.

I recorded it earlier and just watched it back. Have tosay I was a bit underwhelmed really but I think they might have re-jigged the first program a bit due to TDF maybe. it does seem a bit 'London-centric' but I'll give it a couple of weeks to improve befoee writing it off.

not impressed by the presenter spent way more time talking to Mansell than Graham Obree FFS and then GF turns up and it all got a bit tossey...

this was so bad it was really good, like watching a train wreck, or being on bad drugs.

also the kind of cycling i don't feel any connection with.

Looked forward to watching it, but very quickly disappointed. I didn't think it was a great advert for cycling. It was never going to please every keen cyclist, but should have at least attempted to inspire new cyclists to get on their bikes.

The chat section in the cafe was terrible with the background noise. Some info on Graham Obree and Gary Fisher would have been good, I can't imagine many non-cyclists know who they are and what they have achieved. I thought Mansall was a valid guest - not a famous cyclist, but a sort of celebrity with a keen interest in the sport. Maybe they will have Alan Sugar on there next week?

Overall it seemed a bit short, with all the features lacking much depth.

Recorded here as well, just watched it. TBH I didn't think it was *that* bad. Couple of cringeworthy moments. Anything with Gary Fisher in it for example, the guy truly is a tosser.

The Olympic road race course - relevant, mostly interesting to a lot of people. Filming in LMNH - it's a great cafe; quirky, fun, generally pretty relaxed and it's got a nice vibe but it's not really an ideal filming location due to the noise and the comings and goings of customers.
Nigel Mansell - owns Team UK Youth so again, fairly relevant, I can see why they'd have him on there. Graham Obree - was he just really nervous or does he always talk like that?
And Gary Fisher - dear God, why?

A bit of explanation as to who they were/their background might have been helpful. Same with Rob Hayles - something other than "cycle show expert".

Possibly trying a bit too much to be like Top Gear or a bit too hip and trendy but I reckon give it another couple of weeks before ripping it to pieces.

it does seem a bit 'London-centric'

i don't know what's worse the fawning fixie-prick hipsters with their caps at jaunty angles drinking micro-brewery pale ale while 4 sociopaths make conversation on a sofa or dour northerners waxing lyrical about 'this ere Ribble's a proper bike fur the real ills we ave rund ere'

a TV program about bikes is no substitute for the real thing.

One positive though,something by chain reaction that arrived exactly on time.

One positive though,something by chain reaction that arrived exactly on time.

It would seem we'll be sending it back for a refund.

IMO cycling is such an expansive, diverse and subjective sport/past-time that it's gonna be pretty damn difficult to please everyone who chooses to tune in.

Didn't connect with the presenter. Thought Mansell was actually alright - surprisingly. Obree illustrated his insanity. Fisher played the nutjob role with aplomb, but was also pretty grounded. Cafe and hangers-on - not sure about them. Hemingway slot should have been expanded upon.

With a 30 min show no doubt cut down to something like 23 mins of actual play time on a commercial channel it's no doubt gonna be hard to cover enough ground AND be relevant.

Hopefully the next few shows will show some spark and get people off their couches and onto a saddle. Won't happen though if it's anything like this.

Don't really think the problem was being 'London-centric', or even 'road-centric'. They've got to film it somewhere, none of the guests, presenters or features were particularly london based, and obviously with the tour and olympics the first two weeks are going to have quite a lot of road, even with the Megavalanche report next week.

The real problem was just the inability to produce a remotely well-made TV programme. It was clunky, awkward and badly presented. The features managed to be both too-short and too dull, not enough explanation for those not into bikes, and not enough detail/interest for those who are. Half an hour really isn't long enough for a magazine style programme, especially with adverts. It should either be an hour, or should only have 1 or 2 features each week. Needs better writers, and a main presenter who can ask some interesting questions and get a decent conversation going, although that was clearly hamstrung by the fact that the guests couldn't hear each other, and the 'interviews' were 30 seconds long and crammed between other features. The guests weren't helping much, but I think a better interviewer, given a few more decent questions, and a bit more time, could have got something much more interesting out of at least two of the three.

The challenge with making this type of show more 'intelligent', e.g. having the presenter ask 'better' questions, is that it'll risk alienating the casual (non-cycle-savvy) viewer. Yet keep it as is and you do the same to those into biking.

oh dear, oh dear, oh dear....... 😥

watched it last night, not holding out much hope for the rest of the series!! I know we have a lot to thanks Garry Fisher for but i think his over exuberance may have just reinforced the sterotype of a cyclist to the non cyclist,a little bit weired also waxed moustache and a trilby WTF!!. Graham Obree top bloke, should have an hour special on him, i really felt sorry for him been talked at by Fisher though!! at least he beat him on the roller racing. Agree about the retro chique, look at me, fixie riding, expresso drinking people in the background....annoying