Vuelta a España 2012 (with spoilers)

[Basil.B]

Really enjoyed watching the Vuelta.
Feel a bit gutted for Rodriguez though.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Agreed. Great Vuelta this year. And as for Purito - he was the only rider to get on to the podium in two GTs this year. Not too shabby.

 

[beastie]

Agreed. Great Vuelta this year. And as for Purito - he was the only rider to get on to the podium in two GTs this year. Not too shabby.

He looked the strongest uphill all the way through. Contador though showed his class and racing savvy to win when not the strongest man in the race. How many other riders could have done that?

 

[zimzum42]

Would be good if this race goaded the TDF organizers into making the 2013 tour a bit more sharp and steep and have more mountaintop finishes. Don't want them to load it too hard in favour of the climbers, couple of long TTs should sort that out

 

[thom]

Would be good if this race goaded the TDF organizers into making the 2013 tour a bit more sharp and steep and have more mountaintop finishes. Don't want them to load it too hard in favour of the climbers, couple of long TTs should sort that out

I think the problem is there aren't very many sharp steep climbs inside France itself, so they'd have to find them in Italy, Switzerland or Spain. For example one of the notorious potential finishes is at Puy-de-Dome which "only" gets up to 13% for about 1 km. France's steep roads mostly come in around 8%.

 

[Strathlubnaig]

I would rather see less in the way of TT's, perhaps just the one with a few hilly bits on the TdF. TT stages can really swing a race in favour of a good TT rider, and unless the other stages are challenging enough the leader can sit on that gap, makes for a less exciting race. The Vuelta really showed how this can be avoided.

 

[Rob88]

I have to agree with recent postings, the Vuelta was truly epic. I cannot remember waiting for each TV stage so eagerly since the early days of Channel 4 coverage of the Tour.
Bluff, guile and audacity - Contador could write the book. Every stage was a cliff-hanger. The only grit in my eye with the ITV coverage was the commentary,

Chuffy said:
"McCrossaint is awful. His commentary sounds like someone hammering rocks together in the hope of coming up with a tune. Horrible to listen to"

I must agree. McCrossaint and Smith sounded like Jazza from the Archers trying to get a relevant word in edgeways around a blind Jools Holland hogging the mike with one hand and a bottle of tequila in the other.
How I longed for Liggett and Sherwin. McCrossaint would be rambling away when Contador would put in a blistering attack on the blind side gutter and after 10 seconds someone would nudge McCrossaint to look at the monitor and he would say "Oh someone is moving ahead..."
Where did they find him, has he ever ridden a bike?

The big compensation however was the contribution provided by Roger Hammond. It was a real pleasure to hear his expert views. If Brailsford had the budget and sense he should appoint him GB road coach immediately.

On an historical note - one thing I expected to get mentioned but wasn't - in the early stages when the "Spanish Inquisition" were ganging up and torturing poor old Froomie - was any mention of the Spanish stitching up Robert Millar back in the 80's when he lost the Vuelta in the last days. Has the whole story on this ever surfaced - do we know what really happened?

 

[Buddfox]

How I longed for Liggett and Sherwin.

That ought to prompt a response from some members....!

 

[400bhp]

That ought to prompt a response from some members....!

Liggett "Tony Martin has stopped again"

Sherwin "That was a replay of what happened earlier"

 

[ColinJ]

That ought to prompt a response from some members....!

I volunteer - the absence of Phil and Paul was what made the IT4 coverage tolerable for me!

I thought that the commentary was okay and Roger Hammond's post-race analyses were great.

ITV4 Player is a joke though, at least as received here. Most evenings, it was buffering every 2-3 seconds so I was sometimes taking up to 2 hours to watch a 45 minute show! BBC iPlayer works fine so I don't think the ISP or router can be blamed.

(I have to use ITV Player because the poxy 'Freeview Lite' we receive here does not include ITV4!)

 

[400bhp]

I volunteer - the absence of Phil and Paul was what made the IT4 coverage tolerable for me!

I thought that the commentary was okay and Roger Hammond's post-race analyses were great.

ITV4 Player is a joke though, at least as received here. Most evenings, it was buffering every 2-3 seconds so I was sometimes taking up to 2 hours to watch a 45 minute show! BBC iPlayer works fine so I don't think the ISP or router can be blamed.

(I have to use ITV Player because the poxy 'Freeview Lite' we receive here does not include ITV4!)

He's a miserable sod though - was Mr Grumpy when asked about Orica Greenedge's rendition of a certain song.

 

[ColinJ]

He's a miserable sod though - was Mr Grumpy when asked about Orica Greenedge's rendition of a certain song.

I agreed with him - hmmmph!

 

[smutchin]

I'm glad the different Grand Tours have different characters, so much as I enjoyed this year's Vuelta, I wouldn't want the TdF to try to be more like it. Well, not every year - since the TdF is the most prestigious event in the calendar, they need to mix it up a bit, like they do with the World Championships, to give different styles of rider a fair chance to win. If the rumours are to be believed, the 2013 TdF route should suit the Vuelta fans. That's fine, as long as they don't do it every year.

Last year's TdF route was, for my money, the best Grand Tour course of recent years - especially with all the short, sharp hills in the early stages to encourage aggressive racing.

d.

 

[ColinJ]

colinj I use http://www.filmon.com/#BBC-One it runs live streams and all you have to do is sign up, it's free to watch in SD but they want a fee for HD, But if you have on IPAD - Iphone its free all the time, or so I'm lead to believe, don't have on IPAD - Iphone...

I might give that a go.

I discovered that ITV Player worked perfectly during the day yesterday so I reckon the problem is that the ITV servers can't cope with peak demand in the evenings.

I normally watch cycling on Eurosport Player but was using ITV Player to catch up on the Vuelta stages that I missed while I was in hospital recently. The Tour of Britain doesn't seem to be on Eurosport so I need ITV4 for that too.

 

[ColinJ]

Hmm... I just tried a few different channels on FilmOn and they seem to stream very nicely. I'll try it on ITV4 this evening to see if it works well when ITV Player grinds to a halt!