Do these guys think they are funny …?? Dressed up like animals. Yelling and screaming at Cippo and Indurain. I don’t understand OLN and why they would hire these guys …who are they anyways and what makes them experts…?? They should be at a BMX/skateboard party …not the TDF.
At least we get to see Kristin Gum!
I think they are funny. Isn’t riding a bike suppose to be fun? Isn’t that why we all started riding bikes? Maybe you would understand them a little better if you would take a moment to look around on your next ride. There is more to cycling than equipment choices or training regiments. You get a opportunity to escape from life for a little while.
Good point. I mean, this is a L-O-N-G race. With so many hours in the saddle (most of it not really “racing”, esp. first week, just avoiding a crash in the Peloton until the sprinters gun it out), I imagine the riders welcome the distraction.
Now, for the mountain time-trial stage Lance is worried about (and Tyler is salivating over), I don’t think we will see any giant stuffed animals gallavanting about. 
I’m still trying to figure out is Kristen thinking
“These guys are wild and crazy, I’m at TDF, and getting paid to do this! Life’s great!”
or
"OMG these guys are total losers and I have to be with them for 23 days, nonstop?! They’re not paying me enough!
It has to be humiliating to her. I feel bad for her.
The coverage is not meant for people in the know, so we’ll always be annoyed. Watching the pre-race show was just frustrating, the way OLN never lets facts stand in the way of a feel-good-about-Lance story. How Lance taking 1min20 out of second place in a time trial is “unheard of” in cycling, even though Indurain regularly took 3min out of the runner up. If you know anything about cycling history, every minute of coverage had stupid stuff like this.
But my favorite was Bob roll, who said “Tyler has a shot as long as he can stay on his bike, and things are looking good since so far this year he hasn’t fallen off. Over to Frankie Andreu for an interview with Tyler.” And Frankie starts with “Tyler, you took a pretty bad spill a few weeks ago in the Dauphine, are you back to 100% now?”
Those guys are absolute tools. At one point I saw one of them “interviewing” Indurain and asking if he thought lance would win 6. He didn’t even wait for the translation to come through and just went on with his stupid-ass remarks. What a punk, have some respect asshole. Why is OLN trying to hard?
Can you see the production meeting where a bunch of people are sitting around the table going, “Yeah, this is a great idea. people can connect with these guys. This is the link to the everyman. This is how we pull in the general audience…”
And everybody around the table is like, “Yeah…” Then they go back to their computers and update their resume’s.
We just got OLN this year, for the first time ever, in Hawaii. Having heard glowing things about OLN’s coverage in the past I couldn’t wait for TDF this year. Is the coverage different this year than in the past? It sounds like they’re overreaching but I’m thrilled anyway to be getting same day coverage and more than 10 minutes of actual race footage.
<<Can you see the production meeting where a bunch of people are sitting around the table going, “Yeah, this is a great idea. people can connect with these guys. This is the link to the everyman. This is how we pull in the general audience…”
And everybody around the table is like, “Yeah…” Then they go back to their computers and update their resume’s>>
Tom, you pegged it, 100%
Brett
Kirsten.
Speaking Of Spills - I have only watched one stage and I am already weary of seeing Lance hit the deck on the Luz Ardiden climb last year and assorted other Tour de France crashes every time we go to a commercial break. It keeps coming up over and over and over and . . . That’s enough to scare anyone completely away from bike racing. Great promotion of the sport. Roller derby on bikes!!
If they wanted to show something really spectacular why don’t they show Lance’s cyclo-cross trip after avoiding the Beloki crash last year. I have seen others say that, that was the most amazing bit of under-pressure bike handling that they have ever seen.
That lead-in also shows, I think, the crash during the stage 1 finish last year (the one that took out Levi Leipheimer and in which Tyler Hamilton broke his collarbone). Why not just show the scene where the Fonz jumps his motorcycle in Arnold’s parking lot and crashes into the chicken stand?
I would swear that OLN thinks it would be funny to hire some drunken idiots to attract attention and get main stream America to watch the TDF. It would be like ESPN hiring some Manchester United Fans(soccer-USA, football-Europe) to cover world cup. How stupid? Not that they are not cycling fans, but give me a break. Do you really want these idiots running around France as an image of American cycling fans? Not me. Just like England does not want the drunken idiots that riot and wreck shit as their fans.
Classic Quadzilla. Just Classic.
That’s the truth! I’m embarrassed that those guys are OLN’s choice for representing the US. No wonder all these other countries hate us!
And as a woman, Kirsten Gum with her new “enhanced” chest, four tons of make-up and fake tan is also embarrassing.
I so want to give OLN a pass because I appreciate the coverage so much, but these guys are really awful. Not just awful, unwatchable. They aren’t funny at all and they’re doing skits that are worse than what I see on local public access cable.
I have been wondering what everyone has been complaining about because the live has been pretty good. So this afternoon I see the edited afternoon coverage and see them…how lame. Its like cable access without the “talent”. What were they thinking?
Exacto.
The moron who hired the cutters must be the same jack ass that keeps Bob “tour DAY France” on the broadcast team. Maybe the guy was a decent cyclist but he’s one shitty commentator. It’s too bad OLN is so bush league. Liggit is the best thing they got going.
SM
Bob actually has some funny stories and can actually talk about cycling. These cutter guys don’t bring anything to the table except stupidity.