Hezz

Stage 2 seemed like it would be a normal sprinters stage for the most part. I think the usual winds in this area were not too bad because the average speed of the race was very high. Over 27 mph so there was either a lot of tail winds or a very excited peloton. Somehow the ending of the race did not transpire as was thought it would. I think when TJV attacked with about 4-5 kilometers to go it really confused the sprinters teams. It looked like he was going to do it but he lost his power during the last 1.5 kilometers or so. Between that and two crashes in the final few kilometers there was a lot of indecision at the front of the peloton. I guess there were no big lead out trains or teams like we see in the big tours to crank up the pace so high that no one can break free at the end.

I have a feeling that a lower video budget is part of the culprit for the lost live video link. They did not seem to have the helicopter until the last hour or so of the race. Probably to save money. Whenever the race would approach a hill on either side of the road the signal would get lost from the motorcycle camera's. I don't know how they were beaming their signal but either the signal was getting blocked at times or there was a bandwidth problem on the internet servers. I think this is why the big network doesn't do real live video for the bike race. That plus they want more time for cutting it up for advertizing and for other programs.

I imagine that it is very expensive to do full live coverage with high quality. Probably would require having your own satellite high bandwidth signal and a satellite at just the right location for your racing venue. A set of requirements that small budget operations could probably not get setup. Even for the TDF which usually has the best live coverage I know of they have to have a few mobile signal relay trucks nearby. I imagine they have a whole crew of guys inside to composite the video and relay it to a satellite. To do it in near real time is probably really expensive. The more it is time shifted the cheaper it can be done.

Towards the end of the stage they were really having problems with the video and they were fudging back footage in between the helicopter shots but it was obvious that it was hacked together to cover up problems that they were having. It was not even obvious to me that TJV had been passed because they went over that part of the race video with commercials. Totally unethical in my view. Why they put in commercials during the last 2-3 minutes of the race is beyond me but it is really offensive.

ultraman6970

Havent watched this tour at all but where in the world are the results or something??? I see some pdf files with some results but it is that hard to pay the web designer to publish the results in the web site itself?

DGozinya

NERD ALERT: I watched the first two events now on Root Sports and just saw the Fox Ohio listing and tuned to the replay. The Root feed is 15 - yes 15! frames per second. Wow. It's also weirdly playing 2 frames, then doing a jitter 3rd frame, then a repeat 4th frame. They are also showing it in a 4:3 pillar box with 10% zoom lost so you miss the first letter of everything on the left edge.

Now, on FoxOhio, they are doing a 16:9 stretch of the original 4:3, so you see everything, but everyone is squished and fat...makes me feel good! Their video is still 15fps, from the helicopter and most motorcycles, but I saw some motorcycle feeds that are 30fps...I wonder if that was also the case on Root and I just didn't catch it.
NERD OUT.

Kind of Blued

I'm not suprised. I guessed 20 fps earlier in the thread. I'm not a videographer or anything, but I think it bothers me more than most. It's really borderline unwatchable for me.

ultraman6970

Who are the two commentators in the live feed from the web site??? They call some stuff wrong, they scream and stuff.. pretty annoying

ps: no wonder nobody wants to broadcast the race at least in this area, those 2 commentators are really annoying. They need to get somebody else in my opinion.

DXchulo

Congrats to TJVG. Henao lost more time than I thought. I wonder if Henao will try an attack now to set up Sevilla. The next two stages are very hard and Gobernacion is a team of fighters, so it should be an interesting weekend.

Onegun

:rant:

OMG!! FOX SUCKS!! Talk about gaining an appreciation for other broadcasters!! Besides the hokey, amateur commentators, the fps rates and everything else mentioned so far ... where were the results after stage 1? You had to tune in the next day to get them! Where are the running time gaps? They mention time gaps MAYBE twice in a race! They don't even mention breakaways! We didn't even know Jesse Anthony was out on a solo break for some 30 miles until he caught and passed the day's earlier break!!

Stage 2 was almost as clueless, and now I just tuned in to watch today's stage, the ITT. What do I get? A recap of the prologue and stages 1 and 2, and you have to tune in tomorrow sometime to see stage 3!

That's it. I'm done. Fox sucks, and I'll just read VeloNews for my results. They post them a full 8 hours before Fox's broadcast anyway!

Are you listening, advertisers??!!

Kind of Blued

Ok, Root Sports is just showing the prologue again instead of today's time trial. Who do I e-mail to just get everybody fired all at once?

bobvonb

grrrrr. same for Fox. just a recap of the prev. days, no ITT!

DXchulo

Great race today, even if the coverage did suck and it took until now to find out how much time Henao gained back on Leipheimer. Henao is now just 23 seconds back on GC. He could win this thing tomorrow. He's looking strong and the Gobernacion team is actually looking better than RadioShack.

I still don't get why RadioShack let that break get away. There were some strong riders in there and the peloton is smaller than normal, so it's dangerous to let such a big break go.

Jakedatc

Yea.. they messed up for sure. they burned a lot of legs getting it back as much as they did. Levi will have to earn it a lot on his own tomorrow up Little cottonwood if he's going to get the win. has to watch Henao and sevilla and ignore everyone else.. CVV isn't going to pull 1:18 back on a mountain.. Mark, follow, win

Skewer

It is early morning Sunday. Is there a decent, live internet feed that I can watch today's final Queen Stage? From reading above, it sounds like there isn't any consistent coverage.

mudman22

https://ec2.tourofutah.com/tourtracker/

Live broadcast at 11:00 mountain time

Skewer

Thanks!!! I just got back and strapped in. I think they are passing by Deer Creek Reservoir and are just about to the bottom of climb up to top of Alpine Loop.

Jakedatc

ok.. this guy has to stop calling it a grand tour... he's said it like 4 times now.

bobvonb

well the live feed was better than FOX. all done til Colorado!

Jakedatc

6 days till Vuelta

Perfect ride by Levi today.. have Radioshack ride to keep the breaks reasonable. stick to Hadao's wheel like glue and giving him the stage was classy. Hadao busted his ass trying to shake him so he deserved that respect.

mudman22

This is what I don't understand about racing. It looked like Levi could have easily blown by Hadao during the final climb. By not racing for the stage win, wasn't Levi saying "I'm better than you, but you can win anyway." How is that classy?

Kind of Blued

The other option was the beat him and say "I'm gonna win this thing and not even allow you the consolation prize of the stage win cause I'm a greedy jerk". Aside from all of that, Levi has more racing to do in a week, and he needs to save energy for that. How stupid would he feel if he had burned the extra energy today, then lost the next race by two seconds or something cause his legs were tired?

Jakedatc

Because Levi has won this tour before, had this one in the bag.. he didn't need to win the stage, let this kid have some glory and a bit of cash for putting out one impressive ride. Gobernacion is a tiny little team and held their own against some tour pro's with some major players on them. they get recognition for their sponsor, levi gets another 1 week tour win, everyone can be happy. Gobernacion also won the team competition too i think.

It's like when Cav can let Renshaw get a stage when they blow everyone away as payback for leading him out all year. It is a gift.

“My number 1 goal, my only goal,” Leipheimer said after claiming the overall victory at the 2011 Tour of Utah, “was to win the race.”

"“The way the Gobernacion team rode today and all week, they deserved to win,” Leipheimer said.

That is classy.

DXchulo

Too bad for Henao. I was rooting for him to take the win. I'm looking forward to see what Gobernacion can do in Colorado.

Hezz

It's not so certain that Levi could have blown by him near the finish. Maybe, but's it's a dangerous gamble. Henao already beat Levi in a sprint to the line in stage 1 so Levi knows the he is a better sprinter. Levi looked good and maybe could have attacked with 3 km to go. But he may have burned himself out doing it and Henao may have found what he needed to beat Levi by 23 seconds. They could have sprinted it out in the last 500 meters and I think Hedao would have won anyway. And Levi may have lost a couple of more seconds which wouldn't have mattered.

Levi is calculating. He is also thinking about saving energy for the Colorado race. And Hedao really probably hurt Levi on that climb more then it showed which is why Levi did not try to blow him out at the top. Say that Levi had attacked at around the 3 km to go mark. He may have died at 1 km to go. And when you die on these steep hills you can loose time really fast. He could have attacked at 2 km to go but probably though that he didn't have enough to do it convincingly.

SouthFLpix

Levi is not a good sprinter at all. He had a 'lucky chance' of coming around Henao only because Henao was in the front leading for so long, but even so it's doubtful. You can call it a gift, but I personally think Levi just choose not to contest a sprint that he probably would not have won.

Skewer

I don't recognize many of the Radio Shack teammates Levi has riding with him in the Colorado race that starts on Tuesday. For example, there is no Brajkovic, Kloden, Horner or Zubeldia. Except for Horner, those guys are all in the Vuelta. I would guess the chances for another Levi victory are not real high for Colorado. Besides no Brako, there is stiffer competition --- Schlecks and Evans for example. Radio Shack should do well in the Vuelta.

Radio Shack Colorado Team: George Bennett, Philip Deignan, Ben Hermans, Ben King, Levi Leipheimer, Jason McCartney, Dmitriy Muravyev, Ivan Rovny

Radio Shack Vuelta Team: Jani Brajkovic, Matthew Busche, Markel Irizar, Andreas Klöden, Geoffroy Lequatre, Tiago Machado, Nelson Oliveira, Sérgio Paulinho & Haimar Zubeldia