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.
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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!!"