Your wish list for next year's Tour (race&broadcast)

[Climb01742]

If someone gave you three wishes, what changes would you like to see in next year's Tour that would, for you, make the race and broadcast better?

1. Sky drops its funding for Team Sky. Its riders find contracts with many other teams. And we can see how good they really are. Maybe it wasn't 'marginal gains'. Or maybe it was. It would be cool to find out, and have a more open race, to boot.

2. NBCSN really shakes up their broadcast team. In basketball, I really like Jeff Van Gundy as an analyst. As an ex-coach, he knows his Xs and Os and gives us good coach's POV insights. And he's honest. He's willing to say what we're watching ain't great if it isn't. How about keep Paul and pair him with a recently retired DS? Hopefully a DS who was a racer, too. European (as they almost all would be anyway). Give us insights from inside the team car, as it were. Or poach a broadcaster from a European channel. Just shake up the Phil and Paul dynamic. And give us more than banal descriptions of what our eyes can see already. What I like about Jens on the broadcast is that he tells us what a rider or DS might be thinking or trying to do. And he's more unguarded. Sadly, he'd wear on us, I think, with more airtime, but there has to be a cycling insider who could gives us what Jeff Van Gundy gives us in hoops.

3. The Tour organizers continue to experiment with stages. Maybe this year's cobbled stage was_too_many cobbles, but it was great theatre and added a good challenge to the race. While Wednesday's flat stage was kinda boring, having it between the three last mountain stages made yesterday's stage better, I think. So, please, keep rolling the dice and making each year a different set of challenges.

Those are mine. Yours?

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by Climb01742

If someone gave you three wishes, what changes would you like to see in next year's Tour that would, for you, make the race and broadcast better?

1. Sky drops its funding for Team Sky. Its riders find contracts with many other teams. And we can see how good they really are. Maybe it wasn't 'marginal gains'. Or maybe it was. It would be cool to find out, and have a more open race, to boot.

2. NBCSN really shakes up their broadcast team. In basketball, I really like Jeff Van Gundy as an analyst. As an ex-coach, he knows his Xs and Os and gives us good coach's POV insights. And he's honest. He's willing to say what we're watching ain't great if it isn't. How about keep Paul and pair him with a recently retired DS? Hopefully a DS who was a racer, too. European (as they almost all would be anyway). Give us insights from inside the team car, as it were. Or poach a broadcaster from a European channel. Just shake up the Phil and Paul dynamic. And give us more than banal descriptions of what our eyes can see already. What I like about Jens on the broadcast is that he tells us what a rider or DS might be thinking or trying to do. And he's more unguarded. Sadly, he'd wear on us, I think, with more airtime, but there has to be a cycling insider who could gives us what Jeff Van Gundy gives is in hoops.

3. The Tour organizers continue to experiment with stages. Maybe this year's cobbled stage was_too_many cobbles, but it was great theatre and added a good challenge to the race. While Wednesday's flat stage was kinda boring, having it between the three last mountain stages made yesterday's stage better, I think. So, please, keep rolling the dice and making each year a different set of challenges.

Those are mine. Yours?

Don't really care about number 1 or 2..would like to see the BEST Grand Tour on NBC/Gold(that would be the Giro..duh)
BUT stage 17 was very exciting(altho the LeMans start, complete with lights and a grid was dumm) as was the cobbles stage..I think shorter, more intense, BAN RADIOS...
Transfers will be a problem as will the $ that is paid by finishing towns but these 200km+, flat..a break, 10 minutes, brought back..sprint..yawn.

[DfCas]

More shorter stages. More explosive and interesting, also easier to watch. Those 120 miles sprint stages are only good for 10 seconds.

[charliedid]

No radios and no GC race for individuals. Start and finish as a team.

Race bikes.

[weiwentg]

I would like to see Dave Brailsford out of the Tour. Lance Armstrong is an asshole, and we all know he is an asshole. Brailsford, on the other hand, charms people with pious proclamations about transparency and yet does nothing different. Brailsford is a serpent.

[flydhest]

Agree that the shorter, all climbing all the time stage was good. The descent on the Aubisque was fantastic. We don’t need as many summit finishes if mountain stages can be like that.

I like a few flat sprinter stages.

I don’t much care about the commentators as long as the on screen stats with the gaps and such is accurate and refreshed often.

I kinda like the history lessons and up close and personal with French towns I am slightly sad to admit.

[Climb01742]

Originally Posted by flydhest

I kinda like the history lessons and up close and personal with French towns I am slightly sad to admit.

Me, too. Love the details of chateaus originally built in the 11th century. The Tour broadcast is the best travel advertising France could do. But doesn't it say something that that's what we value Phil and especially Paul for?

[false_Aest]

That's easy:

1. Don't have the Giro Rosa at the same time as the tour (and give the ladies legitimate coverage).

2. Get rid of podium girls one and for all and instead let kids (or mayors, or the head of tourism for each small town) present.

3. More cobbles -- especially after the climbing stages.

4. More short stages.

5. TTT on the penultimate stage.

6. more pepper spray.

[merckx]

Abolish radios.

[Bob Ross]

Originally Posted by false_Aest

More cobbles -- especially after the climbing stages.

More cobbles during the climbing stages!!!

I wanna see 50+mph descents with off-camber hairpins and gnarly cobblestones and sharks that shoot laser beams out of their eyeballs.

[Macadamia]

team sky balkanizing would be great, what if you had this year's tour but Thomas, Froome, and Bernal were on different teams

alternatively next year they could just show reruns of the giro or the previous year's vuelta so we aren't bored to tears

[eddief]

I want to know how fast they are going all the time. Combine it with grade %. And wind direction and mph. Should be easy no?

Look at how announcing ball exit speed has made baseball exciting again .

[unterhausen]

1) Phil should get a shock every time he says something obviously stupidly wrong. Might get him to retire. Paul can be somewhat repetitious, but what can you do when you have to talk about boring stages for 5 hours. I like Sean Kelly, probably because I can't understand what he's saying most of the time.

2) do something, anything to break up the Sky train. I thought the lemans start was supposed to do that, but it turned out that the sky train was formed up very quickly. There was one day this week when I turned on the tv mid-race, and the first thing I saw was 6 sky riders on the front of the peloton, and a wave of revulsion swept over me. Too bad we can't have 4 man teams.

[Red Tornado]

I really enjoy listening to Sean Kelly commentating. He usually has legit, useful info & love the Irish accent.

[jr59]

I just want to be able to watch it on the tv, and make comments on racing bikes, like I know something about them.
Well....at least it’s a simple wish anyways