I have Freeview, and am just about surviving on ITV4's highlights, watched on the computer when I get home from work at 19:00 is silly early.

Am I missing a better source, or do I just need Sky (and presumably a Sky+ thingy)?

And if I invested in a Sky package, what do I need, and would it also mean I could keep on top of other races, or do they pretty much just cover the Tour?

Any thoughts appreciated, I am a terrible television luddite.

Cheers

Jon 🙂

I know, the ITV stuff isnt very good. They missed out the whole of the Aspin and about 70% of the tourmalet. Annoying.

We have been recording the full however many hours worth of Eurosport coverage and watching it when I get home from work. Advantages are that you can self edit and fast forward the bits you are not interested (and rewind some of the peloton altercations). Problem with Eurosport is Sean Kelly – can't he show a litte excitement in his voice? MrsFlash and I discussed Sean Kelly bingo at the weekend counting the number of time he repeats things, 'well certainly.'

He never says "certainly" – its always "certaintly" 🙂

Apart from Sky – Eurosport or one of the many French carriers
or cable

You can still do Eurosport for free if you're prepared to put up with German commentary
It's still on the old Astra satellite @ 19.2E in analogue, so you'd need an old sky receiver [or similar]

All the other major tours and races are covered on sky/eurosport in a similar fashion to the tdf. Also all the Nissan UCI mtb events on the extreme sports channel plus lots of dirt jumping and other mtb stuff.

Get sky+ and you can record by series link so dont have to worry about missing a stage.

You can watch Eurosport online for only £35 per year, might be a better alternative to Sky (ive got Sky so i dont know how good their streaming is, or if you can 'watch again' rather than live only)

Linky

To answer your other question, they do cover a lot of other races such as the Paris-Roubaix, tour of italy etc. so pretty good really if you are actually able to watch it during the day (assuming they dont have a 'watch again' feature?)

you could suscribe to Eurosport Player for 1 month for £3.99 and get the whole life coverage on a PC

And boy am I missing it today… been enjoying having the eurosport live adio in my ear all day, and then the flippin gay jeyers have to have a rest day!!!

You can still do Eurosport for free if you're prepared to put up with German commentary
It's still on the old Astra satellite @ 19.2E in analogue, so you'd need an old sky receiver [or similar]

Comes with English commentary too – that's how I still get Eurosport. They threatened to turn the English commentary off a while ago (and did for a few weeks), but turned it back on due to popular demand.

I quite like the ITV4 coverage and I prefer highlights to live. There I've said it.

I have been watching the eurosport coverage for free but through this lot.. http://www.atdhe.net/

Thanks chaps, that's all very helpful. 🙂

Back on then? – that's good, it was off last time I looked
We stopped using that bird last year so I don't look there these days

Eurosport HD coverage is the only way to go (ignoring the quality of the commentators…). Mind you my Pyreneen stage watching over the weekend consisted of watching the start for an hour, falling asleep and missing the Cols then waking up for the predictable breakaway finish. Mincing ASO putting the climbs in the middle of the stages 🙁

just find a live streaming site with French audio. No hideous Kelly commentary, and adds to the atmosphere when you hear words like 'crevaison' being yelled wildly

It does sound sooo much more exciting in french! Our ITV4 highlights picture largely disappeared for yesterday's finish so we re-watched it on yuchuve in french. 🙂

I love Kelly – doesn't matter whether it's Giro, Tour, Vuelta, Tour of Calif/Georgia/Downunder – every top rider is thinking about the "general classement".

A perfect combination of mangled English and mangled French.

But, then, I can forgive his (and Sherwen's – "this sport we call professional cycling") commentarial tics for their glorious palmares and gritty riding styles.

ourmaninthenorth – Member
I love Kelly –

A perfect combination of mangled English and mangled French.

I always think that he speaks English like a second language.

And I find myself saying certaintly a lot in July.

BUT, he's a hero. (I've been to Sean Kelly square in Ireland – I thought it should be renamed Sean Kelly Cubbyhole, but there you go..)