I realize cycling is not a big spectator sport in the US, but I'm always surprised at how hard it is to watch cycling in the US. Channel surfing I see the world championships of cornhole and tag, but I can't watch the cyclocross world championships that are happening in the US unless I jump through a bunch of hoops.

Think about it this way. When you view content via VPN and ES /GCN you are basically a conduit for ES /GCN to drink Flo's milkshake.

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I'm just this guy ya know?

I realize cycling is not a big spectator sport in the US, but I'm always surprised at how hard it is to watch cycling in the US. Channel surfing I see the world championships of cornhole and tag, but I can't watch the cyclocross world championships that are happening in the US unless I jump through a bunch of hoops.


In North America - the U.S. mostly but Canada is somewhat similar - it's a societal & cultural thing.

In many European countries and other countries around the world after Soccer (Football), Cycling is the #2 or #3 sport in the country in terms of media engagement, viewer interest, and sponsorship investment. Whereas in the U.S. cycling is almost completely and totally off the radar screen ( as are ALL Endurance Sports). Unless, it's a drugs/doping story, or some super freaky, totally out there kind of story, of someone doing 52 marathons in 52 weeks ( or some other crazy thing), it's nowhere in the sports news.

Is it any wonder that many Americans have a somewhat strange view of a sport like cycling?

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Reading this thread, I'll just reply to myself....

If Flo didn't suck, I'd subscribe to their service.
But they DO suck and their service costs more than GCN+, so why would I go with the Flo?
The "won't somebody respect their rent seeking business decisions" argument just makes me loathe them more.

I remember when the only cycling feed we had for years in Canada was the awful TdF feed with Paul and Phil and commercials every 26 seconds.
Then to make it even more torturous in later years, Bob f-ing Roll.
Americans have no idea how bad their cycling coverage is.

Now if GCN+ would hire the recently fired from SBS Robbie McEwen I'd be pumped.

OP here , signed up for Express VPN today, it works great with a UK connection along with GCN here in Canada .

i know it is 2023, so this thread is out of date, but for all except the tiny minority who subscribe to Flobikes (last number i saw was 78K subscribers) getting any coverage of the world champs in the US has been ridiculously difficult. Not even any extended highlights on youtube. i get that one answer is to give Flo the $150 per year ...but they offer way less than GCN plus or Peacock for 3x the price. Its just extortion and paying them would be supporting them in that extortion. If Flo was priced on the same scale of cost per content as ES/GCN (it would be about $10 a year) and i'd most likely just pay it; but their ridiculous pricing policy forces US residents to look for alternatives.

i do wonder why the UCI would give the rights in a market with so much potential to a subscription service with hardly any subscribers. Not a good business decision even if Flo were the highest bidder as they have a responsibility to attempt to grow the sport.

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And the question remains. where were you.

I share your frustration and have been thinking about writing a post like this for a few days. This past weekend I was surprised to notice some of the elite women's mtb downhill runs were available to me on YT. Mid-way through the stream suddenly went away and never came back; completely removed from YT, at least for me in the US. The UCI publishes what they call their broadcast intentions on their website. It lists primarily European countries plus Canada and South Africa. Some Asian countries are mentioned but no details are provided, and the US and Australia are not listed at all. To be honest I don't know a great deal about the UCI as an organization, but I do wonder why they wouldn't make their live YT streams available to all, or at least to the countries where they aren't selling broadcast rights. Is this really some kind of major source of funding for them? Does YT streaming somehow erode that funding? For those who are tech savvy, yes, they might be able to subscribe to gcn and use a vpn if they have no concerns with any potential ToS violations. But why are we in this situation in the first place? Wouldn't it be in the UCI's best interests to have as many eyeballs as possible on worlds to grow the sport?

Buy an Android box, subscribe to a service for $10 a month, watch 9000+ channels including cycling on Eurosport.

serious question.....how does that circumvent a geoblock without a VPN since it is connected to the home wifi.

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And the question remains. where were you.