Yeah, the Max press release said they'll have cyclocross, but the for the remainder of this season Flo owns the U.S. rights to every single major CX series. Maybe Flo won't put up a fight for 2024 rights, particularly with Discovery+ being a venture capital backer. But without CX Flo becomes even less of a value at the same cost. Flo barely makes sense as it is.

At least for us up north Flo has Flanders Classics and ASO, so that's a good chunk of the cycling calendar but certainly not all of it. Still no source of RCS events (no Strade? MSR? Giro?) or classics like KBK and E3. It also looks like there won't be much in terms of WWT.

This sucks. It was so nice being able to VPN and watch the tour on GCN's coverage. I can't even comment on the quality of Peacock's commentators because I find them so annoying to listen to in the first place, guess I'm stuck with that now.

The other problem with Peacock is that it doesn't let you go all the way back to the beginning of a live event. If I'm remembering correctly, you can only go back about an hour, so if you miss the early morning start then you miss the breaks being established unless you wait until the broadcast is over and the on-demand version is posted. GCN had that nice "Watch From The Start?" option if you join late....

From Beyond the Peloton/Spencer Martin

Yeesh, as a diehard fan, that list makes it hard for me to cross off any one of them. Like with Holy Week split between Flo and Peacock. And Max with Strade, MSR, and the Giro.

So if rates are the same as '23, looking at $60 (Peacock)+$150 (Flo) + $150 (assuming free promotional sports add-on to annual Max "Ad-Free")

So ~$360 for '24, going up over $400 in '25.

With the bonus of all the other Max content...not sure if any of it will interest me - haven't been tempted to get Max before this.

Wow, that’s rough.

In comparison, for EPL, Bundesliga, and UCL, I pay $280 (Sling) + $50 (Peacock) + $36 (Paramount) + $80 (Espn+). Or $450 max. Except in general I pay less due to various credit card offers available, and broadcasting rights for footie is much higher than it is for cycling.

And by its very nature, there is very few ad breaks in football.

To have a season of cycling cost as much as a season of football is just absurd.

Does anyone know if we'll still be able to watch their races that have already taken place? I was waiting to watch the cyclocross season this winter.

I wouldn’t count on it. I think the whole app will disappear.

No, after the 19th none of that will be available sadly.

It would be easier if the coverage wasn't so bad. I can't stand peacock or flo, and they're so expensive. I'm relatively ambivalent about max just because at least I think I'll enjoy watching it

Really sad if all their documentaries just go away. They had some really poignant interviews with people important to cycling in a historical sense, and should ideally be on the public record for posterity. Not just racers, but industry people like Mike Burrows too. I hope at some point a TWD exec allows the source material to go to the public domain. Be dickish to lock it all away in a TWD vault to disappear with the sands of time.

I emailed them more than once about doing that.

Aaannnndddd...GCN+ went dark for me at the start of 19 Dec (i.e. 00:01). All I can see on the app is the video announcing the closure - all other content is inaccessbile. Not a surprise, of course, but still :(

I'm seeing other content up. It looks like all the documentaries/adventures/films have been moved to YouTube. Great that TWD didn't decide to just end all that content. And maybe GCN will keep up with their "film" production, just falling back to using YouTube as their distribution tech.

Maybe they were on YouTube all along...not sure...just that I've always viewed them through the GCN+ app.

With Max stating 300+ races I was somewhat ok with the $200/yr cost given I could discontinue VPN saving on that and GCN. Almost a wash. But despite 300+ races, it sounds like if you want the FULL schedule, like everything GCN offered, it requires Max, FloBikes and Peacock. Is that correct?

That's an extreme increase in cost to the consumer. And with FloBikes and Peacock, an excruciating downgrade in commentary.

I'm still livid about this whole deal. Venting as much as looking for feedback.

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cock-up before conspiracy

the "world feed" was an option for watching the tour on Peacock this year. i didn't have my VPN at the time so i couldn't watch the tour on GCN - but Nico and Ant (i think it was Ant) were pretty good. Much better than Bob and Phil with their senile grandad and mad uncle dumbed down commentary style.

i think we all expected that the cycling would be bundled with other things and the cost would be loads more because of the non-cycling stuff so this isn't a surprise; but i am as bothered by losing access as the increase cost of Max v GCN+. With a GCN+ subscription and a VPN i could watch almost every cycling event on demand; and now i don't think that is possible without multiple subscriptions. i think it is in our best interest to boycott Flo (they always overcharged relative to GCN+ and Peacock) - and force a bit of consolidation.

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And the question remains. where were you.

I got an email about a refund this morning.

good to know about the "world feed" option for Peacock. That's promising. Definitely won't subscribe to Flo. Experience with them in the past was overpriced, sub par technically, limited races and poor commentary (my opinion). Hopefully there will be some consolidation.

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cock-up before conspiracy

Im lucky that I have a friend in the UK that was willing to setup a Discovery+ account for me and I used Sundays Cyclocross races to make sure it worked. I cant use the D+ app but I can use the website to login and then airplay to my tv, so with the cost of the VPN ($60/yr) and D+ ($10/month) its about $70 more than it was with GCN+.

The price of GCN+, even adding in the cost of the VPN, was so ridiculously good that I figured it was only a matter of time before the price went up. I just never imaged it would end the way it did. RIP GCN+

Has anyone tried opening a bank account in England to pay for a D+ subscription? Would still be tied to a US address - not sure it would work??

FWIW... I am based in Poland but have a UK-issued (so now non-EU..) credit card and it was accepted to gain Eurosport 1 & 2 access for the equivalent of ~£4 a month from TVN player ((linked to Discovery channel).... https://promocja.player.pl/...gn=AdLite-ESExtra-1M. One should be able to click on the English language commentary (it worked for the recent cyclocross races), but will see if that continues with the first month I have ordered... If a non-EU card was accepted, maybe it will work with US cards for those wanting to try another option..... However, since I am already based within Poland, I don't know if using a VPN will work or not for those based outside Poland, for both ordering and then watching......

I'm in the US and clicked on the link, asked the browser to translate Polish to English. Clicked on the 'choose' button to select the subscription and the next page says 'it is not possible to purchase access to this video in your location'. So, if you are interested, maybe start with a VPN and a Polish IP address?

Aye I guess so, thought it may be the case, but since I am in already in Poland I couldn't check if VPN was a requirement....