Comments on: Goodbye Eurosport, and thanks for all the laughs! http://www.markbenson.org/blog/2008-10-26-goodby-eurosport-and-thanks-for-all-the-laughs.html the blog of Mark Benson, a web developer in the vastness and infinity of cyberspace... Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:59:20 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: mark http://www.markbenson.org/blog/2008-10-26-goodby-eurosport-and-thanks-for-all-the-laughs.html/comment-page-1#comment-111 mark Sun, 26 Oct 2008 19:54:25 +0000 http://www.markbenson.org/blog/?p=42#comment-111 If all goes as with this season in WSBK and BSB on Eurosport then Julian Ryder will very likely end up doing WSBK on the meetings that clash with BSB (when Jack & James can't do it) because he used to do the Eurosport WSBK commentary before Jack Burnicle, and lets face it he knows a thing or two about most forms of bike racing :) As for Toby & Randy they will probably move about elsewhere. I'd love to hear Toby & Julian do WSBK and Jack & James do BSB. That'd make my year. Eurosport's Superbike coverage this year has been second-to-non. I was having a long discussion about the 600cc class today and it basically boils down to the Japanese manufacturers, who wield the majority of power, moving away from producing 2-stroke bikes. Honda held on the longest out of all of them but gave up because 2-stroke racing has no relevance to what they make for the road, and at the end of the day racing is development for future road-going products. You only have to look how much if the Rossi-era YZR-M1 has made it's way into the R1, and similarly from the RCV to the CBR600 and CBR1000. 600cc racing is a logical replacement as it's relevant to the road machines. The people who've kicked up the most stink is Piaggo, who own Aprilia, Gilera and Derbi, all of whom primarily produce-stroke scooters and town bikes. Harold Bartold of KTM was pretty annoyed too, as they produce a lot of 2-stroke bikes for Motocross. They will all retreat to 125cc racing though, which I can't see going anywhere for a good long time, as it;s such a good platform to start youngsters out on. It won't be Supersport with different helmets really, any more than Moto GP is Superbikes with different helmets, because the chassis the bikes will be made on are all prototype designs, which means they won't have all the road-going limitations found in Supersport bikes. The engines will be, apparently, 'production based', but that means it'll have to be loosely based on a production engine but it'll be heavily fettled. That was basically put down as a rule to keep costs down, but knowing Honda and Co, it probably won't. The BBC ain't gonna be the same. I will surely miss curling up at 9am on a Sunday in my t-shirt and shorts with my 'Eurosport Breakfast' of 2 pain au chocolat and a cup of coffee and listening to Toby and Jules waffling about all sorts of interesting gossip and amusing tattle. If all goes as with this season in WSBK and BSB on Eurosport then Julian Ryder will very likely end up doing WSBK on the meetings that clash with BSB (when Jack & James can’t do it) because he used to do the Eurosport WSBK commentary before Jack Burnicle, and lets face it he knows a thing or two about most forms of bike racing :) As for Toby & Randy they will probably move about elsewhere. I’d love to hear Toby & Julian do WSBK and Jack & James do BSB. That’d make my year. Eurosport’s Superbike coverage this year has been second-to-non.

I was having a long discussion about the 600cc class today and it basically boils down to the Japanese manufacturers, who wield the majority of power, moving away from producing 2-stroke bikes. Honda held on the longest out of all of them but gave up because 2-stroke racing has no relevance to what they make for the road, and at the end of the day racing is development for future road-going products. You only have to look how much if the Rossi-era YZR-M1 has made it’s way into the R1, and similarly from the RCV to the CBR600 and CBR1000. 600cc racing is a logical replacement as it’s relevant to the road machines. The people who’ve kicked up the most stink is Piaggo, who own Aprilia, Gilera and Derbi, all of whom primarily produce-stroke scooters and town bikes. Harold Bartold of KTM was pretty annoyed too, as they produce a lot of 2-stroke bikes for Motocross. They will all retreat to 125cc racing though, which I can’t see going anywhere for a good long time, as it;s such a good platform to start youngsters out on.

It won’t be Supersport with different helmets really, any more than Moto GP is Superbikes with different helmets, because the chassis the bikes will be made on are all prototype designs, which means they won’t have all the road-going limitations found in Supersport bikes. The engines will be, apparently, ‘production based’, but that means it’ll have to be loosely based on a production engine but it’ll be heavily fettled. That was basically put down as a rule to keep costs down, but knowing Honda and Co, it probably won’t.

The BBC ain’t gonna be the same. I will surely miss curling up at 9am on a Sunday in my t-shirt and shorts with my ‘Eurosport Breakfast’ of 2 pain au chocolat and a cup of coffee and listening to Toby and Jules waffling about all sorts of interesting gossip and amusing tattle.

]]> By: Matt Shepherd http://www.markbenson.org/blog/2008-10-26-goodby-eurosport-and-thanks-for-all-the-laughs.html/comment-page-1#comment-110 Matt Shepherd Sun, 26 Oct 2008 19:37:07 +0000 http://www.markbenson.org/blog/?p=42#comment-110 I'll second that! Ive been frantically trying to find out any gossip on where Toby & Julian might go from here and if BBC would toy with the idea all us Eurosport fans have wanted, but sadly i can't see it - a least for now. Lets be honest most of us aren't gonna boycott BBC coz we all wanna see the races! But i will start to give up watching if BBC let F1 clash with their coverage, and dont start to show more qualifying and 125/250. Plus once 600's come in i think MotoGP will be very very different indeed, too much like WSB in myhumble opinion, and then i may be back to Eurosport to watch WSB and may be lucky enought to hear the voices of Moody and Ryder again! I’ll second that! Ive been frantically trying to find out any gossip on where Toby & Julian might go from here and if BBC would toy with the idea all us Eurosport fans have wanted, but sadly i can’t see it – a least for now. Lets be honest most of us aren’t gonna boycott BBC coz we all wanna see the races! But i will start to give up watching if BBC let F1 clash with their coverage, and dont start to show more qualifying and 125/250. Plus once 600′s come in i think MotoGP will be very very different indeed, too much like WSB in myhumble opinion, and then i may be back to Eurosport to watch WSB and may be lucky enought to hear the voices of Moody and Ryder again!

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