goin's on's

Although cable television seems to be "the norm" at most folks house, we have no such thing here at Mighty Mobile world headquarters. Gotta say, life's been pretty damn good without it. I hope that when I die, there's no time table chart showing all the time I've wasted sitting through commercials during my life while watching programming that probably wasn't that interesting to begin with. I'm also happy to report that I'm much more happy NOT watching the news on a daily basis. Good grief. How depressing. Oil spills, corrupt business, failing government, skyrocketing unemployment rates.... how much bad news does a person need. How much bad news can a person handle!!

TV was also a fairly big letdown when it came to watching anything cycling related. Sure, you can watch the Tour Dey France five times per day while it's going on, but coverage for anything else is a crap shoot. Cycling can and will get cut short for ANYTHING else that the might be on the agenda for the networks. I can tell you from years of watching (or trying to watch) motocross coverage on tv that you just can't get worked up when shit like that happens. The program listing says there's motocross on from 4:00 to 5:00 and there will be guys airing 85ft gap jumps, banging bars while fighting for position, and otherwise going WFO for a half and hour plus two laps. But in reality, you might be watching live coverage from a nascar race that is running late... during a rain delay, with cars sitting under tarps as the cameras pan between people under umbrellas and shots of raindrops landing on the racing surface. That's ALMOST as much fun as watching paint dry. Friggin' ridiculous.

So, I turned to the interweb to satisfy my cycling needs. I've found some interesting things while surfing around. I found this site that gives a nice quick recap of various races throughout the world of cycling. It's my "go-to" when I'm short on time (this seems to be most of the time, even without wasting my time watching commercials on regular tv) either in the morning before heading out in the big white van to fix bikes or in the evening while kicking back with a fine beverage to end my day.

If I've got time in the morning, I'll go straight to live coverage of whatever might be happening at the moment. Lately, it's been the Giro. This race is epic. It ranks up there with the Tour Dey France, but doesn't seem to acquire the attention that the Frenchy race gets. In any event, go here if you've got time to kill and want to try and catch some live racing. This site is a little hit or miss. I've mostly had good luck finding coverage with English announcers, but have had days of watching the race while listening to two guys spewing some Italian language... which I guess is quite fitting since the race IS in Europe.