Personally, I just strip down to my skivvies and roll out the door at 50 mph. The wife and kids get quite freaked out when all the sudden no one is driving the car.

As much as I hate to say it, it might deserve to be said that bike races like the Giro and the Tour are profound achievements by the cyclists, but for much of the race are also pretty profoundly uneventful.

"And the field is staying together on a flat 100 mile stage where there will be exactly 10 to 15 seconds of excitement at the end involving riders who don't matter at all to the overall classification or any of the leaders' jerseys."

More the idiot that I am, I still watch. I don't watch every second of the five hour telecast, but I do watch a bit of most days, even if I sometimes zip through big parts of it with Tivo.

I've watched the TDF in Europe on Eurosport a couple of different years. I think the commentary is a bit deeper in analysis, but it's not orders of magnitude different.

I think part of the reason the analysis is a little deeper is the sophistication of the audience they're playing to.

It's difficult to understand sometimes though with Sean Kelly speaking a foreign language.


Watching on French TV is actually a hoot. You pick up on the translation of the graphics pretty quickly, and I can make out a very little bit of what the announcers are saying. But it basically goes: " yabber, yabber, yabber, CHRSITOPHE MOREAUX, CHRISTOPHE MOREAUX, yabber, yaber, yabber,CHRSITOPHE MOREAUX, CHRISTOPHE MOREAUX, yabber, yabber, yabber, CHRSITOPHE MOREAUX, CHRISTOPHE MOREAUX, ..."

When Phil and Paul are at home, which is during one of the Spring Classics or a vicious mountain stage of the Tour or the last 30 seconds of a dramatic sprint finish, they're at their best. And when they're at their best there's simply no one else I'd rather hear call a bike race.

Superslomo - I think you nailed it. Not a lot happens in a bike race. Well, stuff happens, but it happens quickly. It's like watching a baseball game being played out at high speeds over a hundred and fifty or so miles. Often it's like watching a pitchers' duel. And the only person who likes a pitchers' duel is George Will, and he's an idiot.

At first I thought I missesd Al Trautwig, but I don't. Craig Hummer asks good questions and obviously wants to be there. I wish he wasn't such a... smarmy git, but he's not bad as smarmy gits go. And he has mastered the segue, so to speak, as it were.

And speaking of segues, the weirdest thing was having Johan Bruyneel doing commentary. At first I thought it was going to be like having George Stephanopoulos as a pundit - you know he knows how it all works and he has all the dirt on everyone, but he won't give it up because he's too much of an insider to ever tell you anything really interesting. But then JB got into tactics and showed the obvious depth of understanding and love he has for the sport. Cool.

But after a while - maybe it was the next day - he started telling us what we already know, what everyone who has watched more than two stages of a Grand Tour knows. And he started sounding exactly like Hummer and Bobke. There's something about sitting in the Versus booth that turns your brain to Jell-O. Or maybe there's just a point when you run out of interesting new things to say about a bike race.

yea, I was wondering how much ASO was liking that. But I have to give the man his due, he didn't take the opportunity to talk politics or talk Astana, and (here's the bit I have to respect) Johan didn't plug his new book once (at least not that I noticed, but after 17 stages I get into a sort of fog from tuning out all those Tap Out promotions)

I forgot about his book. Craig pimped it for him with the back-handed compliment, "It's a great book, I read it in one night."

Does anybody look more nervous and ill at easy on camera than Bruyneel ?

Completely agree, unfortunately.

So what's the next move? Paul moves up a spot, and Bobke rides shotgun?

Just as long as it isn't Andreu. Ugh.

Had to laugh when Adrieu(sp?) said everyone would wait to attack on Alpe d'Huez until they got near the top. I guess he meant to say everyone who doesn't mind Cadel beating them in the ITT and passing them in the GC standings.

Eurosport - it's very good. They give Versus a run for their money. I like to listen to both. You can't match the excitement of Phil and Paul at the finale of the races, though - they really know how to get you worked up.

I'm getting concerned about those two, also. It seems like Paul Sherwin adds 10 kph to the descending speeds every year. It was one of the earlier stages in the Pyrenes that he announced that they would be descending at 110 kph. I just about spewed water out of my mouth. Even my wife laughed and she's not ridden a bike for more than 2 miles. They showed the speed on the descent a few moments later at a respectable 64 kph and he said 100 k a few minutes later. Unbelievable.

Then there's the famous, "If you touch you're brakes (going around this hairpen turn) you'll lose 15-25 places". Milliseconds later there's a close-up of the riders going around the turn with both brake levers about half way down. No retraction.

100 km/h is also respectable, and certainly possible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kZSzB4kEE8

Oh, no doubt they can do it on a really straight descent, but this was a very technical descent and the riders were clearly still pedalling, so the speed was no more than 70k at the time. Thanks for the video clip, that was an incredibly fast descent.

There's a certain aesthetic to the Tour that is unmatched by any other sport. The colors of the team jerseys, the bikes, the flow of the peloton, the landscapes, the insane fans, and so on. For me, Phil Ligget is the voice of that aesthetic, and without him it wouldn't be the same.

I could care less about his mistakes.

We have an ex-pro and current elite coach who does announcing for a lot of our local track races. He does an amazing job. One time early on after he had done it for a few races I thanked him for it and he said something like "When I'm watching a bike race I'm doing it anyway, you're just adding the microphone". If you stand near him during a world cup race he just stands there and calls the race-- you can learn a ton.

They're probably calling the race for british audiences at the same time, and alternating which network they're plugging for (I've seen them do that before). Most likely they just announce pretty much non-stop and the directors/editors take care of the rest. I much prefer the morning coverage that's pretty much just them calling it over the evening coverage where they've added the americans calling it, but still revert to phil and paul's live commentary for the exciting parts.

Well said Malthus, and I completely agree. I also don't mind the occasional stumble, and absolutely love listening to P & P each and every year.

Few know that Phil's eyesight is horrible and he needs to place the monitors six inches from his face. I'm frankly amazed that they are able to pick out and recognize all the riders they do. And as someone said, he's forgotten more about bike racing than any of us will ever know.

Exactly! In the end it's the voice that makes you wish you could see it live more than anything in the world. I am dreading the day when Phil can't do it anymore.

I think those two announcers were disagreeing on strategy... and that's fine.....

I don't know if Ligget was wrong or not but the Schleck brothers protecting Sastre just gave the tour to Evans in my opinion. I think Ligget thought the Schleck's would blow away Cadel Evans & pretty much give the yellow and tour to Frank Schleck.... Or Frank would team up with Sastre and blow away Evans by even more time then what did happen.

Unless Evans shows up sick or crashes at the TT, he should be wearing yellow in Paris.

I couldn't agree more. I frankly can't imagine cycling without Phil or Paul. My goodness---they get my heart pounding out of my chest calling a bike race.

I agree with you that their job is hard, however, I think their commentary can be far less shallow than what it is, with fewer repetitions of worn out expressions. I had the chance this year to watch the Giro on Eurosport the level of discussion there was much superior to anything Phil and Paul produce, and it's not like Sean Kelly and his partner are from a very different neighborhood to those two.

From my limited watching of sports on TV, the best commentating duo in sports are John McEnroe and Mary Carillo.

Ligget is God.

Sean Kelly is a soft talker and with his Irish accent he can be very hard to understand.
No one can call a bunch sprint like Phil, he gets your heart pumping, even if his call was for wrong team member. Last year he missed the Gert Stegamens win and this year he gave one to Ciolek.

BTW. The live coverage for the Alpe D'Huez stage was well over five and one half hours long. They are not gods but good luck finding any one better. (English speaking)

I have been going to and watching races on TV since 1985 and it will be a sad day when Phil calls it's quits.

Nailed it. This thread is over.

Then he should stop sitting on his wallet and go and buy some glasses.

Based on recent performances I'm amazed when he correctly picks out and names a rider full stop.

Could be senility?