How To Watch Paris-Roubaix
In order of preference:
- Hang out with William and Alex of Pavé Cycling Classics. You will see the race at three different locations, all the while portaging coolers of Malteni beer and baguette sandwiches. The final location will be Carrefour de L’Arbre where the shit will hit the fan and the final can be watched on a giant screen. Life cannot get better.
- A bar in Northern France hopefully along the route so you will have reason to briefly stand outside and watch the race go by before going back in to drink even more beer. I’ve never done this but it sounds like a lot of fun. I’ve heard bars will provide ample amounts of beer and wine and every bar has a fryer for the frites and an endless supply of mayonnaise. Picking the favorite French rider will be the only problem.
- Live in Europe so you can watch all six hours from the comfort of your eco-home and make a Sunday of it. Your cycling friends can come over in the afternoon for the cobbles and drinking. Making frites at home, probably a bad idea: house fires, second degree burns, smoke alarms and too much distraction from race watching.
- Live in Britain where you can go to some ancient dark pub where you can watch the race on TV and no one will question your need to start lifting pints well before lunch because it’s Sunday and you are in Britain.
- If you live ≥ 6 hours from Europe all bets are off, at least in the USA. It won’t be live. The coverage might just be the last hour or it might be pre-empted by golf, always golf. One can’t open up a computer, phone or talk to another human or even a dog. A dog could sense Tommeke not making the final break and communicate that by puking up dog’s morning feed partly on a rug and partly on the hardwood floor. It’s a minefield, FFS.
- If you live across the dateline, it’s already Monday or Tuesday, the race is over and you are at work. You are on your own, mate.
For unknowable reasons, three hours of Paris-Roubaix TV coverage in Hawaii starts at 9:00 AM on Sunday on NBC-SN channel. This is highly unusual and highly great. I’m unsure how to proceed. It’s too early for Chimay or frites, everyone else is out for the Sunday ride or surfing. It might just be Gianni, dog and espresso machine and that’s not bad, unless there is puking.
A pub in Britain showing Roubaix? Not a thing.
driving 5-speed from 4:00am to arrive before 7:45am at Darby Roubaix in Darby NC
For the US, it will be live start to finish on NBCSports Live Extra app.
@Pete
Really? Even when cricket/football/rugby/steeplechase are not in season? Time to bribe the barkeep. Bastards.
We’ll be deep into Monday morning here in NZ when the race gets to the business end, but we will be there.
Then Monday is spent in a zombie-like state recounting to non-Cyclists how awesome some guys racing bikes on cobbles was and is the reason we’re going home for a nap.
@Gianni
Nope. 95% Football, occasional rugby. Cricket for a change up, but never a sniff of any cycling.
Thank god for eurosport player at work.
For us in the US, let’s pause for a moment and thank those wonderful folks who have been livestreaming the classics on youtewb.
Option 1 for me this year. Except the day begins with a final spin from Lille to Cysoing through to Carrefour de L’arbre before the Malteni charged cobble side mania.
I know. Call me anything you want. I don’t give a fuck. (Its my new mantra)
Oh and its pissing down here in Lille. You should all change your picks. Go for Gaudin. Or Westra.
It will be live, live, live , live here in Southern Australia.
SBS channel are bloody champions at this game.
Strap yourself in, it’s gonna get bumpy
Oh and @Gianni ” It’s too early for Chimay or frites, ” Who says ?
steephill.tv boys and girls. You might have to watch in Dutch, French, Italian or something else, but you should get live coverage. Awesome site and covers most things live (except the Tour – thanks ASO!).
@brett
Live coverage here in NZ begins at 8.35pm and goes through till 3.30am Monday morning – I AM EXCITE
I will find a way to watch here in Nouveau Angleterre, and there’ll be beer by God, regardless of social mores about what time is correct to drink it. (If it’s in a pint in your hand, you drink it. What else are you going to do with it FFS?)
@Ccos
the only problem is that I just finished a growler of Revival brewery’s Belgian ale tonight and will be left with only stouts for the am. Oh well
@wiscot
second that, and while you’re there check out one of the best stage races I’ve seen, brutal course, tight racing, a whole different kind of hard man, #hardasfck none the less.
http://www.steephill.tv/vuelta-al-pais-vasco/
@Harminator
Good lad. You win.
@Ccos
You dodged the puritan genes. Well played.
@Barracuda
@wiscot
On Steephill on Eurosport in English at 3:40 AM CST. Wiscot, wish we could take our pissy WI weather on Sunday and put it in Northern France for the day.
I like your top 3 preferences. If only…
I’ll be following a live ticker on my phone and picking up what ever livestream I can on steephill on ewetube
Obviously we make our own frieten at home. It’s only when trying to make the mayonnaise that it gets distracting.
@pete
It is coming to the business end of the football (soccer) season so most sports-oriented pubs, especially the dark and cosy ones, will do that if they do it at all.
But there is a choice of cycling cafes and venues that will show it – in London anyway.
If you’re not in London well, who cares how you spend your days.
There’s a cycling café in Cambridge that will show it, maybe a pub (The Alma certainly shows the Tour), but yeah, it’s home and Eurosport.
Or a planning error which means going to see Obree at the cinema instead.
@Al__S
What’s the cafe in Cambridge called. Not that I can watch it today. We moving house in a few weeks and there is much to be done.
Have to be on a customer site in Bradford. Ugh.
Today’s episode is brought to you by the letter Leffe.
Keep an eye out for a young Irish neo pro, Ryan Mullen, riding for Cannondale. Competing in his first P-R at 21 years old. Let’s hope he finishes well and gets a good taste for the cobbles. One for the future, we hope! May the V be with you.
@Pete
Yeah, we should be so lucky. Thank heaven for Steephill!
@Barracuda
Yep, the SBS guys are all over it!
https://www.facebook.com/SBSCyclingCentral/videos/10154067935178427/
One man nearly down already, going to be a long night. Tomorrow is cancelled
For next year?
You know shits about to get real when the team cars look a little different for the next race
As @barracuda mentioned, SBS has really come to the party here in Oz. Streamed online from 6pm, live on telly from 8pm…safe to say the kidlets were encouraged to have an early bedtime this evening!
There’s a cobble shaped lump of pate & a bottle of this to come later this evening.
@Teocalli
Those things are stupid fun. Local shop and brewery have a beer and bike Olympics every year, last event is always racing one of those. Time trial on a course through some back roads.
Sagan’s bike handling is second to none. Jump over Fabo’s bike was the first highlight of this race. What a pity the Sagan’s group seems to be too weak to catch Vanmarcke. :(
Let’s see…
Monster effort from Vanmarcke – awesome if he stays away.
Boonen played the Martin card very well but he looks over geared.
A couple of times he’s lost contact coming out of tight corners and seemed to be grinding to pick up speed.
VanMarcke makes a bid! The slow mo of him jumping his moshine through the corner made me choke on my brunch wine. Yes, brunch during Roubaix is a wonderful thing.
Getting tense now, given who I picked for the top step
I did not see that coming. Heyman doesn’t know where he is. Completely shelled. What a finish.
THAT just happened !
What an amazing race!
Close to doing nr3, watching live coverage on Swiss TV at home. Yet, when things started to get dicey, had to leave to airport to fly to CPT. Frantically trying to get live coverage (footage or ticker, ANYTHING) on my way over in the taxi. When I got to the airport, my flight was delayed by 30mins, so I could have watched the final 30mins at home…. So although PR weather was fair, it’s always messy in the end.
In Perth, Western Australia we are particularly blessed – coverage started at 4.15pm, live on Eurosport and SBS and the race was over by the gentlemanly hour of 11pm. Spent the night in Freo in a pub with 200 other like minded souls with it live on two big screens. What a finish and what a roar at the end – f’ing awesome!
I went the NBC-SN route here in the States. After a pre-race ride including a stretch of rutted dirt road for good measure. Huge congrats to Hayman, what a ride.
@Pete
If you have access to NBC Sports Live Extra on Roku, Amazon Fire, etc., they will have their entire race coverage up as a replay for probably the rest of this week.
http://www.nbcsports.com/live-extra
@chuckp
I watched live in the morning before having to go out to lead a group ride (in 30F weather!) I DVR’ed the NBCSN condensed coverage (basically the last 2+ hours of the race) and watched that last night after The Masters.
Still buzzing from yesterday but I’m a world away now…Hayman in 2014 – Go to 13.30 for goosebumps.
@chuckp
AFTER the masters? Sweet baby Jesus, where are your priorities man?
Short of actually riding it, this gives you as good an idea of it as you’ll get.
https://youtu.be/lzpx_qY_ZqI
Or there’s there’s the V-TV version
https://youtu.be/2YsC1v-jL1M
@DVMR
I was going to watch RBX after the fact no matter what, either DVR or replay stream. So watching The Masters live was a no brainer. Sorry, but golf is one of my passions too. Especially with a daughter who has a way better swing than me (my overall game is better than hers, but it’s just a matter of time … not long … before she just passes me by).
@Owen
The one upside about watching pirated cycling feeds…when you take your computer to the pal who knows how to fix them…you aren’t lying when you tell him, “I swear…I wasn’t looking at lewd photos. It was steephill.tv, I swear! Sporza!!”