Ways to watch

Since so many people seem to be unaware there there are more resources out there for cycling coverage in the United States then Versus and Universal, I thought I would share some of the channels through which I feed the monkey.

Internet Stream

First off there are live internet streams, which work well for all of us out on the West Coast. The reason is that, because of the time difference, most of the European races are approaching their 20-30K to go when I am just getting out of a bed and pouring the first cup of french press. I usually don't wake-up early just to watch the races, as some would believe, but it is just convenient that I am a natural born early riser.

The best place to find feeds are from one of two sites www.steephill.tv or www.cyclingfans.com. Both sites are equally good in my mind and both generally have the same info, but for whatever reason, I end-up at Steephill. Many times you will have to try a few of the feed links before you find the best feed.

For some of the more obscure races, there will only be foriegn language feeds, like the ones in Flemish which my girl friend call the farting language, but I think sounds like somone is playing a record backwards. You can always get creative by watching the video feed while reading Cyclingnew's twitter updates too.

Torrents

For those of you who are not such early risers or can't stand Flemish, I implore you to check out http://cyclingtorrents.nl/. This site is by far one of my favorite cycling resources in the world. They have a database featuring nearly every race you have ever wanted to watch. (Start stockpiling now for your trainer time during the winter months.) And many races are posted on the site mere hours after they are finished airing. Did I mention they occasionally have HD videos?

Torrenting has something of a seedy reputation, mainly because of sites which torrent software, music, and movies. Reputation aside, it is a pretty awesome way to share large amounts of information quickly - whether it is legal to share said information is another story . Cyclingtorrents.nl is pretty legit though. They only offer race coverage. Not cycling documentaries or hollywood movies. Though the video coverage may be copyrighted somewhere, it really serves as a way for people who love to watch cycling to have access to do so.

To use cyclingtorrents.nl, you have to set up an account which tracks download v. upload statistics. (The more you upload, the faster you can download.) After you have an account, select the browse tap and explore all the torrents there are available. You can search by race names, type of race (mtb, road, x-cross, etc), and language. (NOTE: for those of you in cyclocross mode already, tons and tons of cyclocross footage that you will never be able to find anywhere else in the states.) To download a race, you will need some torrent client. If you are just getting started with torrenting, check out Miro. Miro makes getting and watching the races as easy and clicking the torrent link (e.g., tob2010_stage3.avi.torrent for Tour of Britain 2010, Stage 3) and waiting for the download.

When the download is complete, you can play the file straight from Miro.

Once you get the hang of Miro, you might want to consider torrent programs like Transmission. Many are highly customizable, which helps if you trying to improve your upload stats so you can download faster.

If you have any other ways of getting race coverage (other than Universal and Versus) please pass them along. And if you have any questions on how to go about any of this, send them my way and I'll try to help.