Road Bike Racing - I am truly depressed....and it's OLN's fault

that I will not be watching what looks to be an epic grand tour (http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2004/vuelta04/?id=default)

I am sooooo ticked... :mad:

Cunego's shot at a second GT win...

Floyd the leader at Postal??

Many stories and we are reduced to reading about it and looking at still photos...

D@mn you OLN... :mad: :mad:

Count me ticked, too, Roadwarrior - at OLN AND my local cable provider. The local provider moved OLN to digital and made it part of an extra cost subscription package. So I am now paying $15/month more just to get OLN strictly for cycling, and the coverage has done nothing but deteriorate since then. Oh, except for that great "Roadside Tour" crap, Al Trautwig, and that other idiot they had working the tour last year. To tell you the truth I enjoy the Giro and the Vuelta more than the Tour. But then I tend to be a contrarian - the more something is hyped, the less interesting I find it. I haven't watched a Superbowl in several years because I am sick of it weeks before it happens. I'm getting that way about the Olympics, too.

MORE BOBKE!


The following is a rant about my experience with OLN, the local provider, etc. I decided to move it to the end to spare those who have better things to do. :D

Last year the local Cox affiliate announced they were moving OLN to digital cable. Actually, I "luckily" heard it on a local cycling message group. Oh, yeah, and the change took place, not on the firts of a month but on a random Wednesday in May, the Wednesday of the first week of the Giro. I reluctantly switched to digital cable. The big day came, and my VCR recorded...2 hours of static. After some research I found out that not only had OLN been moved to digital, the channel number had changed. So I tried that channel, I couldn't get it. After 30-40 minutes on hold I found out that not only had it moved to digital AND the channel changed it was also now part of a special sports and entertainment package. So I subscribed to that. Then I would get OLN one day but the next would record a blank screen. After another hour or so with tech support they decided I needed a new box so I had to go to the cable office to swap boxes. This REPEATED a couple of days later. After the third box did the same thing a couple of days later I finally spoke to a customer "service" person who noticed that my digital profile was set up incorrectly, as if I had 2 digital boxes, and the overnight reprogramming feed was being directed to a box that didn't exist. So after missing most of the first two weeks of the Giro I finally got to watch a few days.

To tell you the truth I enjoy the Giro and the Vuelta more than the Tour. But then I tend to be a contrarian - the more something is hyped, the less interesting I find it.
I completely agree with you. I really enjoyed the Vuelta broadcast last year, in part due to the fact that it wasn't All About Lance :rolleyes:

I'm no longer pissed. A friend of mine in Spain is recording it to DVD and mailing them to me.

Sucks to be you guys!

You're still getting the coverage late though. Right?

I'm reduced to following Cyclingnews.com's live updates. That's ok though. It's what I have to do for every one-day race.

I'll follow it best I can and then order the DVDs.

Yeah, relatively late. It's not live of course, but I'll have about 20 DVDs worth of Vuelta Coverage long before the 4 or 5 hour version comes out in WCP.

Devil -
Make sure your DVD player and your friend's in Spain are compatible formats! I'm very jealous though...

That was the first thing I asked about. Thanks for your concern though.

OLN I hope you read this!! My expanded cable package is being discontinued because of you :mad: :mad: :mad:

I am also not pleased with OLN's decision to drop the Vuelta. Mark my words, when fishing reruns get better viewership (which they will) than the Vuelta, you can kiss the Giro and who knows what else away.

Your only course of action is this - cancel your subscription. Then, send OLN an e-mail message (Click here for address (http://ww2.olntv.com/viewhtmlcode.asp?htmlid=35)) stating WHY you did so. I'll take the additional $32/month (package dropped several weeks ago) over fishing show reruns anytime. :)

I'm no longer pissed. A friend of mine in Spain is recording it to DVD and mailing them to me.

Sucks to be you guys!

I'll pay you to copy those (to vcd?) and send them to me ;)
Otherwise I'll just get screwed over by WCP

I moved from Buffalo to Cleveland and I have to pay $10 more just for OLN. That's one channel that I will only have during select times of the year. Adelphia is a bunch of friking greedy SOB's. Why don't they make the shopping channels $10 more instead? Pick the 50% of the channels that I don't watch.

I found out Comcast offers TVE, but my area doesn't have the updated hookups or something like that in my specific area, so even though it's supposed to be there, I'm just living in the wrong part of the city. They claim they are updating now, and they hope to be completed by mid-September, but it could be until December before we see the full results. :( But they did tell me what channel it should be on, so every day, I'll be checking to see if the updates have finished, and when they do, I'll have TVE. Hopefully, it will be before the end of the Vuelta.

I also asked them how to get OLN taken off. Apparently, since I have the premium, I have a different tier package, so if I take off OLN, I lose the other good channels I want (BBC, digital music, Sundance, O!, etc.), so I'm stuck with OLN. But I did tell them to make a note of the fact that I'm not happy with OLN. Even the guy was laughing when I was reading off the guide as to what they prefer to play. He said he couldn't name one bullfighter, but he could at least name one professional cyclist, and he totally sympathized with me. Of course, that doesn't solve my problem.

Well, I'm hoping to finish my ride and get home in time for the Vuelta, but I might miss it anyway since I have dance class on Saturdays now, and I've missed quite a few classes due to riding this summer. :(

Koffee

what is TVE is that a channel that is carrying the Vuelta, or is it just the initials for the Vuelta?

Ya'll of course realize where all of this is headed right? Within a couple of years we'll all be reduced to watching cycling coverage the way it was before Lance came around. OLN has done nothing but fill it's pockets ($$$). When Lance retires, there goes cycling coverage as we have it now. Just look at this year: only live daily coverage of the Giro, spend pretty much most of the yearly budget on the Lance Chronicles, Le Tour, the dumba** Cutters, then announce it's simply not cost effective to have any coverage of the Vuelta. Gimme a break.
OLN=Only Lance Network. At least I'm not paying extra for OLN. It's part of the basic pkg. I have on Directv.