fly:yes/land:no

in lieu of the various threads seeking out video for races, i thought i would save some of you from making the mistake of buying a membership to cycling.tv. the coverage is awful this year. this winter, i didn't have a gym membership anywhere, so i bought the 60 dollar package to watch old races on the trainer. it works well enough, i suppose, for the few races that they covered in 2009.

but the 2010 season is terrible. they advertized that they would have uci races (subject to some territorial restrictions) and the classics. well, in the us, there is NO uci coverage. i can't watch the track races or cyclocross stuff that was happening live this winter. so far, their coverage of classics is a bad joke. they had ghent wevelgem and het nieuwsblad (altough i couldn't get either to work live, so they are just sitting in the library). there was no flanders coverage, and there is no schedule that shows what they will have. to make things worse, they are automatically renewing people's subscriptions and recharging their credit cards/paypal accounts. if you don't believe me, see the message board at cycling.tv. save yourself the money - www.bvls.eu/cycling and cyclingfans.com are free.

$ick3nin.vend3t

Tour of Flanders 2010 in [EurosportHD]

https://cyclingtorrents.nl/details.php?id=1265


Great website & the image quality of the race is superb.



https://cyclingtorrents.nl/browse.php

deadly downtube

thanks fly yes land no, i was wondering about cycling.tv but it seemed a bit suspicious when i was trying to check their calendar of races and they didnt have anything past march listed, and it was currently april when i was checking their calendar... what a bunch of crooks..

Cipo

I had been with cycling.tv since almost the beginning, when much of their coverage included endless replays of the Tour de Fasso, and their promos were a couple of the announcers' kids wheeling around on run bikes. Being able to watch live races I'd only read about on velonews was a revelation; my first live viewing of Paris-Roubaix almost brought tears to my eyes. Here was something I could really get behind.
When they started taking subscription fees, I happily paid. When those fees when up, I continued to pony up. After all, there was considerable value in being able to rely on consistent video feeds with english commentary. I endured countless technical glitches as their site development seemed to consistently neglect those of us on Macs. But it was all worth it to be able to see races like Amstel Gold, Paris-Nice, Tour de Suisse, even the Tour of Missouri.
But the bloom really started coming off the rose when they were acquired by jumptv. Their customer service veered downhill to the point of bordering on outright abuse with their sly "automatic subscription renewal" default. They misrepresented their Giro and Vuelta coverage last year. And this year, almost two months into the season, they've yet to announce a comprehensive schedule even as some of the races that used to be the pillars of their coverage are passing them by.
It's pretty apparent something is rotten at cycling.tv.
Which is a shame, because their announcers, the McCrossan brothers and Brian Smith, are top notch. The people left aboard this apparently floundering enterprise seem hamstrung to do right by their increasingly-frustrated customers. It seems sponsors have fled the site altogether.
And I, and many other North American cycling fans, are left to cobble together what coverage we can by syncing up Belgian tv feeds with Eurosport commentary or velonews ticker updates. It's not ideal, but it will do. And it's (mostly) free.
While some of us who were cycling.tv subscribers may be lighter in our wallets, the real loser here is pro cycling, which was gaining unprecedented exposure to North American eyeballs.
I suspect part of cycling.tv's current problems are because the UCI still expects to be able to extract sizable rights fees from a small boutique webcaster like cycling.tv. The commentators hinted about it a few times over the past couple of years, urging us to support sponsors of their broadcasts like Cannondale who made many of the 'casts possible. In other words, subscriptions alone couldn't cover the rights' fees.
While cycling.tv is a commercial enterprise and shouldn't be given a free ride, perhaps the UCI has to scale back its expectations from such a minor, but oh so important, player. How many North American cycling fans, enthralled by coverage on cycling.tv of the Belgian Classics or the Giro or the Vuelta, subsequently started planning holidays to see some of those great races in person? I know I did. I saw some of the Giro last year.
Big boy broadcasters like Versus and NBC Universal might have more money to spend, but perhaps the UCI needs to treat a venture like cycling.tv as a bit of a loss leader, trading off their own financial gain for the greater gain of building the fan base for their events.
Hopefully from the shattered remnants of what was once a great concept at cycling.tv, someone will be able to build a great service that pleases the fans and promotes pro cycling.

Cipo

I had been with cycling.tv since almost the beginning, when much of their coverage included endless replays of the Tour de Fasso, and their promos were a couple of the announcers' kids wheeling around on run bikes. Being able to watch live races I'd only read about on velonews was a revelation; my first live viewing of Paris-Roubaix almost brought tears to my eyes. Here was something I could really get behind.
When they started taking subscription fees, I happily paid. When those fees when up, I continued to pony up. After all, there was considerable value in being able to rely on consistent video feeds with english commentary. I endured countless technical glitches as their site development seemed to consistently neglect those of us on Macs. But it was all worth it to be able to see races like Amstel Gold, Paris-Nice, Tour de Suisse, even the Tour of Missouri.
But the bloom really started coming off the rose when they were acquired by jumptv. Their customer service veered downhill to the point of bordering on outright abuse with their sly "automatic subscription renewal" default. They misrepresented their Giro and Vuelta coverage last year. And this year, almost two months into the season, they've yet to announce a comprehensive schedule even as some of the races that used to be the pillars of their coverage are passing them by.
It's pretty apparent something is rotten at cycling.tv.
Which is a shame, because their announcers, the McCrossan brothers and Brian Smith, are top notch. The people left aboard this apparently floundering enterprise seem hamstrung to do right by their increasingly-frustrated customers. It seems sponsors have fled the site altogether.
And I, and many other North American cycling fans, are left to cobble together what coverage we can by syncing up Belgian tv feeds with Eurosport commentary or velonews ticker updates. It's not ideal, but it will do. And it's (mostly) free.
While some of us who were cycling.tv subscribers may be lighter in our wallets, the real loser here is pro cycling, which was gaining unprecedented exposure to North American eyeballs.
I suspect part of cycling.tv's current problems are because the UCI still expects to be able to extract sizable rights fees from a small boutique webcaster like cycling.tv. The commentators hinted about it a few times over the past couple of years, urging us to support sponsors of their broadcasts like Cannondale who made many of the 'casts possible. In other words, subscriptions alone couldn't cover the rights' fees.
While cycling.tv is a commercial enterprise and shouldn't be given a free ride, perhaps the UCI has to scale back its expectations from such a minor, but oh so important, player. How many North American cycling fans, enthralled by coverage on cycling.tv of the Belgian Classics or the Giro or the Vuelta, subsequently started planning holidays to see some of those great races in person? I know I did. I saw some of the Giro last year.
Big boy broadcasters like Versus and NBC Universal might have more money to spend, but perhaps the UCI needs to treat a venture like cycling.tv as a bit of a loss leader, trading off their own financial gain for the greater gain of building the fan base for their events.
Hopefully from the shattered remnants of what was once a great concept at cycling.tv, someone will be able to build a great service that pleases the fans and promotes pro cycling.

MakeABarrel

Thanks for the warning, I've recently be enjoying their free to view stuff, and was considering putting down for the summer. Not anymore... that sixty bucks will be going towards my caad 9 instead.

Namenda

I used to tune in a lot to cyclingtv, back when it was free. Got to watch l-b-l, roubaix, some of the giro, etc. When they started charging for all of their coverage, I decided to wait and let the "early adopters" try it out before I dropped any money on it. Glad I did. Nothing but complaints, almost from the very beginning. I'd rather watch on Sporza, with commentary in a language I don't understand. The picture is good to excellent, they follow evrything, not just the favorites, and I can pick up a few words, here and there, of a different language. Best of all...f-r-e-e. I usually follow a link from steephill.tv to get there.

fly:yes/land:no

while watching flanders on sporza, i heard them say:

"flemish, flemish, flemish, ... lance armstrong, the boss himself... flemish, flemish, flemish."

Namenda

Yup, I caught that, too.

baj32161

+1 here. I have been enjoying their free to view stuff as well for the past 5 years and was JUST about to pony up the fee. Thanks so much for this thread. I will not be saving for a CAAD 9 but nonetheless $60 is alot for me right now. As an aside I am watching the Track Worlds on TV right now and diggin' it big time.

fly:yes/land:no

i can't believe it. they have paris roubaix today. i hope they get more races throughout the year.

graphs

$60 doesn't seem so bad after you spend an hour trying to find a working stream only to end up listening to audio. This really sucks

fly:yes/land:no

https://bvls2.yolasite.com/ch-26.php

that one works for me and is free. not as good as cycling.tv, but decent enough to watch.