Yes, both the full presentation and just the racing. The commentary is shared with Eurosport, so excellent.
Make sure not to skip yesterday’s stage 11, which introduced gravel sections. LOTS of drama. I say introduced, but probably in the Giro’s early years ago they mostly raced on gravel 
Argh. I hate this on-demand stuff.
I just signed up for GCN+ intending to watch the replay of the Giro now that I’ve finished the Volta. And when you go into the app to watch the replay of the event, you have no choice but to scroll past the other later stages and news-bites that reveal the outcomes as you go. So now I already know who won. I tried to close my eyes and blindly scroll to get to where I needed to be, but the scroll shows news stories right next to the selected stage and it totally spoils the replay. What a crap design. I’ll probably ask for my money back. I can see how it would be a nice app for watching live events…but I never am able to tune in live…
To their credits, NBC-SN’s app was quite good for replays and didn’t have any spoilers. But I got a notification a couple weeks ago that my subscription to their app will no longer be renewed because all of their content is moving to Peacock+ or something…so I’ll have to investigate how that is gonna work out.
Anyway - really disappointed I was able to walk into the Giro without knowing the results. It makes you understand why people do things like torrenting coverage instead of signing up for pay packages.
Hmm…I might have found a way to not reveal results. At first login, going to the bottom of the screen you can select Giro or Stage Races or other categories and that seems to exclude news items from the scroll.
Now I just need that Men In Black memory eraser tool to clear my mind of the winner…
I will say that even though the GCN+ app looks to be made for iPhones, the full screen iPad video resolution seems good. So that is a nice surprise… Currently watching Stage 1 of the Giro…(Turin/Turin)…
That’s a bummer. I will say that there is enough drama, especially in the final mountain stages to keep it interesting. And Italy is beautiful, so use it as a virtual holiday!
I finally had the chance to try Richmond and it does go up (for me) from 8% to 22% on the hairpin climbs over about a second or so, then eases back to 12%. I’m guessing they’ve tried to model the tight ramps you get at the hairpin apex.
I’ve got a Tacx Neo trainer, so I dont have to do the spin down tests.
I quite like Richmond, I’ve not tried the new “world” yet as its not been available when I can ride. Hopefully this week as I’d like to try it.
Commentary by Rob Hatch, Sean Kelley and Daniel Lloyd is exceptional. They do a very good job…
I forgot how hot 85F feels on the road. I need to hit the roads in the morning…ugh… Good news was, I felt a smidge better today…in that I stayed in the big ring for at least most of the first half of the ride. I swallowed my pride and did not do a really hilly section that adds another mile and 300 more feet of climbing. I feel slow though. Whew. Gonna be some time before I get back to where I was…
948ft of climb
Spots the aero bars… I need to check the thread as to what bikes you have… is that a time trial bike?
If it is and you’re training on hills, I’d go with your normal road bike. Time trial bikes aren’t made for climbing.
I hate that feeling of lost fitness. I’ve just had 6 weeks off the bike due to a hip flexor injury. All my winter training benefit has gone. Just keep plugging away, you will get it back. Remember your lungs have taken a beating.
No…that is a hybrid bike of all types at this point. It is a gravel bike with fenders and aero bars 
- reason being is that my normal ride is about half gravel / half road. There are some long segments of road where I do drop to the aero bars just to keep a reminder of the form for when I switch to my triathlon bike. I have three bikes - the gravel bike is my primary bike (Raleigh Willard 2), my carbon road bike (Raleigh Revenio), and my TT/Tri bike (Quintana Roo CD0.1). I don’t ride the QR very much because it is silly fast, nor the Revenio because the roads I ride to get to the roads I ride are pretty hazardous. The only route out of my house utilizes a combo of roads/gravel/roads…so my primary bike is my gravel bike. Which is good in some ways because when I switch to either the pure road bike or the TT bike they are so much lighter and easier to pedal with their 23C tires compared to the gravel bikes 40C tires. I think the Quintana Roo weighs a smidge over 19 lbs. - the gravel bike weighs probably around 26 lbs.
I tried the Quintana Roo on the route minus the gravel once and the gearing is just way too high on that type of bike for the climbs around here. The Revenio is perfect - weighs just under 20 lbs… I just don’t like to spend a lot of time on the roads.
Cut to Big George gets temporarily lost while driving home to Greenville and passes another big dude on gravel bike with fenders and - aero bars. After a considerable WTF moment, he decides that he might have either inadvertently discovered a Trek skunkworks project or has driven into the twilight zone.
Although his audio system continues looping old episodes of The Move, he hears none of it, struggling with how to best handle this information. As if on autopilot, he presses a button on the steering wheel with his left thumb and says determinedly, “Siri, order a set of carbon aero bars for my bicycle. I mean hey Google, errr Alexa. Never mind”. He pulls into a Quick Trip.
Cut to a month later, while recording the TdF prologue review, Lance makes a sarcastic remark about Big George’s desperate attempt at gaining an advantage on their upcoming 2 rider benefit race.
The next day, Ted King hears this while on a training ride. His still healing collarbone has been aching all morning and he wonders if the alternate position will help speed recovery - and make him a little faster.
For US viewers of the TdF, it appears that NBC has moved it from Sports Gold to Peacock TV, one of their other streaming service. So, yet another subscription needed to follow cycling. For me, trying to keep reins on all of the monthly financial “death by a thousand tiny cuts”, I’ll be dropping GCN+.
Coincidentally, I just signed up for Peacock yesterday in order to watch the PLL (Premier Lacrosse League). It allows streaming through a number of devices, including Apple TV, Roku, iOS, and Android, as well as browsers. I’m using the app on my iPad and while the interface could be better, no worse than some of the others. Not a lot of interesting content other than The Office, IMHO. Perhaps the Olympics?
Then Lance shows up with a drop post seat… it’s an arms race!
It is really frustrating at this point. GCN+ only offers recaps of the TDF. I subscribed for the year to replay the Giro. Pretty happy with the coverage but I did drop them an e-mail complaining about the news stories that spoil results. I don’t know about Peacock+…I wonder if there is another company that will offer a TDF pass or something for $39 or something. I do want to see the crew from NBC doing it though…so I may have no choice…
Hmm…June 26 start. I better start watching at least 1 stage per day of the Giro…
Is there a list of the prospective TDF team rosters somewhere?
They are usually not written in stone until after the Tour de Suisse, but preliminary…
Nice to see Alaphilippe back at the TDF. He is exciting to watch. The Ineos lineup is funny when you have GC contenders working as domestiques
As always…I wish for Uran to have a great TDF…that dude is just a really nice guy.
Caleb Ewan will be fun to watch (I’m watching Stage 2 of the Giro right now…interested to see how he does over the course of the Giro)…
It’s going to be an interesting tour. I just like Alaphilippe‘s riding, I’d like to see him as a GC contender but don’t think he’s there.
I began watching the Dauphine today during a Zwift ride. Of interest is a dominating looking Ineos team, Froome still recovering in Israel Start-up Nation kit, and what has to be a first since the early 2000s, no less than 10 US riders. NBC Sports’ last hurrah before handing off to Peacock. Roglic is a non starter, which hopefully doesn’t portend his condition or health.
