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Yet on Eurosport a train was seen going past yesterday and they asked people to text in with what train it was!! Brilliant!
Trying to decide if this is sarcasm or you're a train spotter..
The trouble is that while Eurosport discussed the train there would have been 4 crashes, 6 breakaways and a retirement, and they'd miss it all. I'd rather have slightly daft, but relevant, comments made on the spur of the moment, as live commentary tends to yield!
It's not a charity ride. A couple of months ago there was a memo going round that they wanted to find a cyclist, preferably called Francis, who wanted to ride a few stages of the tour.
It's an ad for Carrera bikes at Halfords.
Trouble is you hear the same clip over and over which gets annoying. They should have done it as a mini documentary so the story developed over the weeks
One of the guys who works at our sponsors shop got short listed apparently.
Yep, ITV commentary is pretty good. It's hard to talk about a race for 3 hours, and yes, sometime they can be a bit captain obvious or slightly dull, but at least they're never annoying. They do a pretty good job I think.
Anyone noticed the quality of the video feed is defo better on ITV4 than on Eurosport (on Virgin cable)?
Don't really care if the guy is a twunt. I'm jealous that he got to ride stages of the TDF with support crew.
If it had been me I'm sure I would have said a few things that made me sound like an eejit too because I was so excited and having a good time.
Does anyone here actually know the guy, and if he is indeed a proper tool? Or are we basing our character assessment on what happens to be in those brief ads? STW judgemental? Heaven forbid...
Does anyone here actually know the guy, and if he is indeed a proper tool? Or are we basing our character assessment on what happens to be in those brief ads? STW judgemental? Heaven forbid...
Literally never happened on here.
Seems to me that its impossible to form an opinion on the guy based on 4 minutes of edited footage and most of the posters on here would love the opportunity this guy had.
Seems to me that its impossible to form an opinion on the guy based on 4 minutes of edited footage
Isn't forming an opinion based on 4 minutes of edited footage one of the main points of advertising?
Yep, ITV commentary is pretty good. It's hard to talk about a race for 3 hours, and yes, sometime they can be a bit captain obvious or slightly dull, but at least they're never annoying. They do a pretty good job I think.
Yep I agree with this, I think ITV4 do really well with the coverage though the downside being of course the number of adverts. Really enjoy the actual coverage though.
They seem to make a real effort to ensure that non-cyclists or tdf 'newbs' are included too which I think is a good thing.
Does anyone here actually know the guy, and if he is indeed a proper tool? Or are we basing our character assessment on what happens to be in those brief ads? STW judgemental? Heaven forbid...
Calm down, nobody on here is genuinely, actually saying they truly dislike him or think he's a terrible, terrible person.
He's put himself up for being on an advert that is forced into millions of peoples living rooms like 10 times a day and is therefore rightfully subject to some light ridicule.
As Duggan said really ref Francis! Shame I didn't see the ad i'd have applied or do they specify males only???
Yep, ITV commentary is pretty good. It's hard to talk about a race for 3 hours, and yes, sometime they can be a bit captain obvious or slightly dull, but at least they're never annoying. They do a pretty good job I think.
By the way... why oh why do they keep calling the downhills technical?!
By the way... why oh why do they keep calling the downhills technical?!
I'd call flying down a mountain on 1 inch tyres at 60mph technical. But if you're more extreme... well maybe you should complain.
As Duggan said really ref Francis! Shame I didn't see the ad i'd have applied or do they specify males only???
Males only, surname or first name must include france, francis, francesca, anything frenchy really, otherwise marketing campaign = fail.
Yep I agree with this, I think ITV4 do really well with the coverage though the downside being of course the number of adverts. Really enjoy the actual coverage though.
When else are you meant to go to the toilet/get something to eat?
By the way... why oh why do they keep calling the downhills technical?!
Because some of them are? Calling a road descent technical is fine. Calling it rad, or gnarly, is something else..
as i don't have sound on my digibox (am too tightfisted to buy another one 😳 i was wondering who that guy was,that was on those halfords ad's (didn't have a clue who he was).
kudos to him for riding some stages,but i am sick to death of those ads now 😉
anyhoo there are people here who have ridden waay more than him,and don't bang on about it (not me i'd like to add,i'm a lazy sod 😆
Trying to decide if this is sarcasm or you're a train spotter..
think the point is the Euro guys were trying to be entertaining, accepting it was a dull stage for 90% of it (one of them ranted about a neighbour testing a hovercraft engine) rather than just blithering out the same cliches on autopilot that Waldorf and Statler have been for the last 30 years. I wince every time "former mountain biker" is thrown in commentating on downhill section. Have yet to see a Tour descent with a rock garden.
I like Gary Imlach's dry, arch delivery and slightly knowing references to Paul and Phil.
Smashing it up and down next to a river. What does that even mean? Dont know the bloke but hate the ads, hence renaming it tourdec--t every time its on. Chosen on the basis of his name's similarity to France, how sophisticated a marketing move.
The repetitiveness of the ads is F annoying, but the bloke doesn't strike me particularly as a massive ****t or anything. As far as I know he's a bloke-on-the-street, who may or may not have already been a keen-ish cyclist, who's lucked into chance to ride a few stages of the tour supported as part of a Halfords ad campaign, and that's it. Who on here wouldn't do it?
That said, I had assumed he was doing more than 4, and I was muttering "FFS" when he's having his moment on the "really big climb".
But give me these ads over the Boardman ones from last year any day!
[certain degree of hyperbole]
"Just trying to eat as much as I can. This is the first stage where I fell like it's really going to get to me."
It sickens me that I can quote that. Amongst almost all of the other crap he says. When he has his moment on the 'really big climb' I want to punch the tv. Maybe once, ok, but being faced with him saying the same things 10 times a day... I don't even see the few people I like that often.
And then the bustard goes and starts talking with his mouth open. Stick your frog's legs up your arse Francis.
[/certain degree of hyperbole]
(anybody hear boardman talking about 'hyper-bowl' the other day? lol)
As Salmon says though, better than the Boardman adverts of last year.
And if he really couldnt ever imagine himself riding the same (public) roads as the tour guys, he has a very restricted imagination and has never heard the words "Etape" or "Easyjet". I've ridden the same roads, accidently, on a mountain bike.
The repetition doeesnt help as ITV4 only have about 3 advertisers so the same ads get hammered every break. If I said I was a fan of "2" would you know what I meant? 😀
(edit: should have known better)
ctm yes I think so
An apology of sorts from the makers...
[url= http://parkinginstevenage.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/dan-francis-an-apology-of-sorts/ ]http://parkinginstevenage.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/dan-francis-an-apology-of-sorts/[/url]
Good link and h comes over as a nice guy in the documentary
the bit where he cramps for example it is -4 and he can no longer feel his hands or feet.
not sure I can manage 15minutes to watch the full documentary (STW is for wasting time) but the apology makes a lot of sense and should appease most I'd have thought
It being -4 and not having overshoes and long gloves makes me less likely to go into Halfords not more. It's like they can't be arsed to even consider the fact that at that time of year it would be bloody cold or even just throw some kit in a bag on the off chance that he might need it. Plenty of snow on a lot of mountains even in summer.
I also appear to have been doing road riding wrong. I don't find it an honour to ride the same roads as pros, I find it intensely depressing just how much faster those bastards are up hills that make me want to puke as I climb.
I think the thing that bugs me about this campaign and others like it is the notion that he's doing something heroic or at least unusual when in fact thousands of amature cyclists perform much more impressive feats as a matter of course.
Just watched the full thing. Still finding it hard to dislike him, although I still didn't really see the need for the "really big climb" moment. Things that stood out though- as mentioned above, they didn't seem very well prepared for high mountain passes early in the season. It can't have been a huge surprise that it'd be cold, and maybe some roads would be closed?
Also I don't know who these people are that think a £1000 bike wouldn't be good enough- do they actually exist?
Looks like the blog having a go at him was taken down. Pressure from Halfrauds? Impassioned plea from Francis himself? Guess we might never know.
I hope he didn't forget to ring back.
Putting the 'Great' in Britain.
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And bigger than Chris's
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Looks like the blog having a go at him was taken down.
It was fairly offensive from what I recall. Hopefully the author just grew up a bit.
The ads are irritating and patronising from where we sit, but he's just a bloke riding his bike and enjoying it his way.
And I think they're not targeted at us, more like regular non-cyclists tuning in to the tour to see what's what. They don't watch it all day every day.
Honestly - who among us wouldn't have done that if given the opportunity? I know I would. And I'd have probably come across as a knob too... 😀
OK, his quotes are nonsense.. "Smashing it up the River" is total bolx, and honestly.. who gets into a bath wearing their cycling kit?
But, let's give him the benefit of the doubt... film crews and producers in particular ask people to do some really stupid things and may well have scripted his lines for all we know. I'm sure he didn't think getting in the bath wearing his kit was a good idea all on his own.
The finger of blame should be pointed at Halfords for creating THE most annoying TV adverts ever seen in recent history. Francis' stupid pranks portray an image of cycling that is totally wrong, but if that is the nonsense Halfords wish to project then more fool them!
Looks like the blog having a go at him was taken down. Pressure from Halfrauds? Impassioned plea from Francis himself? Guess we might never know.
Nasty email from the production company combined with a nasty letter from blogger so I heard....
The Union Jack photo above is good evidence that anyone getting wound up by this is taking it more seriously than Mr. Francis himself.
They should of turned the documentary into the adverts, then we wouldn't be having this sort of conversation. He comes across as an ok guy, good luck to him
Here we go, this’ll be fun. I was involved in the idents/documentary. I'm not going to try and convince you the idents don't annoy you because they clearly do. That wasn't the intention. We cut 24. It probably doesn't feel like it from the consensus here, but that was the number that meant if you were watching 3 hours of live coverage from start to finish, you wouldn't see the same one twice.
However, if you're watching the Tour a lot, they will no doubt repeat and irritate to some degree.
To some of the questions posed here:
- "they should have turned the documentary into the adverts" - that's pretty much what we did. But when you take a 10-second clip and it's repeated every day for 3 weeks it might wear thin over time. It's very hard to get across the essence of a 15-minute film in 10 seconds. The web address in every ident takes you to the film, but ITV won't let you say anything that actively encourages people away from the show they're watching. Fair enough, they want you to watch the telly.
- chronology: we tried to tell the story in chronological order but when you have a highlights show immediately followed by live coverage that people dip in and out of, it's impossible to ensure people see everything in the right order.
- We chose the soundbites, not Dan. He had no editorial control. So, yes, he said "smashing it up and down the river" once, we chose to use it and ITV4 play it out a lot. If that lexicon irritates at first hearing, I can appreciate it's going to be like an open wound for 3 weeks... Aim your ire at me.
- Tears: our fault again. We ambushed Dan when he was freezing and knackered at the top of Croix de Fer. If a climb has never reduced you to tears, perhaps it won't resonate with you.
- Nothing was scripted. Wasn't for charity either (it was never positioned as such) unless you count Halfords - and some of you may.
- TourdeDickhead: saw that. But no one I know was involved in getting it taken down. I can only assume the author thought better of it or Blogspot took it down themselves.
- Never meant to portray Dan as heroic - just a personal account of taking his passion/hobby to the next level. It's not about outdoing other amateurs or the pros either, it was about him testing himself, in the same way that everyone here has personal goals they want to achieve.
- Do people doubt a £1000 bike could survive this? I don't honestly know, but if you're looking to torture test a bike, the Tour de France is a good place to start and given that Halfords are sponsoring the coverage, it made a lot of sense. And you don't need to do the whole Tour to make the point.
- "portraying an image of cycling that is totally wrong" - It portrays an image of cycling that differs from your experience and perception. I don't think it sets out to represent the sport as a whole. Just one guy's experience of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have a whole team built around you and supporting you. Take it from me, Dan knew he was on the dream ticket, made sure he appreciated every moment of it and remained good-humoured throughout. Very hard to portray the definitive anything in 10-second snippets. You take a guy out of his comfort zone, have him spend a week with people he's never met before and stick a camera in his face all the time, would you get the 'real' Dan? I'd venture that, this film aside, he has more in common with you than you know. He loves the same sport as you.
Final point: if you don't like the idents (repetition aside) or the documentary, they're probably not aimed at you. Halfords isn't Rapha, Colnago or Litespeed and they know that. Imagine you own a £400 bike and, inspired by Wiggo et al, you're thinking of taking it up a level, these ads and the film might appeal. And they won’t see those bloody idents quite as often as you.
Final final point: Dan has an alibi for the whole carpet tack episode.
Here we go, this’ll be fun......
....And they won’t see those bloody idents quite as often as you.
Bet your pleased at the amount of publicity all these discussions, love it / hate it have caused though! 😉
I would have rather seen a documentary about Donal Harrington's ride from last year.
[url= http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/kfqlauidmhid/rss2/ ]Properly unbelievable story[/url]
I would have rather seen a documentary about Donal Harrington's ride from last year.
He's leading a team in the tour of Ireland this year IIRC?
to all the earnest handwringers, I dont think anyone is shallow enough to genuinely hate someone on the basis of 30 seconds of footage. Whether or not he really mouthed such vapid drivel as "smashing it up and down", or not being able to imagine himself riding on a public road, blame the marketing monkeys for chosing to show us it thinking it had some value.
And sitting watching all the ITV4 footage I'm sure I haven't seen 24 different adverts (sorry, to me an "ident" is when I get a fingerprint or DNA hit back...).
And generic, nicely cut and paste from
http://parkinginstevenage.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/dan-francis-an-apology-of-sorts/
which has already been linked on here. Personally I thought the hater blog was funny, I like disproportionate ranty humour, and I'm sure Mr Francis is laughing all the way to the bank with a photo album full of memories.
I AM glad that people are spending money on advertising, paying for terrestrial TV coverage of cycling, bringing it to a wider audience to the extent ITV4 are putting on a "cycle show" series to cover the wider sport.
However I'm now either muting it or flicking over from ITV4 to Eurosport stream though, so it's been sucessful in driving me away from the rest of ITV4's advertisers. Law of unintended consequences?
I know what its like to be [u]almost[/u] reduced to tears when your knackered halfway through a long ride and your battling a headwind, so up a mountain in the freezing cold its no surprise he was emotional, the keyboard hardmen on here won't agree though!
genericusername, have you been inspired by the adverts to leave your Ford Focus at home and cycle to the Station instead? 😉
The hater blog has been removed. I wonder why?
Everyone is forgetting that Francis is a tri-athlete and should be ostracised for that alone 😉
crashtestmonkey: I know the parkinginstevenage link well - I wrote that too. There were some points I hadn't covered there, so I raised them here.
Only fair to warn you to keep the mute button handy for the 'Bradley Wiggins: A Very British Champion' idents/sponsor messages too. I promise no frogs legs, smashing it or sharing the tarmac though.