Bicycle Race Broadcasts

CX
Nathan Spear's web site disappeared shortly after the Cyclocross World Championships. It went down without an explanation, though there's a catch 22 in there anyway--if the site's down, how can he explain, right? Have to thank him, though, for bringing so many good, complete European races to those of us here in the US. Great job, Nathan.

Cyclocross season is over. I know, for some it's a hard dose of reality to face, but that is the case. Go to a mirror. Look at yourself. Take your strong hand and slap your face hard a couple of times. Painful, right? That's your reminder of cyclocross. In the meantime, there are other bike race venues to follow.

Versus
Versus is back on biking, though the bucking will always be there somewhere, I'm sure. They broadcast parts of the Paris-Nice race for the past couple of Sundays.

The Critérium International is on deck March 27th and 28th. Versus will carry this on Sunday the 28th from 2:30-4p ET.

Watch out for Versus. Their broadcast times are all over the place. They even have an asterisked caveat below their listings warning that "*all times are subject to change." For a list of the bike races they plan on covering this year go here:
www.versus.com/blogs/epic-cycle/2010-epic-cycle-schedule

World Cycling Channel 2
Mark Lovejoy, my man in finding great bike links, pointed out this one:
www.youtube.com/user/worldcyclingchannel2
It doesn't show complete races, but it does give some great highlights along with about ten minutes leading up to the race finish. Even more fun, you never know what language feed you'll get. Flemish one day, French the next. Tirreno Adriatico might come to you in English or Italian. For those of us who are multi-lingual it's a dream come true. For those of us who speak some bastardized form of English and nothing else, it's an education, and even a deep dark mystery.

Pavé
This link, in turn, came from an opinionated blogger who enjoys analyzing recent races. His blog is Pavé. These are great fun to read. Go to:
pavepavepave.blogspot.com

Cycling.TV
I used to subscribe, then got fed up with the glitches and the erratic support. It's a service you have to pay for and that was the part of the problem. (I think they broadcast live races for free at a lower resolution.) If they charge, I thought, the headaches should have been minimal. Such was not the case.

Also, somewhere in the small print it allowed them to re-up my subscription each year. I didn't realize this until I saw it on my bill. But, oddly, there was always a glitch with this, too. I needed to contact them after the renewal date to get it to accept my login.

To be fair, I jettisoned them a while back and they may have improved their service by now. The coverage and announcing was--and hopefully still is--excellent. If you have an opinion on this web broadcast site I'd like to hear it. Or, even better, if you're from CyclingTV, write a response.

It would be great for them to do well and succeed, considering the dearth of resources for viewing cycle races here in the US. They cover the Spring Classics, along with the other major races throughout the year. Go to:
cycling.tv.

Universal Sports
Whoops! I forgot to mention Universal Sports (Thanks, Dave). Live and recent broadcasts of major races. Great stuff.
http://www.universalsports.com/cycling/index.html

Any more good bike race broadcast sites you know of? Fill us in. I'm sure there are more.

And if you can't watch them, go out and ride. Pretend you're in a race. Ride pretend hard. Pretend win. Pretend podium. It can bring you moments of glory and happiness. Not that I've ever tried it.

...oRo