Who is this idiot?

And what is the objective of her inane and nonfunny interstitials during the TOC broadcast?

McCartney Unplugged

Jason McCartney has certainly been giving it. Would be great to hear or read something about his role at Saxobank now that Cancellara (their predesignated leader, allegedly) is somewhere else working on his renowned Swiss glow.

Is he sitting on breaks? Trying to scrote up like Jens Voigt? Or just trying to grab some tv time?

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Did Lance Crash Levi? And Hummer the Bummer

Top two threads on the Versus message board:

 

Hummer is a Bummer!

 

Please make Craig Hummer go away!

 

I’ve actually listened to an in-depth interview with Hummer on Competitor radio. Until then I had no idea he was an Olympian swimmer and has contested some severe open water swimming events. He appears to be quite a waterman.

 

It’s difficult to tell if he’s actually terrible and totally lacking insight or if he has been told to act this way and report in such a manner. I would suspect it’s the latter. Listening to his Competitor interview, I gleaned that he is acutely tuned in to what the athletes are experiencing as he has experienced most of what they’re experiencing albeit in a different sport.

 

Having covered cycling for Versus for several years and hanging out with cycling legends all the time, it would stand to reason that he has a mastery of how bike racing works, tactics, the personalities, etc.

 

Yet if he does, none of it comes across. The myriad production problems have probably left Hummer with a lot of dead air to cover while he’s receiving sketchy information about what might pop up on the monitor next in his ear bud. Doing live sports broadcasting is not a simple business.

 

But can you imagine any other major sport having such shoddy commentary and footage with no B-roll to flip to when there’s an hour-long block without any live race footage?

It seems that the cycling world is pretty evenly split between those who believe pro cycling has an endemic drug problem that’s still probably out of control and a past it needs to openly confront if it will ever get over it. .. .and those who want to stay in Wonderland, believe in the Tooth Fairy, and play the role of the sophist in elevating the least scientific argument and placing it on the same level as, say, a binary doping test. The sycophant fan-boys playing scientist at Trust But Verify for the past several years would fall into the latter category.

 

So what do people expect? When you’re limited to asking Lance Armstrong questions like, ‘how did you feel today, Lance?’ rather than asking him a question like, hey, when you stood up to follow Horner’s wheel, did it send your wheel backwards when Levi wasn’t anticipating it?

Because watching the replay of the Levi crash, it sure seemed like that’s exactly what happened. Anyone who has climbed in a pack knows that at any moment the person in front of you could stand up and that the shift in their body weight will cause the bike to move backwards. Smooth, experienced riders can somewhat mitigate this effect and make the standing to seated transition without that momentary aporia of momentum that causes the deceleration/rear wheel movement in a less smooth rider.

 

When you’re dead tired and the pace cranks to hellish or when you’re going really slowly, those movements can be very exaggerated. It appeared that the pack was moving quite slowly when Levi ate it and that Lance had stood up and given a few hard stomps directly antecedent to Levi eating it. It was hard to tell, but it also looked like Levi may have gotten bumped by someone on his left, perhaps moving off of a rough shoulder or debris at the edge of the pack.

 

Who knows?

 

I don’t after watching the coverage, but I am dead certain that the Tour of California is the first major bike race in America to cross the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

That’s nice.

Final Thoughts Stage 2

Okay, so the race couldn't get their comm. Plane in the air thus the lack of pictures. But I feel sorry for anyone trying to follow the race on VS who is a noncyclist or hasn't watched racing before.

I just don't get it. One second bam! The coverage just started and there's a group of 10 already 5 minutes up the road. Could we see an attack happen/form just once, please, instead of hearing Craig Hummer tell us this is the first time a bike race has gone across the Golden Gate bridge?

My other fave of the coverage on stage 2 was not getting to see what happened to the front group of 10. One segment they're going strong. Next one, Levi is solo--no wait he has two people to catch. Next commercial Levi and Tom from Garmin are crossing the finish line.

Had I not read about the race on nine different cycling sites i'd be scratching my head wondering what the hell happened.

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'At some point there's a face to the drug that you worked on and this Amgen Breakaway from cancer initiative is my chance to see a patient that survived.'
-Dr. Steve Elliot, Amgen Scientific Executive Director

Phwew! For a second I thought he was going to say the riders were the face of EPO, Amgen's blockbuster product.

Hummer Califactoid of the Day

'The California Coastline--we've talked about how well known it is. People have written about it. They have written not only prose but songs as well.'
-Craig Hummer, VS live TOC coverage

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It Warmed My Heart

To see this family of four take turns photographing themselves in various combinations in the finishing stretch. It makes one yearn for a Saab 'born from jets' commercial or an F-One tech piece on Astana's new dimpled aero scrotal shields, bar plugs made from Kazakh Coal, and limited edition 'Free Vino' t-shirts.

Day Three Tour of Cali

A little behind on my TOC viewin here's a fave image from stage two's voluminous set shots of the finish line in Santa Cruz. This dude kept riding back and forth under the finish line for an hour and a half or VS was running a snippet as a loop.

See, he's wearing a visor. The Lance visor effect is already spreading like wild fire in the NorCal sleet brah.