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“ TBF that’s always been an issue, as most of it’s down to perception as they’ve no real way of knowing what is fast.”
I might not be good at riding a bike very fast but I’m good at seeing if someone is riding fast - would they like to give me a job? I’m good* at talking too… (“SHUT UP!!!!)
*excessive
I remember the early sectors of Gwin at Leogang with his snapped chain and Rob & Claudio were talking about how unlucky he was at that track and I was thinking “but he’s not going any slower, I swear he’s on a good run”. Cue much commentator screaming when the split showed!
Maybe they need a bass player or drummer in their commentary team? We (should) have good internal metronomes!
“ Would be good if they could bring back some of the key section timing, the zone analysis and the virtual straights”
Hell yes! Why on earth is that missing?!
TBF that’s always been an issue, as most of it’s down to perception as they’ve no real way of knowing what is fast
It's definitely an issue with time trial sports in general.
Then you've got the thing where some riders look fast but don't post as good times as less exciting to watch riders.
It's why I like watching Jesse Melamed race. He always looks fast and most of the time delivers. In the women's Enduro Isabeau is dull as ditch water to watch but is always at the top or thereabouts, since Cecile retired! Marine Cabirou is good to watch in the women's DH, less so Rachel and Camille! Daprela is great to watch but often crashes or doesn't quite cut the mustard. Amaury always looks fast and backs it up. Riders like Loic and Gregg are pretty boring to watch IMO but often produce the goods, Gregg less so now-a-days.
TBF that’s always been an issue, as most of it’s down to perception as they’ve no real way of knowing what is fast
I always used to be able to tell that Sam Hill was going faster than everyone else back in the Freecaster days.
Saying that, I couldn't tell he was going slower than everyone else in the semi-finals although it turns out he was, unfortunately.
I think it's just really hard to tell whether someone was going fast based on looks alone. Some riders ride like their hair's on fire. Some ride like they're trundling to the shops. Both can be fast. Or slow.
Coverage generally I think is "ok". I never would have paid a sub to start watching DH, but now I'm hooked I will 🤣
(TBH I probably would have paid for RB if they'd continued being the broadcaster for the World Cup but stopped being free-to-air...)
There are definitely some shortcomings compared to RB. Other people have mentioned split analysis, the key section, and the virtual straight, all of which were genuinely insightful analytic tools during the race for me. I also feel in latter years RB were starting to pick up on some of the line analysis stuff people like Cathro were doing on YT and intergrating that into the live show which was great: I miss the lack of that too. I don't feel the on screen graphics are as good as RB: two races in and I still find them a bit confusing and hard to read, which isn't great.
So there's definitely room to improve and innovate, but it's potentially all stuff which can be iterated on during the season. Hopefully there are people at ESO thinking about these sorts of things and working to make things better.
But on the other hand, I think some of the camerawork (different shots and angles, use of drones) has been an incremental improvement on last year, so that's positive.
Tech wise it pretty much works, and is broadly similar to RB for me. Website is a bit clunky and annoying. No app for GCN+ on Roku is a pain in the neck so I have to jump through some hoops to watch, but that's modern life for you 🤦🤷♂️
Commentary does the job. I was worried it would be either massively annoying (c.f. Rampage commentary at times) or totally hapless (e.g. some previous BBC commentary on Worlds races) and it's neither. It's not as good as Warner et al were, but that said it's not fair to make that comparison at this point in the season. I'll settle for "broadly competent and not actively annoying" at the moment!
As ever, the actual star of the show, the racing, has been brilliant 😍
They also appear to struggle to see when someone is riding fast or slow.
I am no expert, but there are times when you can see someone has stalled in a corner, and then the time says they are 0.613 down or something, yet the commentary will still be " he's getting faster with every turn, and the clock shows that he is up" erm no it doesn't and that last corner was shit.
Same with the rider who's tyre came off the rim, you could clearly see it happen yet it took them a replay and some, to finally notice, and it was then major news
“I think it’s just really hard to tell whether someone was going fast based on looks alone.”
The main giveaways are stalls into or out of corners, or rock gardens, especially before flatter/rougher sections, and how well riders are back-siding landings for maximum forward propulsion.
Some riders looks wild, some riders looks smooth, but the above points reliably predict how fast someone is going.
Another thing you can spot is how balanced a rider looks - if they look out of shape then they’re not doing a section as planned, and therefore are going slower than their best.
This is based on me watching most races on my phone - I’d hope with a bigger screen you’d pick up even more!
Hopefully there are people at ESO thinking about these sorts of things and working to make things better
I'd be fascinated to know who's calling the shots on the TV coverage.
ESO are clearly doing a decent job or running the races, whether or not you agree with the semis being introduced.
But do Ball, Cunningham & co get much of a say in (for example) the style and function of the graphics on screen? Or is that out of their hands and sits with Discovery?
I guess ESO have some influence, or we wouldn't have had that questionable decision on the lead commentator in the first place.
The funniest one in the commentary is quite close to me in some ways. Both races there's been comments from Rick about how Evie Richards is going so fast as she's been getting coaching from Tracey Moseley..... Which she really really hasn't been 😀 😀
I am no expert, but there are times when you can see someone has stalled in a corner, and then the time says they are 0.613 down or something, yet the commentary will still be ” he’s getting faster with every turn, and the clock shows that he is up” erm no it doesn’t and that last corner was shit.
Same with the rider who’s tyre came off the rim, you could clearly see it happen yet it took them a replay and some, to finally notice, and it was then major news
I presume they have different feeds and multiple screens to the final feed we see - e.g. a raw video screen and a live data screen. Would be easy enough to miss something on the former while scouring the data for insights..
The main giveaways are stalls into or out of corners, or rock gardens, especially before flatter/rougher sections, and how well riders are back-siding landings for maximum forward propulsion.
Yes, I agree with all of that entirely -- I was talking just in terms of style really. Even if two riders aren't making obvious mistakes, one person can look like they're totally pinning it but be quite slow, while another can look very calm and collected but be quick. Or vice versa.
I’d be fascinated to know who’s calling the shots on the TV coverage.
Aye. To be honest I've no idea -- it would be interesting to know. I hope/assume whoever is putting it together is taking notes and looking to improve the coverage throughout the season but who knows.
Wishful thinking but I'd love to see Cathro in the booth as the DH "expert" alongside Ric. (I dont get the Ric hate, but thats another conversation).
If he decides after the most recent injury to give up on the WC racing dream. I think he make top 60 once last year, and the best outcome from that was we got slightly better/extra Pinkbikeracing/inside the tape coverage.
Bart is a team manager and manages to combine that with commentary, Claudio pre-injury got to ride the course in practise for his previews.
Some weird camera placements for Leogang - why was the only shot they had of this crucial corner a drone/wire/chairlift shot from way up high with a tree in the way? Loads of space to stick a camera on the inside.
Some of the woods shots could have been better too - they clearly picked a spot where they could catch them coming off the boardwalk then down and to the right but would have been much better at the bottom of that section roughly where the photographer was standing.
Hopefully they're getting a feel for what works, the drone shots on the motorway were great but I suspect very little along there made any difference to the result.
@Tomparkin - a good example of this was Rachel’s winning run vs the other women before her, they ‘looked’ much faster as they were moving all over the bike, with lots of body language and the bike hitting the rough, etc whereas Rachel looked way smoother and slower and seemed less dynamic on the bike even though she was up at every split.
why was the only shot they had of this crucial corner a drone/wire/chairlift shot from way up high with a tree in the way? Loads of space to stick a camera on the inside.
the speed they are going, that spot wouldnt get you much. you would be too close and panning too fast.
the outside of that corner though... about in the "gold" of goldstone on that screen shot, would have seen the entire corner.
that corner has had impact on quite a few of the last couple of races, and was the focus of Cathro's analysis last year (and this year) so its not like they don't know about its issues if the powers that be had watched the last few years.
They're as much of a muchness I think, I get Disc+ with Sky and I've been using their app. It's terrible, but so was RBs.
As for the coverage... more cameras I'd say, they seemed to cover all, if not most of Leogang, I didn't notice any massive leaps in time anyway. The picture quality seemed very good too.
Commentery, so-so in isolation, but I miss Warner. They'll find their feet, but Rik must have said "we've been asked to mind our voices" about 20 times during Lenzerheide, I was hoping they'd at least get a little excited before the end.
The format, I watched all of Lenzerheide, but but Semi's & finals for Men and Women was hours and hours, for Leogang I just watched the finals.
Been watching through discovery+ and it’s definitely a step back from Redbull the camera tracking/drones are just no where near as good. The lack of Warner in the commentary box is a huge loss and after watching Crankworx you can see how much better Redbull are at it all even without the revenue from the paywall!