KBK Observations

[Brendan Quirk]

Whilst cooking pancakes for the kiddos this morning, I had KBK on cycling.tv live in the kitchen. A few things of note --

1) Cycling.tv earned a bit of reputation last year for dodgy production values & bandwidth capacity. They now offer some fairly high-powered video in the paid "premium" service. You could maximize the race & it was barely pixelated. Very nice video quality.

2) Has it really been 2 years since George H won this race? Wow, how time flies like crazy.

3) Speaking of Discovery, I find their black uniforms to look fairly attractive. But I do find it kinda insane that the "Discovery" logo only appears to be visible from a motorbike-camera on the right side, and that the logo is upside down when the rider is in the bars. I don't understand this. It seems so crazy that I believe I am missing something fundamental here.

4) Quick Step was frightfully organized & dominant in the last 10k. An amazing performance. The headscratcher for me is that their bike sponsor, Specialized, provides them with red bikes to match their blue/silver kit. Specialized is normally a brilliant marketing outfit, so I don't understand the choice in paint there. Sure, maybe they'll have blue bikes come Tour time. But if as a bike sponsor you choose to sponsor Quick Step, March/April is indisputably prime time. Not a big deal. Just kinda strange.

Man oh man do I love spring classics season. Or is it Spring Classics? Or is it SPRING CLASSICS?

[Bill Bove]

Could be sPring cLassics...

Yes, the spRing clAssics are cool. Belgian haRd meN battling each other, the course and the weather..

[Bobbo]

4) Quick Step was frightfully organized & dominant in the last 10k. An amazing performance. The headscratcher for me is that their bike sponsor, Specialized, provides them with red bikes to match their blue/silver kit. Specialized is normally a brilliant marketing outfit, so I don't understand the choice in paint there. Sure, maybe they'll have blue bikes come Tour time. But if as a bike sponsor you choose to sponsor Quick Step, March/April is indisputably prime time. Not a big deal. Just kinda strange.

Man oh man do I love spring classics season. Or is it Spring Classics? Or is it SPRING CLASSICS?

Did you notice the bikes or not? I think mission accomplished. Perhaps the thinking from Specialized is one of the biggest Pro Tour teams in the world has switched bike sponsors - let's not get lost in the shuffle. Make 'em nice and LOUD.

[Grant McLean]

Great race, i just finished watching the free version, as i did yesterday with H-V

Not sure i'll do that again, I think it's worth it for the better picture on the
premium channel, the only drawback I can think of is that those freakin' ugly
specialized bikes won't be so blurry.

:)

g

[Karin Kirk]

I was wondering about the upside-down Discovery logo too. You think that was a mistake? I don't get it.

The kits look OK, but the black will be brutal in hot weather.

[tachyon]

Do you think they knew Discovery was going to bail before the season? If so, it could have been kind of like flying the US flag upside down. It's a sign of distress. :p

[Erik.Lazdins]

Time had a decently colored bike under Quick Step last year. In my view Specialized has blown it big time. No style to be seen in the combination at all.
BUT it doesn't matter that the bike doesn't look good - Boonen appears to be abundantly motivated to have another amazing classics season.

I hope to see a lot of mud for the Ronde Van Vlaanderen on April 8th - and Paris Roubaix of course.

I am hoping for live HD coverage of both!