Omloop - LIVE!!

LLB and I had a huge surprise this morning - we were trying to decide if it was worth trying to find a stream so that we could watch Omloop, as Eurosport ("the home of cycling") have totally failed to offer us any coverage at all.

Trouble is, the illicit streams are absolutely terrible in quality: not only is the picture dreadful, but the picture keeps locking up, so we gradually get further and further behind, to the point where other people are tweeting triumphantly about who won, while we are still yelling at the screen with 50m to go.

So imagine our surprise and delight to find a new, hitherto unheard-of tv channel called BIKE.

We watched in amazement as a very nice girly called Fillipa, overdubbed by a repressed middle-England actor, cycled around a lake somewhere in Italy, meeting a variety of men who were all overdubbed by the same male actor, which was slightly disconcerting. She was moderately enthusiastic about the scenery of the lake, and the map which had been provided by - I think - the local tourist office. She meets a chap at the landing stage where she proposes to cut short her 39k round-the-lake cycle ride by taking a boat back across the lake, and asks him about an island.

"Does it have any legends?" she asks.
"Yes, it has many legends," come the overdubbed reply.
"do you have a favourite legend?"
 "Yes, I have a favourite legend, it is said..."

Thrilling stuff, eh?

It would appear that it's an Italian channel, which someone has bought in, and added quick (and cheap) English dialogue to, then pushed out on UK tv.  The quality is not exactly HD, but frankly after the streams, it seems perfectly acceptable to us. It started on 10th December, but we didn't know about it until this morning.

And now, here we are, happily watching Omloop in perfectly acceptable quality, and with the inimitable Rob Hatch commentating, all alone, and with no backing music to help him. It's not easy to keep talking continuously for 2 hours, and he's doing a sterling job - particularly when you think that the content of each race, ie the riders, are constantly changing. I can only assume that commentators have a large print version of the start list, another list sorted alphabetically, and a quick crib of what each rider has done in the past. That, or a wonderful memory.

I always enjoy watching the cobbled classics, it's probably a combination of the truly lovely scenery, which is the very best of middle England, but without the mess, and the constant changes to the leading groups, due to the constant presence of punctures, crashes with road furniture, etc.

Talking of crashes, Tony Martin comes down a whopper with 44k to go, he  just loses his front wheel on a cobbled corner, taking out a couple of other riders as he does so - luckily he does not appear to be damaged, and hops back on it. This might well be a relief to the front groups, which include our very own Luke Rowe, who is out there with the leaders in a small group of 8, which is now forming a very small echelon as they encounter a slightly more open section.


At this point there is a massive crash towards the end of the peloton, and we see Philly Gilly hit the deck and stay down for a worrying length of time, although in the end, he's the one who gets back on his bike and rides on, leaving a fellow BMC rider sitting on the bank, along with Jempy Drucker from Loooks'm'burg (as Rob Hatch says it).

There are far too many black kits in the not-just-pro peloton! At this rate I am going to have to start learning which bikes they are all riding, in order to work out who is who. "No, you won't," says LLB reassuringly, "it just takes a while to get your eye in, that's all."

Let's hope so, otherwise you will have to read about Specialized (Veranda's Willems), Pinarello (Team Sky) etc, instead of "and the lovely Jakob is looking good today."

We all remember the ludicrous ending of this race last year - three Etixx guys and one lone Sky rider (Stannard) for about the last 20k, and the lone Sky rider beat the lot of them and won it.

So this year, we are expecting Etixx - with their prominent Diddlye-Dee (Lidl) advertising on the shoulders - to make an effort not to be left behind too badly: if they don't at least pull the break back, they will be laughed out of the peloton. And width 11k to go, there is still a break of five guys nearly a minute up the road, one of which is Peter "Jammy Dodger" Sagan is seen tightening up his shoes in preparation for a sprint effort.

With just 7k to go the gap is not coming down at all, and it looks as though we are all going to laughing at Etixx, with no mercy and much pointing of fingers:  in fact, they have had to ask Direct Energie (formerly Europcar) to do some pulling, and finally the time is starting to come down.

However, they left it far too late, despite Sylvain Chavanel in his unfamiliar balck kit doing his utmost to bring the time down, and it's a big sprint by the lead group at the line. Poor Luke doesn't quite have the oopmh to take it right to the line, and settles for 4th place, with Greg van Avermaet just beating Sagan to take the lead.

Well, we are very happy with the new BIKE channel and we look forward to watching it again in future!