I’ve already wrote a post about cameras and bicycle racing.  But it was an article about how the UCI DQ’d a cyclocross rider that streamed a race live from his bike.  I still don’t know the rule that the guy broke, but there must be one.

And then along come Velon.  Velon is a group of World Tour teams that have tried to gain some clout against all the evil forces of the sport, ie. the UCI, and ASO.  Velon has been trying to figure out a way to leverage some television dollars for the teams.  Velon’s mission statement, as of now –

“Velon wants to create a new economic for the sport and bring fans closer to the riders, races, and teams – by working together and in partnership with others.”

So they did this in a round-about way.  They signed a partnership with Infront, an international multi media sports marketing company, that has very deep pockets.  Infront dwarfs the UCI and ASO, owner of the Tour de France.

And now Velon has signed a two year deal with GoPro, to stream onboard media footage from the riders bikes.  Velon seems to have claimed the “ownership” of the onboard media just because they feel they can.  I find that interesting.

I’m wondering how just last year that the UCI disqualifies an individual rider for streaming media from a UCI cyclocross event and then all these World Tour Teams, sign their own camera deal and agree to stream media from their bikes.  It seems to me that the UCI thought they owned the rights to this media.  If not the UCI then the races themselves, the ASO.

I wondering when ASO sells the TV rights to the Tour or Tour of California, or other events the ASO owns, do they now feel they have to deal with Velon to buy the onboard camera footage?

What about teams that are racing the events and don’t belong to Velon.  Velon is just 11 teams. Can those guys have their own cameras and then sell the footage to whoever?  It seems to me that it is a sticky situation.  Maybe not?  Maybe they have all figure it all out.  I haven’t seen it in print if that is the case.

Anyway, I like the onboard footage.  I think that watching bicycle racing live is a thousand times more exciting that viewing it on a screen.  Onboard footage seems more realistic than other views.  It is going to be interesting seeing how this all plays out.

I guess none of the Shimano sponsored Velon teams has a deal with Shimano to use their cameras. Everyone is now going to be using GoPro.

Tucker points just about anything that flies. I bet he’d like his own onboard camera. I’d like to see that footage.

Yesterday I rode 135.5 miles.  I’m not really sure why.  I didn’t start out to do that.  I was planning on doing a long ride, but not nearly 7 hours.

I think it is good to do pretty long rides every once in a while.  For a couple reasons.  One, to reset your biological clock.  For some reason, every time I ride all day, I feel pretty good the next day.  I have no idea why that is.  The 2nd reason is it is nice knowing, mentally, that you have it in you to do longer mileage.

I got a question on Strava about what my longest day has been.  It would have to be in a race, quite a while ago.  I’ve done a lot of 160 miles races, plus riding there and back, so the mileage is pretty big.  But, the time is shorter.  a 160 mile race a 26 mph, is only 6 hours.  So, 7 hours is long.

Yesterday I kind of did two rides.  I rode 82 mile, then came back to meet up with the group ride.  The problem was the group ride was just Catherine and Bill.  Bill decided to go ride on his own, so I ended up just pulling Catherine around for over 50 miles.  It was windy, so I’m sure she got a workout.  I had a 20.2 mph average after 6 hours, but it dropped to 19.7 by the end, after running Tucker some.

I’m not normally a big mileage guy.  But I seem to be doing more recently.  I think I’m just enjoying riding my bike more now.

I changed the differential fluid in the diesel van.   I hate the smell of the gear oil in that.  The synthetic additive more.   It is lucky that it doesn’t have to be done that often. I also changed the regular oil.  I only use synthetic.  It takes 15 quarts.  With the filter, it is over $100 worth of oil. Dang.

I have to take Trudi back to the airport today.   She is flying to Northern California to pack the van and then head south to San Diego for the start of the Tour of California.  That time flew.  She is sort of on the right time now, but California is two hours earlier, so she’ll be off, since she is getting up at 5 to 6 am now.

Okay, there are no races around here this weekend.  I’ll have to look at a schedule and try to figure out what I’m doing the next month.

I flatted twice in the first couple hours and had to go to Sunflower Bike Shop in Lawrence to restock.

I moved two turtles yesterday out of the road. This box turtle, then a green turtle later.

The gears in the differential were pretty black, but the gear oil was super clear. I’m not why that was.

Tucker is a big boy now. He still loves to point butterflies though.