Every time there is a spill he refers to the ‘sound of metal grinding on Tarmac’. This made me wonder, exactly how much metal is left in. a pro-spec road bike? Not much that I can think of.

“Job of work”

Suitcase of courage

‘Sylvain Chavanelle knows this finish like the back of his hand’ ….as he almost straightlines it across a roundabout, stopping almost dead 1km from the line wiping out all his hard won breakaway advantage.

Whatever happened to the “Well Phil” fanzine?

Put the hammer down.

None of the riders even have bikes or bicycles at the tour they all ride ‘machines’

“In the sport of professional cycling…”

I also miss hearing about Jan Ullrich’s “big diesel engine” every 3 minutes on a mountain stage.

paul who???

“And it’s Big George digging deep into his suitcase of courage in this, the sport of cycle racing – he’s crouched low over his machine as he puts the hammer down and behind him there’s the sound of metal grinding on tarmac as there’s another massive pile-up…”

Continue in the same vein for 4hrs.

Although Sean Kelly informed me yesterday that Cavendish was [Sean Kelly accent] “sitting in turd wheel” [/Sean Kelly accent] which sounds like an unpleasant medical condition.

😆

Although in all fairness to anyone commentating on the Tour it must be a real job to find interesting things to say about 180 blokes riding their bikes across France for several hours a day for 3 weeks.

try watching it live, in french. Its even worse!

also nice to get the local information about the Opera House, Château, geological feature etc etc when the heli camera zooms in on them…

Unbelievable

Duffers bingo was fun too

Harmons getting on my nerves this year. he’s turned the words ‘super strong’ in to one word ‘superstrong’, and in an attempt to get it into the oxford dictionary, he uses it about 60 times a day

Although in all fairness to anyone commentating on the Tour it must be a real job to find interesting things to say about 180 blokes riding their bikes across France for several hours a day for 3 weeks.

I do wonder how they filled all that air time before the web, social media, email etc. Live phone-ins from viewers?

I do wonder how they filled all that air time before the web, social media, email etc. Live phone-ins from viewers?

They did a half hour highlights show, the full thing wasn’t on the box.

Thankfully, I’ve not heard him say “job of work” yet this year on the highlights show.

I’m sure I heard him say it, but maybe in one of the live shows at the weekend. 🙄

“rider taking all kinds of risks”

“if you touch your brakes you will lose 30 positions”

“you have to stay at the front to avoid crashes” (they were left a little dumbstruck yesterday when a crash happened at the front)

I was amused in the prologue when Dave Zabriske was riding and they pointed out that he was vegan and then followed this up with ‘he doesn’t eat meat – or anything else for that matter’

Don’t think I’ve hear “he’s in all kinds of trouble,” yet, but there’s plenty of time.

…that might be Phil though. 😕

I like his historical info on chateau but he loves to tell us which rider had ever ridden a mountain bike.

“Evans was actually a champion mountain biker” being one of hi favourites.

Or “such and such was actually a champion mountain biker so he should do well on these technical sections” will those be the rock gardens and drop offs they’ve added to this years stages.

Probably the steps into somebody’s garden like last year 🙂

Love Phil and Paul’s commentary, especially when they attribute bike-handling skills to having been a mountain biker (clearly not seen me ride) and their historical digressions: ‘Well Phil, that chateau was where…’

But the one Sherwenism that annoys me is ‘taking onboard some fluids’ – aka ‘drinking’ 👿

“hanging out to dry”

ahh, this has made my day in work a little more bearable 🙂

I do wonder how they filled all that air time before the web, social media, email etc. Live phone-ins from viewers?

David Duffield, the original EuroSport commentator when ES was the only channel to show the Tour live, used to fill the time by talking about the food and wine of the region, he used to describe every one of his meals in detail.

This usually lead him to miss all the important moves, crashes etc while he was talking about the 1982 Chateau Neuf he’d enjoyed the previous night.

Sometimes they talk about the bike tech, do a focus on one rider or one team, fill in the gaps with interviews with team managers etc or occasionally do a piece on (say) the Moto Cameraman or some other unsung hero of the Tour. It can be quite interesting when they do that; equally, talking about the actual riding when it’s a 5hr flat transitional stage can be dull as ditchwater.

Gary Imlachs (spelling?) sense of humour is priceless, after the graphic of the earth rising over the lunar horizon and zooming in to the stages map he came out with something along the lines of ‘the organisation have not yet decided to put a stage on the moon so todays stage is……..’

You know you’re getting old when you can remember watching Sherwin riding the bloody thing !!!

“at speeds approaching 65, 70, 75, 80 km/h*”

*goes up by 5 km/h each year

“Great bike rider”. I know he means it, but, really. Repeat ad infinitum.

I quite like it when he says: “job of work“. 🙂

Love all the “ex-mountain biker therefore has mad road skillz” stuff.

“It’s curtains for Karpets”

the weird non-specific accents that Harmon and Sherwen have developed amuse me.

Harmon tries desperately to get each rider’s name ride in his native dialect, while adopting speech mannerisms from too much time trading pidgin English. “For sure!”.

And Sherwen’s no better – he’s from Widnes FFS..!

I do like them, for their enthusiasm more than any technical ability. The Murray Walkers of biking.

I agree the speed estimates are usually way out though. Yesterday he had them doing 45mph on the flat, 10k out. Has he been 45mph recently?

I quite liked his “motorised wheelchair” quip about the guy on the recumbent chasing the peloton 🙂

You say

guy on the recumbent chasing the peloton

My mental picture is:

‘taking onboard some fluids’

They’re all at it now. I don’t know who invented it but its the biggest load of bollocks ever and turns to vapour my onboarded fluids.

Water, brandy (Simpson) or isotonic lucozade, darts player or ironman triathlete yer avin a drink.