Cycling

Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) Yes, it’s another delayed Cyclocosm Rantcast—but I’m not sorry, because last weekend I was temporarily relocated to the redwoods and hoppy, delicious ales of Sonoma County to ride bikes with fun and interesting people, and watch a little event you might have heard of called the Tour of California. It seems an odd juxtaposition, really, because the topic of this rant is Beinsport’s coverage of the Giro d’Italia. Or rather, it was supposed to be. But I can’t in good conscience complain about something more or less sight-unseen. While I did manage—at long last—to catch a bit of actual BeIn TV coverage, it was during stage 14’s fog obscured nightmare. But I’ve heard, actually, and from several sources, that BeIn’s broadcast commentary is quite good. Certainly, if the effort Carlton Kirby made to pump excitement into 40 minutes of staring at an empty road lined by bored, cold Italians is any indication, it couldn’t be that bad. But as the old saying goes, if Dan Lloyd delivers understated quips in his butter-toned British accent and no one’s around to hear them, does it count as good coverage? So today’s rant will be less about coverage in its proper sense, and more about the contracting decisions that get made delivering the content to the people. Let’s start with something everyone can see—at least, in the US. Maybe the mish-mash of rights and geo-restrictions will be prevent a worldwide audience from seeing these, but head on over to beinsport.tv and see what you can see. I’ll be fair here—credit is definitely due for giving cycling and the Giro much more exposure around the site than it used to have. A few months ago, the only cycling story on up was about [Lance] Armstrong getting blocked from racing a tri—now they’ve got an article and a video highlight for every each stage—if you look under the “video” header, that is—and clips even make their way onto the front page occasionally. That said, it’d sure be nice if cycling could have a link under “other sports” or if doing doing a search for cycling brought up more than just 11 articles in some random order. And let’s take a closer look at these race reports—here’s Stage 17, which is currently two sentences long. And the video seems to suffer from the Phil Liggett effect—not that Dan Lloyd does a bad job with it, more that he seems to just kinda be talking over some footage they threw at him. So let’s check out Stage 16…hmm “Intxausti timed a late sprint and fought off the challenges…in a dramatic late finish” good so far…”Intxausti was part of a 22-man breakaway group in the early stages” (huh?) “later managed to gain a five-second advantage” None of that is right. “Nibali…setting a fierce pace at the front of the peloton as he attempted to bridge” No, that’s not really… “ it was not until they entered the final 25 kilometres that the 22 separated.” But you just said that breakaway happened in the early stages? Or did you mean separated from each other? Well, maybe the video will make more sense…nope. Actually, it, uh looks like this one’s just a music video. With some bikes rolling along. And no one talking about the race. Oh, and some guy wins. Nice. Very explanatory. Thanks for that recap. Similar nonsense, weird wording— my favorite was “Uran edged Carlos Betancur by 20 seconds” in Stage 10— and straight-up factual errors pepper most of the BeIn recaps. It’s tempting to blame the network for this mess, but you know, in the grand scheme of things, BeIN is really only a mouldering rusty pipe through which feces flows. You see, nearly all these reports and videos ar

We will publish full results as they become available. 1. Tony MARTIN, Omega Pharma-Quick Step, in 17:42 2. Tom DUMOULIN, Argos-Shimano, at :40 3. Artem OVECHKIN, RusVelo, at :43 4. Alexander SEROV, RusVelo, at :46 5. Ben HERMANS, RadioShack-Leopard, at :46 6. Kristof VANDEWALLE, Omega Pharma-Quick Step, at :53 7. Damien GAUDIN, Europcar, at :56 8. Tom BOONEN, Omega Pharma-Quick Step, at 1:00 9. William CLARKE, Argos-Shimano, at 1:00 10. Niki TERPSTRA, Omega Pharma-Quick Step, at 1:01

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Editor’s Note: This video is courtesy of Global Cycling Network. The opinions expressed in this video do not necessarily represent the opinions of VeloNews.com, Velo magazine or the editors and staff of Competitor Group, Inc.

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Scotland's transport policy has done agonisingly little to encourage cycling, so hopefully our pedal protest will be heardJust over a year ago I was sitting in a remote corner of Scotland watching with a mixture of admiration and envy as cyclists in London took to the streets in a series of flash rides over cycle safety, culminating in the "Big Ride" on parliament just before the mayoral election. It seemed as if cycle campaigning was finally taking off south of the border and cyclists' voices were being heard, while here in Scotland the cycling and walking budget was actually declining despite the government's target of 10% of journeys being undertaken on a bike by 2020.So when David Brennan, a helmet-camera cyclist in Glasgow better known as Magnatom, tweeted that we should hold a Scottish Big Ride of our own, I jumped at the chance, along with a handful of others, and Pedal on Parliament was born.None of us had ever organised a demonstration of this scale in our lives, half of us had never even met each other until the day before the first demo, and we were astounded when somehow – through a mixture of determination, tweeting, mass flyering, blogging and countless emails – we managed to assemble 3,000 cyclists on the Meadows in Edinburgh to lobby Scotland's politicians for more investment and better conditions for cyclists of all kinds.We were delighted to be joined not only by the "lycra brigade" but by hundreds of families, with several kids even completing the ride on balance bikes. The day was both moving and joyful, a carnival of cycling and a serious attempt to show the politicians that investing in cycling wasn't just something for existing cyclists, but for everyone.Fast forward a few months, and essentially nothing had changed – for all the warm words from our politicians about how we were "pushing on an open door". While the walking and cycling budget had at least stopped declining, it was nowhere near the level that was needed to see real growth in cycling across Scotland.We were invited to meet the minister for transport, Keith Brown, but although he listened, it didn't translate into any real action. He recently told the BBC that modernising Scotland's transport meant building more motorways, and they've managed to find the money for a programme of road building while cycling has to wait to see if it gets a few crumbs out of "Barnett consequentials" (windfall money from the Westminster budget).While Westminster's all party cycling group's recent Get Britain Cycling report laid out a realistic roadmap of how mass cycling could be achieved, Scotland is stuck with the Cycling Action Plan for Scotland, a document that is neither a plan nor provides much in the way of any action. Though Scotland's health, pollution and carbon emission reduction policies rely on achieving a growth in bike use, it doesn't seem to have any real idea of how to achieve it, other than yet another campaign urging road users to be nice to each other. Once again, Scotland was getting left behind.With no leadership coming from the top, we knew we were going to have to supply the political will ourselves. Following the lead of the Dutch and the Danish who took to the streets repeatedly in the 1970s to get their cycle paths, we started planning the next mass demonstration. This time our message was explicit: "we are everyone".Fuelled by anger over the recent Gary McCourt case (where a motorist was given a community sentence for causing McCourt's death), and buoyed by a promise of attendance from Graeme Obree and support from Sir Chris Hoy, suddenly we had real momentum behind us. Despite monsoon downpours the day before, and the haar (fog) descending on Edinburgh on the morning of the ride, an estimated 4,000 cyclists joined us in the Meadows last Sunday.Once more the mood was a mixture of sombre – a 21-year-old man was killed on his bike near Inverness just a few days earlier – and joyful. Once more there was a real cross section of people the

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