Vuelta a España 2016

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Ricardodaforce

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Can't wait for Saturday. The third and final grand tour of the season starts. 12 stages in medium or high mountains will make it another tough one.

Anyone else going to be watching? Coverage on Eurosport and ITV4.
 
Nooooooooooooooo
 
I've just been looking at the parcours - I run a series of cycling challenges on a health and fitness website, that are themed around the 3 Grand Tours, and one of the things I need to have recorded for the challenge is the ascent logged (i've looked all over the place, and the only way I can get it is actually to stick the route from the "race bible" into mapping software and let the software crunch out ascent figures.) - so I get a bit of an insight into the route and the gradients involved. I'm only at stage 10 in the mapping, and already theres more climbing than the first 13 stages of LeTour... so, it's looking like it's going to be a tough one...

But, to answer you're question, yes - i'll be SKY+ ing the Eurosport coverage, so that I can get out and ride myself through the day for 2-3 hours, and then I can watch the race when I return (fast forwarding through the interminable advert breaks)
 
We'll be watching although it's not our favorite tour but has been better in the last few years now that most of the 'desert' stages seem to have disappeared. We never watch live stages or indeed any daytime TV and do swap between channels depending on presenters. We watch cycling nearly as much for the scenery as the racing some of which really takes the breath away.
 
velocette said:
We'll be watching although it's not our favorite tour but has been better in the last few years now that most of the 'desert' stages seem to have disappeared. We never watch live stages or indeed any daytime TV and do swap between channels depending on presenters. We watch cycling nearly as much for the scenery as the racing some of which really takes the breath away.
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Funny you should say that, but looking at the route map almost all of the race takes place in the verdant, hilly parts of Spain. There's nothing down south at all.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Funny you should say that, but looking at the route map almost all of the race takes place in the verdant, hilly parts of Spain. There's nothing down south at all.
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Since the ASO took over organising the route, thats pretty much been the trend. Far fewer of the old "MAMBA" stages (miles and miles of b****r all) through the desert, which, although they were probably one of the main characteristics of the Vuelta in the past, and certainly heaped on the "exhaustion factor" for the riders, were much less interesting to watch than the current trend of just throwing the riders at every bit of vertical they can find, and in-between riding up some spectacular coast-roads for the helicopter beauty shots. A much easier sell to the worldwide TV rights market.
 
I don't tend to watch the coverage on tv but I will be following what's going on using GlobalCyclingNetwork's youtube channel; for me highlights shows are the way to watch cycling :)
 
TopBanana said:
I don't tend to watch the coverage on tv but I will be following what's going on using GlobalCyclingNetwork's youtube channel; for me highlights shows are the way to watch cycling :)
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Both Eurosport and ITV4 have daily highlight shows.
 
Glad I saw this. Had completely forgotten due to all the olympic coverage.
 
Hideous crash yesterday over the bollard! How bad would you feel if it was yours & you didn't bother to remove it?

Great timing from Yates today. I notice that he's an OBE already, don't tell Cobra! ;)

 
Hope it keeps close as the Stage 19 TT followed by Stage 20 mountain top finish are looking awesome.
 
Jason Crest said:
Hope it keeps close as the Stage 19 TT followed by Stage 20 mountain top finish are looking awesome.
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I wonder what the chavs in Benidorm will make of the race starting there on Stage 20.

The race finishes in the snow covered area of this photo of mine
.10925550433_190d093600_z.jpg
 
Chapeau to Nairo Quintana. He and Contador really stuffed Sky today. Really brave move making that break so early into the stage.
What a race!
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Chapeau to Nairo Quintana. He and Contador really stuffed Sky today. Really brave move making that break so early into the stage.
What a race!
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I would agree with you. The Sky team seemed to be asleep as was a lot of the other teams.
 
Makes for an interesting race though and much better than those of a few years ago many stages of which seemed more suitable for camels than cycles as they progressed through long flat desert stages.
 
Something that wasn't mentioned on the ITV4 show today. Friday's ITT starts in Jávea. Parts of the town are currently suffering some huge fires and a lot of houses have been destroyed.
 
After today's performance, tomorrow could be very interesting. Sky have got to be very aggressive!
 
big ask for Froome to get back 1:21, should be interesting though:)
 
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