cycling top gear ?

[peelywally]

is it time there was a show like top gear but for bikes and kit ?
I think its the right time cycling is very popular theres surely a waiting audience .
It could include road off road tests on bikes and discuss new equipment and rides etc .

Thoughts ?

 

[marzjennings]

We talked about this a year ago, a mate of mine's a track rider and coach, his brother a roadie and cycle shop manager and me a mountain biker and commuter. We'd thought it would be fun to start a youtube show (didn't think we could make it a TV show) and ride, crash and test bikes, new parts and clothes.

Of course the next day we woke and went back to our 9-to-5s, but I may have to make a phone call tonight.

 

[downfader]

is it time there was a show like top gear but for bikes and kit ?
I think its the right time cycling is very popular theres surely a waiting audience .
It could include road off road tests on bikes and discuss new equipment and rides etc .

Thoughts ?

Pfft. I thought we discussed this last week.

Its gonna be called Bottom Bracket and will be presented by Victoria Pendleton and Dean Downing and will be broadcast in my tiny little mind.

 

[MontyVeda]

Yeah it's gotta be called Bottom Bracket... and my vote goes to Boris johnson as presenter

 

[gaz]

I have no knowledge of a potential cycling show

 

[Smokin Joe]

It would draw a very small audience.

How can you really have road tests on bikes? Let's face it, for all the bollocks magazines pad their content out with one race/audax/touring bike is pretty much the same as the next, they all use one of the three major groupsets and it boils down to whether the tester thinks one is stiffer/more comfortable/livelier than the next. Most of that's rubbish anyway because those attributes are mostly down to geometry and little else.

I gave up reading road tests in the magazines years ago when I found myself losing the will to live half way through.

 

[mcshroom]

Cycling.tv had a go at making one a couple years ago called The Innertube. I'm not sure if it's still going though

 

[Arch]

It would draw a very small audience.

How can you really have road tests on bikes? Let's face it, for all the bollocks magazines pad their content out with one race/audax/touring bike is pretty much the same as the next, they all use one of the three major groupsets and it boils down to whether the tester thinks one is stiffer/more comfortable/livelier than the next. Most of that's rubbish anyway because those attributes are mostly down to geometry and little else.

I gave up reading road tests in the magazines years ago when I found myself losing the will to live half way through.

I guess that's why Top Gear does so well - they don't do road tests, not seriously. They did the new Ford Fiesta a couple of seasons back, wherein Clarkson proved you could get a horses head in the back, and it would carry him and three marines off a landing craft up a beach. Hilarious.

To capture the Top Gear feel, you'd have to just muck about, and find presenters who bounced off each other the way they do.

A magazine programme about bikes might work, for a very small interested audience, but road tests would have to be a very small part of it I think. To get maximum viewers, you'd need an eclectic mix. I'd be interested in stuff about projects like Cyclemagic, or my recycling job with the trike, but I'd be fairly bored by racing, whereas a great many people would be exactly the opposite. I think cycling is a wider subject in that way, than motoring, and more subject to the whim of personal feeling, because cyclists are so in contact with their steeds.

 

[dellzeqq]

there is a programme called Extreme Sports which covers mountain biking, bmxing and cycling up those plywood curves that young people enjoy so very much. It features youthful types in baggy shorts, wearing full face helmets or caps that are turned backwards. It's diverting, and it does enable one to catch up on the latest in rad cyclewear and extreeeeem youthspeak.

A TV programme that tested road bikes is too horrible to think about, but here have been some nice accounts of tours. Fat Man on a Bicycle comes to mind.

 

[darkstar]

The presenters would be very important, they'd have to be funny. Not a boring, geeky bike review show. It has the potential to be tragically woeful.

 

[Hilldodger]

I do get phone calls/emails from the Beeb every few months asking about cycling documentaries - they have three ideas of mine but apparently the time isn't right at the moment.

 

[perplexed]

It could happen, but probably more likely on a smaller channel.

There's even "Renault TV" if you look round enough!

 

[Fnaar]

How about a surrealist comedy 2-hour special based on cycling, called "On Yer Bike!", starring Alexei Sayle, Keith Chegwin, Melvyn Hayes, Una Stubbs and all of Madness (who will be attempting a 60-mile sportive on BMX bikes).
Just a thought.

 

[ELL]

I don't think it would work tbh. I think if the top gear concept could be crossed over to other vehicles it would have been done on motorbikes first and I don't think i remember seeing any mainstream motorbike tv review programs

 

[Smokin Joe]

I don't think it would work tbh. I think if the top gear concept could be crossed over to other vehicles it would have been done on motorbikes first and I don't think i remember seeing any mainstream motorbike tv review programs

I had that in mind when I wrote my post. There used to be a programme on Men & Motors called Two Wheels Better and it was derided by motorcyclist for the simple reason it was boring and stale. Top Gear's success is nothing to do with cars, it thrives on the personalities of it's presenters and could just as easily be about cooking or games consoles. It is a comedy show where the sketches are based round cars, but that's all.

There is a serious car programme, Fifth Gear, but I think it is tucked away on C5 and it draws a small audience and is never the subject of general discussion.