Tour of Ireland 22-26 Aug

Robin1982

The Tour of Ireland starts tomorrow in Kilkenny.

RTE will be broadcasting live @ 1530 for about 90 mins.

Some of the big names: Andy Schleck (2nd Giro d'Italia, upcoming superstar), Frank Schleck (l'Alpe d'Huez winner, top 10 ProTour rider), Baden Cooke (former Le Tour Green Jersey winner), Bernard Eisel (top sprinter), Marcus Burghardt (top classics rider), Maximiliano Richeze (top sprinter).

Should be excellent.

philstar

a drug-free tour???:cool:

Kerrynoel

Im planning on cycling the Healy Pass tomorrow to get a good view of the race. If anyone has ever seen the Healy pass, ul know that there is a Great view on the Cork side as u can see the road wind down away from u for about 3 miles. A nice few hairpin bends are included.

Does anyone know what time do the roads close at and would they still leave cyclists pass up the hill within 1.5 hours of the race arrival. I will be cycling from the Kerry side of the Healy Pass whice will be against the direction of the race

Raam

anyone found any web commentary?

Plug

i was wondering what all them weird cars were alright.

ednwireland

how lucky are they ! look at the weather forecast for the next few days sun sun and more sun give everyone the wrong impression of Ireland !
great though good luck to the organisers

mkdon05

http://www.rte.ie/live/

Live streaming

E@gle.

i wonder how murphy and gunn will get on ,

sean kelly was tipping Morgan Fox to win a stage

Planet X

Just over. What did you think of the coverage?
Did you see the car parked in the middle of Patricks Hill when the peleton was going up!!!!! They had to go around it, if the hill wasn't steep enough. FFS.
Four sprints, Carrick, Clonmel, Lismore and somewhere else. Did they show any of them? Of course not.
The climb over The Vee. Did they show it? Of course not.
At least they dropped the traditional music in the background after the first few ad breaks. Lmfao.
Ad breaks............... Just after the peleton was going around the stationery car on Patricks Hill, they went to ads............didn't show the full climb or the second time around. lol
Apart from all the above I enjoyed it. Huh?

Robin1982

This isn't the Tour de France. The Tour of Ireland is a 2.1 classified event. For it to be live (with helicopter pictures) on national television in the first place is an achievement.

Overall I thought it was fine. Having *edit* Liggett (always get their names mixed up) co-commentate is good as McGee, while commendably thorough, doesn't have the same knowledge of the sport.

The time checks were a little slow coming through but I can't have any complaints. It was great to see so many lining Cork's streets to watch the finish.

That car was one of the official cars and it stalled on Patrick's Hill, it wasn't parked. Its a steep hill, 15% or so, and at such low speed, it happens. Its happened before on other events, including the Vuelta.

Ads breaks are a fact of life and are often contractual on sporting events that are sold abroad.

It actually felt great as they came into Cork to have such a high quality race here in Ireland, and live on national TV no less.

Overall, it looked a professional, well managed race and its a great opportunity for some of the less well known parts of Ireland to advertise themselves to an international audience (the race is being broadcast in several other countries and was the main news story on Velonews today).

Planet X

I had Phil Liggett commentate on my TV?

CrowdedHouse

Who won the stage ?
Seems to be a secret,nothing on the race website,rte or cyclingnews

Planet X

......it's not Le Tour!

Robin1982

Stijn Vandenbergh (BEL) of Unibet.com won the stage by 14" from ... I can't remember who came 2nd. Maybe Sulzberger of SouthAustralia.com.

Its pretty disappointing that the results are a bit slow to come up. Even the main website doesn't acknowledge that there was a winner today.

He was part of a group of 10 that broke away early in the race. Lungquist (Team CSC) attacked on the first ascent of Patrick's Hill but was reeled in on the descent.

Vandenbergh attacked just after the top of the Hill the 2nd time and stayed away for his first ever pro victory. He was fairly tired but delighted!

They must have been about 6-8 minutes ahead of the peleton.

Raam

I see that Nicholas Roche had to pull out due to a boil "somewhere down there". Pity really, I was looking forward to seeing him do well

Pherekydes

Robin1982 wrote:

Its pretty disappointing that the results are a bit slow to come up. Even the main website doesn't acknowledge that there was a winner today.


They must have been about 6-8 minutes ahead of the peleton.

The only [best] place for results: Cycling results

Regarding ad breaks, yes, everyone understands that you have to have them, but to put an ad break on while the peloton is on the finishing circuit is inexcusable.

13 minutes plus was the gap back to the peloton.

The Beemer stalled on the steepest part of the hill, which is about 25%, I believe. Embarrassing for BMW.

Some of the coverage was excellent; some was cringe inducing.

What'll we get today? Will Healy's pass be covered? According to the time schedule they're due to attack it about 3, while RTE's coverage starts at 3.30.

E@gle.

yeah the car defiently stalled on the hill, dangerous for cyclist,

Here's the proof http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2007/aug07/ireland07/index.php?id=/photos/2007/aug07/ireland07/ireland071/0142_ComCarStPatsPhSpt

yeah the winner won be a fairly big gap

Tackleberry

Just watched todays coverage on rte and in fairness it was very good- I hate this Irish trait of moaning on about all these little things, even when the overall result is as good as it was today- sure eurosports coverage can be a pain in the balls at times, and while I think jimmy magee's pretty useless I still think people should sit back and enjoy the spectacle rather than focusing on the niggly bad points. To have TV coverage like this is great and coverage on cyclingnews.com is top notch with a lot of good pics, same goes for irishcycling.com, so I don't see what the problem is there. Just moany gits as always, expecting the Tour de France or something.

philstar

here are some pics of the tour i took down in killaloe today (had to wait about an hour for one minute of action:rolleyes: ah well)

philstar

Was that a bicycle race??.....or just a big holiday promotion by bord failte??

the finish today in Dublin was a farce:rolleyes:

E@gle.

some pics taken in athlone

Robin1982

philstar wrote:

...The finish today in Dublin was a farce :rolleyes: ...

Why?

cyclopath2001

David O'Loughlin

I thought it was great tactical racing. The three-man break could be let go as they offered no real threat to the race leader. Then, the riders did the intelligent thing and latched onto the peleton after it entered the circuit. The organisers then separeted them so that there could be distinct sprints for 1,2,3 among the break and then for the rest among the peleton. Seemed to me that the commentators did not understand the rules.

Admittedly, stage races can be confusing for the uninformed.

Planet X

Why?

No bunch sprint, that's why.

Slow bicycle race.

cyclopath2001

There was a sprint by the riders behind the three leaders who had lapped the field. I've got photos of the main field all lined out in a sprint.

Slow? Average speed of the stage was 48kph.

Pherekydes

cyclopath2001 wrote:

Slow? Average speed of the stage was 48kph.

That's remarkable. I only saw a bit of it on TV and the time it took them to cover the entire length of the Strawberry Beds' road was unreal. I couldn't manage that in my car!

tricky D

Met Phil Liggett a few hours after (he was parked outside the casino where I work) - what a legend! Thanked him for all the years of commentary etc

Had a great chat, of course. Fwiw He thought the end was messy, knew the tactics, he thought it was more that the race org that seemed to get confused. That could have been 20-20 hindsight at that time - depends what he said in the post-commentary in the highlights which I missed.....

cyclopath2001

tricky D wrote:

he thought it was more that the race org that seemed to get confused.

I know people who were judging, they had no confusion at all. They knew exactly what had to be done.

In the heat of the moment with the PA full-blast and with the TV commentators unable to hear the officials radio channel, it's understandable if the word didn't get to them as to what the plan was. There's also an element of the commentators trying to add to the interest by speculating as to what decision would be taken.

ob

The finish was a bit messy, none of the cyclists seemd sure of what was going on. Once the peleton were held up for the brakeaway to pass them, the race as a whole was over, all was left was three riders to fight out a stage victory.

To see the pleton having to slow down like that was a bit of a joke, but I know they had to do it in the circumstances

But maybe if they had longer laps than 10 x 2.4k, i.e 5 x 5k laps or 2 x 10k laps this whole thing could have been avoided.

With 10 short laps, the organisers should have known that something like this was a possibilty.

dave2pvd

I don't understand separating the break from the field.

In a crit, if the field is lapped by a break, you keep racing. Why was this any different? The finishing circuit was, afterall, a criterium circuit.

I'd say the riders were confused for good reason. The 'separation' was most odd, IMO.

Kerrynoel

Just to say that i saw stage 2 from the top of Healy pass on the cork / kerry border. It was a great day, and was up to 200 people at the top. Most cycled up including a huge group of about 40 who all came down specially for the event.
The Eurosport commentator did very well when he pulled up in his car, informing everyone of the goings on in the race. David Duffield i think his name is. He was very humorous and stayed commentating until about the 3rd request from a stage marshell for him to leave. Traffic wise, i think things were a bit too relaxed and the roade were barly closed for 10 min before the race. So no problems for people who left it late to cycle up.

Parking at the top was a nightmare though and there were cars double parked at the top 15 M from the KOM line. Things like that should be better organised.
The view from the pass was fantastic. (im trying to attach pictures). Weather was fantastic and the atmosphere at the top was fantastic. The top 2 breakaway riders were going over the top and we could then turn around ane watch the 3rd group of about 40 people starting at the bottop.

P.S
It was frightning watching the speed these pros went up the mountain.
Much respect

E@gle.

3 excellent pictures there Kerrynoel

sound_wave

I was up on Patricks Hill for the Killkenny to Cork stage, took a few photos too...