Watching the 2013 TdF

[jobob]

Except on July 14, where I'll watch it in the street with a gazillion other Bastille-Day celebrants in Lyon. Heh. ;-)

Post pictures or it did not happen

... just kidding!! Have a fabulous time.

[Bike Writer]

Here is the TV schedule for the US for Tour de France coverage.

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/507979...ports-cycling/

Though the channel guide for my cable system is not showing any bike racing after Sunday... I love how Comcast has no idea what NBC Sports is showing even though they're owned by the same company. The channel guide also does not seem to know that the British Grand Prix will be on CNBC this Sunday morning, even though that scheduling decision was announced a long time ago. But I digress...

I was feeling pretty lukewarm about the Tour this year, but since Cannondale announced their lineup I'm looking forward to seeing Ted King setting the pace for Sagan. I don't know yet who I want to win the overall. Maybe Froome, though it would definitely be nice to see Tejay van Garderen on the podium.

Tonight NBCS is showing a 100th anniversary Tour d France special! It is 2 1/2 hours long. Got my DVR all set up. Enjoy!

Thanks for posting both of these. I recorded the 100 year history program and watched it. It was interesting to watch the evolution of the ride. I've never followed it before, this is going to be fun.

[Koronin]

According to my TV on my dish the British Grand Prix is being shown in NBC Sports at around 11am or so. However it does not appear they are showing the GP2 race at all.

Apple Tree have a good time! I'll probably catch one of the million replays they show each day.

[rebeccaC]

Have a wonderful time tulip!! Steal a water bottle or like when I was a teen, during a couple of tours I would be at the end of a zone de ravitaillement to pick up discarded water bottles and musette bags.

I like watching the tour but would rather watch a French Women’s major stage race like the Tour Cycliste Féminin/Tour de l’Aude Cycliste Feminin again!!!

[ny biker]

This is great...

http://www.roadid.com/blog/#TedKing

[ny biker]

A thunderstorm just knocked out electricity in my neighborhood (exactly 52 weeks after the Giant Derecho Outage). Fortunately this outage is not nearly as widespread as last year's, and we still have that little firehouse in our neighborhood which makes us a priority for restoring power. Still, news reports say that damage to power poles nearby is extensive and fixing it will be "labor intensive."

All of which means I might not be recording/watching the TdF or Formula 1 qualifying tomorrow after all...

[denda]

What a mess at the finish line today! I bet they make sure all of the banners are high enough for a bus from now on! And all of the top sprinters crashing

[velo]

Found a great site to watch live on Eurosports. Got to see the exciting parts today. Not sure what the protocol is for spoilers here. Don't want to say much for those that will be getting later feeds on cable.

[AppleTree]

Craziest. Stage. Ever. Wow!

[Eden]

Got the NBC app for my Ipod today... phooey tho.. they made it incompatible for systems under IOS 5, so I couldn't just update it on my Ipad (how I watched last year) cause I'm pretty sure it's too old to update the system. I wish, I wish, I wish they would make a Roku channel... I'd pay for that.

[emily_in_nc]

We probably need to have a spoilers allowed thread as well as a no spoilers thread -- think that was how it worked last year. Since I watched mostly at night, I appreciated the no spoilers thread (and would just read the spoiler thread after I'd watched the stage).

[ny biker]

Oy vey. The electricity came back on last night, but when I woke up this morning at 5:45 for a bike ride, I had no cable TV or internet. Every TV channel showed a message that said "this channel will be available shortly." I called Comcast (totally not a fun thing to do when you just woke up early in the morning and you haven't had breakfast or a cup of tea yet) and they said there was an outage in my area. Oh goody. Requested a credit for lost service and jumped in the shower since at this point I was running late.

Before I left I noticed the DVR was recording, even though every channel still said "this channel will be available shortly." Awesome.

After the bike ride (58 beautiful miles in rural Virginia, around Warrenton/Remington/Brandy Station), I went to Cracker Barrel to "refuel" with blueberry pancakes topped with fresh blackberries and a side of scrambled eggs. Checked my email via smartphone and saw a bunch of messages on my neighborhood Yahoo group from other folks who had lost cable/internet. Also one said her electricity had gone out again overnight, and she lives in the same courtyard as me. Apparently every else who called Comcast was told that there were no reported service problems so clearly their equipment needed to be replaced.

Eventually I arrived home to find: 3 Dominion Virginia Power trucks on my street; clocks on stove and microwave blinking, indicating they did turn off my electricity again this morning for a while; internet working; cable TV working; F1 qualifying successfully recorded (don't tell me who's on pole because I'm watching it now!). Haven't checked the TdF recording yet to see when the TV started to show the race, though I can see that the recording was interrupted by the power outage. I guess I can watch the primetime coverage if the recording is totally useless. I don't know who won the stage yet, just that there was "chaos" at the end.

Subsequent emails from my neighbors indicate that their Comcast equipment did *not* need to be replaced and everything is working fine now.

Did I mention how good that Cracker Barrel meal was? And they're always so friendly there. Weather permitting, I'll be "refueling" at the one in Frederick, MD next weekend after a 68-mile ride up to Gettysburg

Update: I spoke too soon. They turned the electricity off again. I went outside to say hello to the Dominion people who were out there working. They said they had just finished installing the new transformer and the power would be back on soon. And now it's back. Let's hope everything continues to work okay now, at least until the next storm.

[Koronin]

I haven't watched F1 qualifying yet, but will do that shortly. The only thing I'll say about TdF is the end was crazy.

[mariacycle]

We probably need to have a spoilers allowed thread as well as a no spoilers thread -- think that was how it worked last year. Since I watched mostly at night, I appreciated the no spoilers thread (and would just read the spoiler thread after I'd watched the stage).

ny biker started a spoilers thread

[angel@]

I heard about this petition.
http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/...-france_294885
I don't know about your ideas, but I want to join the petition.