Lots of salvos blasting away at the Tour of Calif TV coverage on the Velonews "mailbag" site.

http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/9538.0.html

Until I read the above, I didn't realize that the 1-hr, 1:00 AM ESPN2 coverage was a straight media buy, courtesy of Amgen. That changes my own critical tune considerably. Cycling gets such poor ratings in the US that no network wanted it, so Amgen stepped up to the plate and produced the show themselves, then bought the time on ESPN to air it.

A very bold move by Amgen, and very supportive of cycling. Without Amgen's largesse, we would have gotten zip on TV.

The race was evidently a huge success, the biggest spectator event in Cali since the Los Angeles Olympics. Perhaps next year a network will step up and carry it. If not, I'm sure the Amgen crew learned a lot about bike racing and will improve.

The best event (not just cycling) that I have worked at in years.

The people from AEG really stepped up and provided things that no other bike race I have worked on since 1996 Tour DuPont did.

Every rider received an engraved Ipod Nano at the team introductions.

Every staff member received a work shirt and a dress shirt for every day.

Hotels were great. Hyatts and Hiltons the whole way.

The weather was fantastic. A magic window of weather between storms.

The TV coverage can and will be improved. Everybody knows that we (PST and Broder) have the graphics capability to make the race look great and the talent look great as well.

Steadicams for the camera bikes, music instead of motorcycle noise, etc. It will all come from a bigger production budget.

You have to produce the live event first and that is what we did. Day in and day out it was the smoothest best executed race in US history. Heck, we all have been practicing for 20 odd years after all.

Fred did a great job for the race and he is right on in his assesment of the organization. I was the chief official and I think it is going to be a long time before i get to work at another race of this quality.
Fred needs just a little help with metric conversions. Of course he is at a disadvantage living in the USA with all the English measurements. I would think that after the revolution they would have gone metric right then.

People who drive on the wrong side of the road shouldn't throw stones.

Who is driving on the wrong side? I drive on the right just like in Hawaii.