Place to Watch Tour Des France

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17 replies [Last post]
Anonymous's picture
Anonymous

I am looking for a place to watch the tour. I saw some posts mentioning places in Brooklyn and the Upper West side, but these are inconvenient. Anyone know of a place in Midtown called Lutece? Sounds French to me. Anyone ever been there? I wonder if they get OLN on their bar TV? How is the food, especially the bar menu? I don't expect to find the best wings there but I imagine the fries would at least be good? Maybe we could get a big crowd to go there and cheer for Lance! A group of us went out last Sunday to watch the Daytona 500 and it was lots of fun. You should have seen the place erupt when Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won!

Anonymous's picture
Evan Marks (not verified)
troll

nm

Anonymous's picture
Chris (not verified)
Yes!!!!!

Yes, I agree, Lutece would be perfect. It must have been something watching the Daytona 500 there. I hear the place is really thriving these days.

Anonymous's picture
JP (not verified)
Prendarde en toi!

Be very careful. I once watched a stage of the TdF at Lutece and almost got hit in the head with a bottle of Vueve Cliquot for not routing for the French teams. It gets really rowdy – if not dangerous. Besides, you may need a second mortgage to pay the bill. Mayonnaise is very expensive on freedom frites.

Anonymous's picture
Matthias (not verified)
Is there an alternative to OLN?

Hello,

Does anybody know of a place that has live coverage of the Tour on any channel other than OLN (without the super annoying commercials)? I don't care if it's Italian, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Columbian, Chinese.... Whatever. Everything is better than OLN.
Thanks for any info.
Matthias

Anonymous's picture
<a href="http://www.OhReallyOreilly.com">Peter O'Reilly</a> (not verified)
OLN & TdF

I'm almost certain OLN gets its video feed from Eurosport
and naturally supplies it's own commenting staff. Perhaps the same is true of other (re)broadcasters from other continents and maybe OLN has exclusive coverage in North America.

Before OLN, I did watch streaming video of the tour via the internet. Not really streaming, but more like picture snapshots updated every 10, 15,... seconds at a time with text commentary. A bit crude, yes - but it is live coverage.

The problem with them is that in the past, once word catches on, their sites get overhwelmed with page-hit-requests and it gets painfully slow to watch. Eurosport online is one example.

Last year I had good success with a German website.
I couldn't follow the text commentary (naturally), but they did have alot of bandwidth. The name escapes me - and I've lost the bookmark. Hopefully German is enough of a clue for you. If you figure it out - please tell me! Danke!

Anonymous's picture
Matthias (not verified)
What about Satellite?

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the info.
Yes, I guess German would do for me...
Is there no way to get original European television
via satellite for example?
Matthias

If I figure it out: Kein Problem, I will let you know.

Anonymous's picture
Tony Mantione (not verified)
European TV

"My mom watches RAI TV direct from Italy on satellite. They might cover some cycling events especially the ""Giro""
I will be looking for it and I suppose I should visit mom more often ....Ciao ........Tony"

Anonymous's picture
Basil (not verified)
Let's not knock OLN!!!!

Seems to me OLN's coverage has been better than any US coverage in as long as I can remember.
However, I did watch the Eurosport coverage in Ireland for a stage or two a couple of years ago - a very proper British commentator (whose name escapes me) and Sean Kelly. They covered almost the entire stage live if I remember correctly with a highlight show later and the combination was great - Sean Kelly accurately predicting many times what was going on with some of the riders in his very direct style. It was reminiscent of another great commentary combination in Formula 1 (motor) racing in the 70's - Murray Walker and James Hunt......not that that will mean anything to anyone on this board!

But, I'd say don't knock OLN - the coverage was very informative, suitably entertaining and I even grew to enjoy listening to Kirsten(?) who, despite (presumably) a lack of knowledge going in, asked all the right questions and added a little female (as opposd to all-male) glamor to the show!

Anonymous's picture
Anthony Poole (not verified)
OLN feed is from French TV

OLN, along with Eurosport and every other TV channel in the world, gets its picture feed from whatever French channel has the rights for the Tour de France, in the same way that TV pictures all over the world of Wimbledon Tennis are provided by the BBC, with each channel doing its own commentary.

In Britain and Ireland, the TdF commentary is provided by David Duffield (the name that Basil couldn't remember) who, personally, I think is an old windbag and usually manages to miss an important attack because he is wittering on about something completely unrelated to the race.

The expert commentary from Sean Kelly is the only saving grace. Last time I was in England watching the TdF was in 2001, and they also had studio analysis by Chris Boardman, who was excellent.

It is nice that Eurosport doesn't have commercials during the stages, but I don't think their coverage is a touch on OLN. Cycling friends in England, although they have Eurosport, prefer to wait for the highlights in the evening on ITV1 or ITV2, which also has the same commentary that OLN has, ie Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwen, although they don't have Bob Roll. Instead, they have Gary Imlach, who often provides a great insight in what is going on behind the scenes. And some of his colour pieces are excellent. I'll never forget his Channel 4 interview with 'The Devil' about eight years ago.

I disagree that the Eurosport commentary duo of David Duffield and Sean Kelly are reminiscent of the Murray Walker/James Hunt duo of Formula 1 racing; they were truly unique, the like of which we'll not see or hear again.

If you could can get the two in sync, I would say watch Eurosport on satellite, if you can get it, with OLN's commentary on the internet and just turn the volume down during the commercials.

Anonymous's picture
seth (not verified)
Live internet video feed

I had streaming video of the tour at work on my computer. It was a Danish TV station broadcasting it over the internet. So the commentary was in Danish, but who really cares. And now I'm kicking myself for not tatooing the web address on the inside of my eye lids because I cannot remember it now.

I will post it if an when I find it again.

Anonymous's picture
Bill (not verified)
Danish Feed WebSite

The Danish site was http://tour.tv2.dk/live/show.php
For last year's tour, it may change for this years- It will open in WindowsMedia Player.
I found this site from the lance website below:

http://www.lancearmstrong.com/lance/online2.nsf/htmltdf03/links

Anonymous's picture
Nathan (not verified)
Maybe a bit out of the way.....

The coolest place I can think of to watch the tour is a place in Long Island called Don Juans. They have eurosport and I'm sure any other channel you can think of. something like 20 big screens that can all show different channels. Typical bar food with pool tables, huge arcade, batting cages, and indoor driving range.

Sure it's far but I figure I would mention it since I always had fun there :D

Anonymous's picture
Chris (not verified)
Lutece

Great alternatives guys, but I still like the idea of watching it at Lutece best. It just has a certain je ne sais qua about it...

Anonymous's picture
Darrell (not verified)
Lutece

Sorry, but Lutece closed its doors on Valentine's day.

Anonymous's picture
Michael (not verified)
Blondies it is then

Maybe this year they'll even let us sit in the front room and have all the TV's. It was great but a bit packed last year.

And spicy wings and beers are much better cycling refreshments than coq au vin and a Bordeaux

Anonymous's picture
Tony Mantione (not verified)
Cycling on TV

"Hello evryone.I was toying W/ the idea of hosting a few more ""get toghethers"" @ my house this year. Along the lines of those offered during the X-mas lights ride and the New Year's Day Ride to Coney Island ( Peter, did you ever make it home ok that night ???? haha ) .perhaps a few ""Giro"" stages ,and a few TDF !! I will have to check my vacation schedule and of course talk to the ""boss"" ( wife)since she is the one , who provides all the food .I have room to confortably accomodate oppx.12-15 cyclist, a large TV ( OLN only sorry ) in a finished basement.Secure bike parking and good food/spirits. I will be posting messages as the time draws near....Keep an eye out for the posts. Ciao a tutti...Tony"

Anonymous's picture
Chris T (not verified)
Mont de Mantione

Well, we could break into Lutuce, and pirate a hookup, or be at Tony's. Clearly, Brooklyn wins.

If we combine a ride with a finish at T.M's, we would have a mountain top finish -- it would be a 'Hors category climb, as scaling Mont de Mantione (referring to the mound of food that Mary Anne provides) will surley drop riders left and right. Power output will clearly diminish as the crowd feeds the riders shots of Uzo as they climb.

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