The Inner Ring | Cycling Podcast Reviews Part III

cyclingnews.com
I’m in two minds about this podcast. Jeff Jones knows his cycle racing but the podcast doesn’t quite work yet. A chunk of the broadcast is spent going over past results and for the close followers of the sport this is redundant because we already know who’s won.

If it’s going to be a weekly retrospective, it would be more interesting if they interpreted the results a bit more or even better if they analysed the racing. Maybe I already know Tom Boonen’s won but I want to know who was dropped, who crashed, who attacked and whether Tommeke had help from his team mates or won by brute Flemish force.

The chemistry of Jones and fellow podcaster Daniel Benson isn’t right. I’ve almost grown up with cyclingnews.com since the internet started, from the days it was called Bill’s Cycling page. So it feels like blasphemy to criticise these guys but Benson’s got a teenage sense of humour and doesn’t bring enough weight to the analysis, even if I suspect he knows his stuff. For example a recent mention of Pozzato’s new blog on their website saw them discuss tattoos. It was hilarious for them to think about what ink they’d consider but they could have talked about other riders with tattoos, whether it’s Farrar’s Buddhist stuff or Julien Loubet’s barbed-wire job. Instead we got a water-cooler conversation that seemed relevant only to the two sat in the stuido. Also as written journalists rather than broadcast journalists both guys have a tendency to hesitate and search for the right words which makes for slow audio. There’s room to improve here.

Like I say I feel a bit mean criticising them so here’s a suggestion: if they are going to send many reporters to many races then a few audio interviews and insights would be fun. Whether it’s analysing tactics or just a Haiku-quote from peloton weirdo David Zabriskie, this should be within their grasp.

Tour Specials
The one difference was last year’s Tour de France podcasts. With the knowledgeable Daniel Friebe and the brilliant Richard Moore joining Dan Benson, this was great listening. I even sensed rising tension between Benson and Friebe as the Tour wore on which gave an edge. Technical professionalism went out of the window, it sounded like it was recorded using tin cans and string at times but that didn’t matter, it was fun. This proves content and conversation are the winners to me, I want insight and amusement.

It’s here: http://video.cyclingnews.com/podcasts/

EDIT: it’s late April and they seemed to have improved things, see the link below to Part X for some updated views.