Road Cycling - Re: OLN cycling coverage

Need a little help all.

Just how good is OLN's coverage? I mean classics, Giro, Vuelta, Tour and beyond? Off season? It's killing me that my cable doesn't offer OLN and I've been thinking about dumping them for a dish.

But... I'm leery of the required contract with the satellite. If we're unhappy, we're stuck. And when I hear a lot of talk of bull riding coverage, etc. it makes me wonder. -Would I have bikes to watch in the winter, classic (historic) races maybe, replays of the previous season's races, riding shows?

Are we talking start to finish races and stages, or are we talking highlight shows? Is it really worth it or is it just above the updates on ESPN et al?

Thanks.

The off season hardly has anything.

Most of the classics get an hour of extremely-compressed coverage. (tape delayed) Though it's better than nothing. There was no coverage of Milan-San Remo this year... Fleche Wallone had live coverage for the last couple of hours this year.

This year, Paris-Nice had daily live coverage on the weekdays. Again, last couple of hours of the stage, usually. Tape delayed on weekends. The live coverage OLN has is good... Phil and Paul usually commentate. Some other stage races sometimes get hour long highlight shows.

The Giro and Vuelta have live coverage on the weekdays and it is indeed good. Tape delay on weekends, usually. The TDF this year will have a few hours of live coverage, every day. The few big mountain stages will have extra hours of coverage.

It would be gold to see some historic races... but no, you have to let WCP rip you off to get those.

Usually they have a half hour show every week highlighting various races.

It seems the best coverage is of the grand tours. Coverage of the classics doesn't seem to have the same appeal, probably because lance doesn't do many of them and americans rarely win, so they figure who will be interested?

OLN is the ONLY coverage of Grand Tours in the USA. The broadcast is fair, as OLN just talks over whatever network feed they get. The reason for just the last few hours of coverage in the mornings has to do with time zones.

As for OLN's rodeo coverage, they get paid well to broadcast almost every PBR and PRCA event save for the Calgery Stampede and the World Finals. Rodeo is a more popular, and respected, sport in America.

Check out http//cycling.tv for a real cycling fix. Broadband connection helps.

that url is missing a colon

Then http//:cycling.tv
It's not missing anything else.

Then http//:cycling.tv
It's not missing anything else.

Except the proper syntax. :D

Try: http://cycling.tv

Try: http://cycling.tv

Pretty cool, thanks.

-I don't think I'm gonna' bother switching. The coverage sounds "good" but not "great" and so probably not worth the hassle, especialy when OLN will eventually come to cable. I guess I'll have to live with the weekly updates, online sites and Cycle Sport stories.

I'm not happy about it, but the sat people can't even tell me if I can use existing wiring or if they have to drill all new holes (in our all-new walls.) And the cost, which I thought would be less than cable, works out to be almost the same to the dollar, and that's just for the service. I don't even know what the fees and taxes would be, they can't tell me that either. To listen to them, it may look like a cell phone bill with taxes as much as the bill itself. Maybe not, but they weren't very forthcoming.

I'm not happy about it, but the sat people can't even tell me if I can use existing wiring or if they have to drill all new holes (in our all-new walls.)

If you're ditching cable and you know where the physical cable goes into your house then you simply tell the installer to snip there and run the feed from the dish to that splice. You shouldn't have to have more holes drilled. The satelite feed signal will travel over the same RG-6/U cables you probably already have for your cable service. You do have RG-6/U right? The video feed after it exits the sat tuner will work fine over the older RG-59 but sat feed from the dish normally requires RG-6/U. You might be able to get away with using older cables if the run is short enough though.

OLN is the ONLY coverage of Grand Tours in the USA. The broadcast is fair, as OLN just talks over whatever network feed they get. The reason for just the last few hours of coverage in the mornings has to do with time zones.

As for OLN's rodeo coverage, they get paid well to broadcast almost every PBR and PRCA event save for the Calgery Stampede and the World Finals. Rodeo is a more popular, and respected, sport in America.

Check out http//cycling.tv for a real cycling fix. Broadband connection helps.

Thanks for the link. I've just finished watching their excellent coverage of the Tour of Faso. Really impressed with all the riders. No five-star hotels for them, just portable showers and tents.

Check with your cable provider and see if it is available through digital cable. Down here in the south Cox Cable offers OLN with the Digital Package. I have many cycling friends that order it the this week and cancel at the end of the race season.