Watching Bike racing: From VHS to GCN+

When I started to enjoy bike racing, I also followed the professional side of the sport. However, in the late 80’s it was very difficult to get hold of a good copy of the Tour de France.

In fact the only way to watch it was to own a “betamax” or a “VHS” player or borrow one from a friend to be able to watch those grainy films. Those video players were very-rich back then. One time, me and some friends went to the international port, boarded a ship, looking for a used, Japanese VHS player. Still, it was not only expensive, but there were no tapes available of bike racing back then. In rare instances, you could find racing tapes in those rental stores but they were far and few in between.

Then in the early 90’s a company called, “World Cycling Productions” started selling VHS tapes on line with Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin as the hosts. It’s an understatement to say that I enjoyed it! In those days, I already had a VHS player, courtesy of my sister who was working abroad, and I watched it again and again. Cable TV was also a new thing and I would wait for the Spanish feed to broadcast the Tour de France and I would record it.

With new technology, CDs and eventually DVDs took over VHS. This time, the quality was a lot better than VHS. However, it didn’t take long for the internet to render those formats obsolete.

A lot of fans were now uploading their VHS and DVD versions of the race to torrents and it was available for everyone to download. I love the website called, “www.cyclingtorrents.nl”, as it was the most updated site for new races. I would get up at 4AM to download the Tour.

But the torrents didn’t last long either, as fans would now start uploading bike races on YouTube. There was no need to download it, it was like an on demand show except that after a while the copyright police started to go after the legal uploaders.

Then there were illegal sites who would show “live” racing that required a VPN. Really, the evolution of watching bike racing was as exciting as the bike racing itself! For me, I couldn’t understand how the VPN worked so I was just content with watching the next day’s highlights. One website that offered great (illegal) coverage was Tiz-Cycling.

In some areas though, where cable TV was still available, Eurosport was part of the package and bike racing was part of their programs. But in our area, there was  no Eurosport and I had our cable TV subscription cut because no one was watching it anymore. Netflix and YouTube became our main source of TV entertainment.

Then a revolutionary thing happened. A startup YouTube account called GCN, or Global Cycling Network, started to offer live feed off bike races for a minimal fee of just over 2,000.00 Php. It’s an on demand platform where you can watch it “live” or rewind it or simply watch it the following day. You simply go to the Iphone App Store or Play Store for Android users and download the app called GCN+. The show is not just about racing but also cycling docu.

The only downside is that it’s available on your phone only but it’s just a minimal downside. I’d connect my phone to our TV and voila!, it’s like a 1080 video!

These days, technology has spoiled us cycling fans. So what are you waiting for?