Escape collective and CX?

Does escape cover pro CX? With road and mtb winding down and CX starting, sure would be cool if the calendar had a CX section and info on where to stream like you all did for road racing.

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IIRC Spin Cycle has usually covered the tv times and the winners (and shenanigans, if any) for the past seasons.

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Not really from my memory. I think as said above they’ll recap results on spin cycle. Maybe some full weekend written recaps once we’re deeper into the season. I wouldn’t expect a recap of today’s Exact Cross. Caley is often a little dismissive of CX on the pod which sometimes irks me but realistically I know how niche this sport is.

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As far as TV times, yes Jonny puts those in the Spin Cycle newsletter. Now that they have that orange “news highlights” on the site, my guess is they’ll put weekend results there.

But they need to hire somebody to cover it. They actually do the worst thing possible on the podcast…have people who don’t know the sport (Caley, Jonny, etc.) cover it largely for people who don’t care about it (most of the audience). It only serves to make the 10% who like CX frustrated, and teaches everyone else to like it even less. Last year they showed some mercy, and largely stopped covering it on the podcast.

Kit knows the sport pretty well, but it doesn’t seem like she’s given the leeway to actually cover it, unfortunately. What they really need to do is hire Jose Been to do 10 minutes per week on the podcast. She knows the sport well (does play-by-play on the races), and is sorely missed since they ditched her at the TdF this year.

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Yeah not to concerned about results, mostly interested in where to watch in the US if not using FLO. Can i VPN somewhere to get coverage in english on the youtube?

It would be nice to have a calendar of events and where to watch, just like what was done for road racing.

So Exact is on HBO Max

Super prestige is on HBO too?

Troffee is on HBO too?

World Cup are on ?

World Champs on ?

Anyone have any details?

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VPN to Sporza will take care of a lot of things (I think Superprestige is the main one they don’t carry).

Ah I’m in Canada so I just use FLO. Tiz usually has many CX races throughout the year if you have no other option.

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Need a Cosmo, Dane, and Kit CX podcast.

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If anyone is looking for a good CX podcast, I can’t recommend “Dirty Talk” with Magalie Rochette and Lucinda Brand enough. They’re great! Only downside is that they record only in the CX season. I wish they did it all year.

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In the US, the UCI races are on FLO (World Cup and World Champs).

All the other CX races can be found on HBO Max.

You may be able to VPN into other nations for World Cup coverage if you don’t want to deal with FLO. There is (was?) also a YouTube channel that carried the stream but without commentary.

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Good call on Cosmo! (Not sure Dane knows much or cares much about CX :man_shrugging:)

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Cyclocross Radio does a great job of giving a US perspective on the US and European CX seasons:

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I primarily get my news from Crosshairs as listed above. For a European perspective there’s also Cyclocross Social who writes and podcasts in English.

Maghalie Rochette’s Substack and podcast are also great insights into the pro scene.

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Caley Fretz is like Greg Daniels of the US Office and Parks and Recreation fame. He created two shows that are feel-good, great characters, lots of character development, heartwarming stuff. But both shows have a character that are horribly bullied, ridiculed, to an extent that I find it disturbing. Caley and the team put together an amazing product (Escape Collective) but because of their personal dislike of cross, it’s always ridiculed, belittled and largely ignored.

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We’ve had this chat a few times in the members discord - and there’s a lot of discussion of the CX season there.

I don’t think they belittle or dislike cross - though none save Cosmo are very experienced with it but that’s separate from EC (maybe Caley commented once about him doing some races a while back). Spin Cycle is news based. They also don’t feature much gravel race chat, or much MTB whether XC or DH or other - unless it transcends the discipline. Caley’s explicitly recommended Pink Bike.

As journo’s they cover all sorts of stuff independent of their likes and personal riding interests though. And Johnny and Kit have been increasing their CX discussion in the Euro winter. Pretty sure I recall, too, that they don’t want to overspeak about something they have less experience with.

I’m passionate about Cross, but I don’t think there’s any disservice done. Give ‘em time. I reckon Johnny and Kit will have an eye on the world cups, at least, this winter.

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Are you going to pay for that hire? EC is based on CT which was based on road cycling and I loved it for that! Yes I ride pretty much everything but I liked CT for what it was, a website that prioritised road cycling. I am a member of other sites for other things. I am not interested in CX, I am not even interested in EC coverage of MTB (even though I am a Mountain Biker at heart). I want them to cover the niche that is road cycling. Just look at the comments of everything not related to road and you’ll see who the target audience is. And it’s that target audience that EC should appeal to. Because if they don’t, they’ll be gone!

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What I like about ESC is the readers can skip the articles that don’t interest them. That way if an article brings joy to someone else, it won’t take away from the reader who has no interest. Simple and effective!

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Yes of course in a perfect world EC would have 30 well paid journos who cover all aspects of cycling but that’s simply not the case. So why not focus your energy on the topics that matter the most for the target audience and do it right rather than covering everything a little bit.

That’s all true but we are also always keen to improve and grow in areas that interest our members. We don’t have intentions to stay static as a business and do want to evolve into other spaces.

@David - if you haven’t already, please take the time to complete the member survey we sent out last week (dm me if you need a link) and share your opinions there. This is a key feedback mechanism for our members so we can plan ahead accordingly.

(actually I’d encourage everyone to complete the survey).

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Must have missed this Jase - thanks for the reminder!

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