To use one of his own phrases, Wiggins is a massive wanker. Nothing wrong with him; he just couldn't handle being number two at the tour and so either he or brailsford came up with the knee thing.

Very interesting http://www.inthegc.com/2013/05/wiggins-and-tour-injury-or-conspiracy.html

I may be in the minority here, but looking fwd to Contador's performance sans PED.  I'd like to see just how hard he can attack up those mountains again and if he can TT.  Can't imagine that he'll be a genuine contender considering Sky's dominance, but hoping he'll at least make it interesting to watch.

'Sans PED'?

haters

TdF drinking game?  I'll start it off...

My heart goes for Tejay for the win in the tdf with Cadel Evans who's going to help him along the way.

Oh, drinking game...you want to get really drunk?

• Every time Phil or Paul says this exact phrase: "Sorry for that little bit of picture break-up..."
• Every time Phil or Paul engage their fully operational hyperbolic drive and claims dudes are going 40 mph or greater on the flats.
  

hah i agree, lets play!

So...does the team ever cram into some Tour friendly establishment to watch together?  It might be a nice change of pace from just me screaming at the television while my wife and cat roll their eyes.

building on bond sometimes has it on if you ask them. I have yet to find a place in the city for the weekends.

Hmm, I must investigate.  Too bad Piermont is so far away.  They have nice couches and coffee and munchies.

Marc Bertucco said:

Oh, drinking game...you want to get really drunk?

• Every time Phil or Paul says this exact phrase: "Sorry for that little bit of picture break-up..."
• Every time Phil or Paul engage their fully operational hyperbolic drive and claims dudes are going 40 mph or greater on the flats.
  

spot on, Marc

Building on Bond will be showing it; so will Sheep Station.  The owner of Bierkraft (Richard Scholtz) claims to have been a serious cyclist in the "old days" so we should ask him if he'd up for it...

Those are all good options. Does Bierkraft have a TV? I don't remember ever seeing one.

Is it reasonable for me to show up 4 hours late for work every day in July with a couple of pints in me?

tito said:

...and is it just me, or have Phil and Paul dropped a lot of their go-to catchphrases recently?  I can't remember the last time I heard Phil mention a rider going into his "suitcase of courage" or talking about a rider "dancing on the pedals" when attacking up a climb.

Marc has made it too easy to get drunk.  I thin Tito is correct to go with specifics. 

Criterium du Dauphine Libere stage 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqv3a_NfSmU&feature=share

How many stages before they mention that France is still waiting for a winner as the last one was BH in 1985 ? Or that the narrowest margin of victory was 8 secs in 1989 ? Or the Great Miguel Indurain who won 5 in a row ?

The only impressive thing they do is two different live broadcasts simultaneously. When one of them drops off the mic from his US commentary he picks up something specific for the UK feed (rambling about Wiggo, etc), leaving the other to prattle on about TJVG or someone, then they come back together for some universally recognised inanity.

after watching the giro on bein sports, i am kinda sad that they won't be showing the tour as well.  i came to enjoy daniel lloyd and carlton kirby's commentary. 

for example, during one of the stages they engaged in a well-informed, insightful, 15-minute discussion about powermeters and their use in the pro peloton (although to be fair it was mostly daniel lloyd talking).

we won't get that with phil, paul and NBC.

carlton Kirby will probably be back as part of the Eurosport team for the tour. He does the background bits about riders, competitions, the team truck set-up. That kind of guff.

David Harmon should be back partnering with Sean Kelly.

Re: Contador - in the last few stages of Dauphine, he just didn't have the same pop from a few years ago.  His TT was underwhelming too.  He's not going to be a factor.

BTW, NBC Sports, screw you and your unreliable scheduling.  Tivo always records like 30min - 2hrs worth of ice hockey before the cycling stuff.  *!@#$%^&*()_+_)(*&^%$@!

David Yang  I just changed my Tivo settings to add 30 mins to the scheduled broadcast for all of my cycling recordings. The last several stages of the Dauphine there were about 3-5k left in the race when my recording ended. Very frustrating. Also, I don't remember what channels it impacts but TWC is implementing switched digital video in the next week or two. You'll need a tuning adapter in order to continue to receive those channels on your Tivo. I just got my boxes over the weekend.

@Craig - Yes, for all live sports broadcasts I schedule Tivo to record at least 30mins additional.  For the Tour, I take no chances and add an extra 1.5hrs.  Just have to delete daily so that "Real Housewives" or whatever my wife has scheduled has space to record on.

Unsure about the digital vid thing?  I have Optimum (Sunset Park, which is funny because there's a big TWC hub a few blocks north of me next to Greenwood Cemetery) and haven't received any notices about that stuff.  I just use the cable card they provide me which I think is all digital anyway.  Do you have an older Tivo box or one of the newer Premier ones?

I've got a Tivo HD. It's a few years old now and I probably won't upgrade for a few more. The switch digital video thing only applies if your cable company goes that route. I'm sure Cablevision will do it soon enough, it saves bandwidth since the less used channels aren't always on. The signal will only be sent to your home if you turn on that channel and a signal is sent back to the headend requesting that channel. Hence the need for a box that can send the signal back, the cable cards don't send anything back to the headend of the cable company.

well that was a shitty first stage!!

HOLY CRAP, Aly, you were watching yeah?  What a complete clusterfuck.

yea dude...a real mess, good thing no one was badly hurt but the whole story of the bus at the finish was pretty damn funny!