Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Not sure about a pub but you can watch it live on Pick, which I think is a free to air channel.


Failing that, its being streamed free on Youtube.


More details here;


http://road.cc/content/news/153662-where-watch-sir-bradley-wiggins-take-cyclings-uci-hour-record-sunday

It's a fantastic sporting achievement, but who would want to watch some bloke ride around and around and around and around for an hour. It's a bit like Formula One, but more boring! Whoever thought that was possible?


And who the hell actually paid good money for tickets?

But why? What what was so watchable about a bloke riding around a track on a bike. For an hour.


I know there is the Wiggo effect, where people would rock up to watch him pick his nose. I suppose a better question to ask is: would you watch Fred Nobody try the same record attempt?

Because it's an amazing human feat that especially those among us who cycle (at half the speed) can appreciate. Technically too, it's fascinating if you're interested in the training, the psychology, the stamina, the aerodynamics. And then there is the Wiggo effect, as you say. I doubt everyone watched every single second of it, but I'm sure many people found it exciting and inspirational.

What, you mean the famous Alex Dowsett who beat Bradley Wiggins in the 2013 Giro D'Italia time trial in 2013, and who last year set a new British 10 mile time trial record (again beating Wiggo), later in the year winning the British National Time Trial Championship for the third time in a row, then taking the gold medal for Team GB in the Commonwealth Games individual time trial?


That Alex Dowsett? Are you suggesting he is just 'some bloke on a bike' or 'Fred Nobody'? If so, I stand impressed by what you must have achieved in life to make him look so anonymous in your mind.


Fair enough that cycling might not be your 'thang', but that doesn't mean the hour world record attempt was a load of boring guff. For some it was quite the opposite. It is actually an incredible physical challenge beyond almost any other sporting event you are likely to see.


No, I didn't watch Alex Dowsett - he set his record (1.5 km less than Wiggins did last night) in Manchester.


Btw - and this is a serious suggestion - I'm not being funny - there's a superb film about Graeme Obree and the one hour cycling record, called 'The Flying Scotsman'. Even if you are not a fan of cycling, or this particular event, it is well worth watching.

robbin Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> That Alex Dowsett? Are you suggesting he is just 'some bloke on a bike' or 'Fred Nobody'? If so, I

> stand impressed by what you must have achieved in life to make him look so anonymous in your mind.


I'm sure he's achieved a lot, but he's pretty unknown outside cycling circles (or even cycling in circles). If they asked for 'Famous British Cyclists' on Pointless, he'd be pretty damn close to, if not actually, a pointless answer. There are a lot of high achieving people in sport that are pretty anonymous. Likewise, there are a lot of footballers with a much higher profile than their talents deserve.


> That said, if you are not at all into cycling or sports endurance feats generally, I can see that watching

> a bloke riding round in circles might not be the most riveting way of spending an hour of your life.


Probably the best summary. Mind you, lots of people go to watch F1 live and I've never really understood that, either. I suppose at least with cycling you can see them all the time, not just fly past every 2 minutes.

You can also participate in cycling, while F1 is comparatively inaccessible.


I accept that if you don't follow cycling he may not be well known. But, you would be hard-pressed to find a cycling fan who doesn't know about Alex Dowsett. Aside from being a CW games gold medal winner and British Champion time trialist etc, he was a member of Team Sky, now he's on the Movistar pro team. He's the only elite athlete to have haemophilia (God knows how he can/has the nerve to perform as a pro cyclist at all!).

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • Hello! I would be keen to hear from parents of secondary-school age in state schools of the cost of school trips overseas. Particularly interested in Kingsdale and Charter but all examples welcome. many thanks!
    • Or the government have it wrong. Certainly picking a fight with farmers, the very definition of working people, is probably not going to end well. The problem here is that Labour hung their hat on not taxing "working people" which was clearly the output of some awful focus group and clearly not the term they wanted to use. They failed to properly qualify what a working person is and it is now coming back to haunt them because the very definition of a working person is anyone who is, well, working and that covers a whole gamut of people and salaries. Don't pick a fight with farmers if you have stated you aren't going after working people because public opinion will be against you. Farmers are the backbone of any country and work so hard and yes, there are some that are incredibly well off but the majority are not and farming is a trade that gets handed down through the generations. And farmers will make their case very public in ways other groups won't.   Labour's communication has been awful but they got a free pass before the election because everyone was so focused on how awful the Tories were. But now they are in power and they are tripping themselves up because in leadership you need more than soundbites.   The "Son of a Toolmaker" is the type of thing that haunts politicians until the end of their career. Clearly someone decided to detach Keir from his grammar school, university (including Oxford), legal career, knight of the realm background. His face when everyone laughed when he mentioned it during one of the pre-election debates was a picture. He is the son of a toolmaker but you look a bit silly when people then say yes but your dad ran a tool-making company...   Coming into power on a ticket of "look how they have been behaving" and then behaving in many ways the Tories were has been a disaster for politicians of all parties. The clothing funding and access to no.10 was just a nightmare for them and in these days where today's newspaper is no longer tomorrow's chip paper the comments made about Trump (which I am sure most people can agree with) are just embarrassing.   Winter Fuel Tax has been a disaster. Yes, there are many pensioners who don't need it but those aren't going to be the ones talking to the media about how awful the winter is going to be and people only remember those shouting the loudest.   The budget was an interesting one. I was watching Theo Pathitis on TV and he had swung from the Tories to Labour ahead of the election and was talking about the impact of the Employer NI and you could tell that he was very carefully choosing his words as he knew how hard this was going to be on business and what the implications are but clearly didn't want to be left with egg on his face as he was telling everyone to vote Labour ahead of the election.   Labour were, understandably, happy to right the massive wave of Tory discontent and pre-election all of the world's ills were down to the Tories. The first speech Starmer gave after winning spoke nothing about the previous government but everything about global challenges that were going to make it tough. The challenge for Labour is they convinced people that every problem was down to the Tories and that removing them would solve everything but things are not as straight forward as that. I senses things changing when they announced the 22bn blackhole and many people said...but 9bn of that are based on decisions you made in relation to public sector pay rises. Labour are finding out, to their cost, that being in opposition is easy. Being in power is not.          
    • Adsl over copper is not obsolete, these are lines that are fed on exchange only and are still being installed now and will be for foreseeable, they are being changed to sotap which is basically no dial tone and will be voice over internet 
    • Russia is the aggressor.they did have a second rate army most of it gone.why is putin so deluded .in that Russia can use chinese  Iranian  north Korean missiles drones to attack unkraine civilians city's energy facilties.they have escalated the war  by using north Korean soldiers in combat.but putting saids you are not allowed to fight back using other country's weapons in Russia long range missiles.unkraine have proved they are no push over.give them all the long range missiles they want to hit in side Russia hard .
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...