Enjoyed the GCN Racing summary video on YT - particular the winner's interview (after about 10mins) - lad blubbing his eyes out. Awww!
Surprisingly a lot of content on YouTube, watched on my smart TV, I searched lenzerheide and literally hours of content appeared, I fast forwarded the semis a little and landed on louise Ferguson's run, the name on the screen was Sian Ahern and the footage seemed to make her look slow so my initial thought was oh no they've ballsed this up, overall though its pretty good, some of the footage doesn't do it justice and CG is no commentator, I love Cedric so hope he improves, it would be better with Warner though, Ric is a bit dull and lacks charisma. Hopefully they don't clamp down on the YouTube content.
No harm to Ric.. im sure he's a good guy but i don't want to listen to him at all, or Cedric for that matter. Its a backward step for the DH which was going from strength to strength with Warner and Redbull.
Not opposed to change but this is a definite backward step.
Like many folks, I grew up with Rob and his madcap Freecaster moments, and really miss the excitement and level of irreverence he brought. Even my kids (who don't care that much about bikes - i know, i have failed!) loved watching DH because of his commentary. Was genuinely gutted when I heard he wasn't going to be commentating on DH anymore. Quite enjoyed Claudio too.
Tried watching coverage of EWS, but just didn't enjoy listening to the commentator. Found Cedric funny, almost as nuts as RW, but a bit harder to understand :D. The few sections with Reece Wilson commenting on items was class, very eloquent, he just always seems to come out with the right comment.
I begrudgingly paid the discount deal for GCN+ as wasn't sure how else to view. My reasoning was that naively I felt that some of the funding might find its way into the sport. Wouldn't say the coverage was any better than redbull, if anything it was worse; still massive gaps in the course coverage, but now with comedy "toys r us garden playset" course markers. Also, the lack of some riders gopro race coverage due to whatever legal nonsense is a shame. The redbull time comparison graphic used to be good, gave a useful comparison between riders and sections; maybe something similar will come in.
Nice to see some junior race action. Not sure how the new racing format will fare for riders, perhaps reduces the emphasis on outright wins with good points available from the semis?
It is what it is I guess, but it's lost a lot of the magic of watching DH for me. There's always Crankworx and not that long til hardline either I suppose.
It's just telly at the end of the day though, I should be doing something more productive (riding).
Howie
You can get GCN+ through an app on the telly, or on any mobile devices, £40 a year for loads of stuff bikes, it really is worth taking a look.
I’ve got the GCN+ app and likes the coverage but the app is a pile of poo.
Slow and hard to navigate, full of obscure road races that I can’t seem to filter out and the playback is glitchy and jumpy. I’ve sort of got used to it but no other streaming service through my fire stick is like that so I don’t think it’s my wifi.
Does anyone know why they have added in the big arrow boards along the track?
Saw a video (might have been WynTV or Dialed) when someone said they could just ride over them as they weren't out of bounds like going past the tape (well, mesh stuff now).
the big arrow boards along the track
I think they marked the split timing sections
and while I'm here, I really don't understand why there are so many "Whoop" banners. Whats that all about? Are they just showing potential advertisers where their ad could be placed and how it could be seen?
Whoop is a HRM/Sleep/smart watch thingy.
Whoop is a Fitbit-style fitness tracker that you pay a hefty subscription for.
Their marketing team probably need to take a less minimalist approach to the advertising, based on the comments here.
whoop is a make of activity tracker.
edit, this is what happens when I take too much time reading posts before responding
For a first effort I thought it was a decent attempt from Discovery/GCN+. They will get better. RedBull.tv had years to fine tune their coverage. Yes, Rob Warner was a miss but the commentary wasn't too bad and the racing was excellent. I liked the new format as there was simply more riding on TV.
I've been a GCN+ subscriber for a while but I'm also into watching the road racing so it makes sense for me.
They did show some riders heartrates during the Final whilst they were racing (Powered by Whoop!!!!!)
the big arrow boards along the track
I think they marked the split timing sections
They had taller boards showing where the split timings were, I am on about the smaller ones that just seemed to be littered along the track.
They did show some riders heartrates during the Final whilst they were racing (Powered by Whoop!!!!!)
I don't know if it was correct, but Bruni was showing 144 for most of his Semi-run and only 156 for his Finals... That seems remarkably composed !!!
Yeah they do it for the XC as well, one of the elite men was showing 153 as he rode up that ridiculous hill at Nove Mesto at some mad pace.
They are built differently.
Back to DH, listening to a podcast this morning they were saying the average speed for the winning run was 33kph. Madness
There's a really good trackwalk video (subs in English) from fullattack where they had a look at where they placed those pads on the course: 15 minutes in with Vali Höll.
