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news
Tour de Celebs: Louie Spence, Angellica Bell, Austin Healey, Amy Williams, Jodie Kidd, Hugo Taylor, Lucy Mecklenburgh, and Darren GoughTour de Celeb: Eight go mad on bicycles and fall off a lot — but is it all fun and games, or just too contrived for words?
Get together eight minor celebrities and train them to ride the 2016 Etape du Tour, in just two months. On the one hand Channel 5's Tour de Celeb sounds like yet another deeply contrived reality TV show, but on the other it's a show dedicated to cycling, on prime time TV, and it's not about pro racing. It shows just how far cycling has come from the days when the only time you saw anyone riding bike on TV was the Tour de France highlights or Kevin Keegan crashing on Superstars.
Last night's first instalment of Tour De Celeb featured Louie Spence throwing a massive strop when he went off track in a sportive; Lucy Mecklenburgh putting a big hole in her knee after falling while riding in traffic; Angelica Bell getting understandably freaked out by her first time on clipless pedals and Austin Healey confessing to being a sad bike nerd. None of us know what that's like at all. Ahem.
It's all quite good fun, played for reality TV drama, of course, and introduced with the predictable Dramatic Voice Over About The Huge Challenge The Celbrities Face. There was a disproportionate amount of death and danger though. Simon Warren hit the nail on the head:
OK, so #TourdeCeleb is like other reality shows but contestants leave each week when they die?
— Simon Warren (@100Climbs) November 28, 2016
Still, if you can remember what being a beginner cyclist was like, you have to feel sorry for the way the inexperienced riders were thrown in the deep end for a bit of drama. You'd think the world of reality TV would have learned something from 'The Jump'.
The obligatory team-building nonsense took out another of our celebs as Jodie Kidd, who seemed to be genuinely looking forward to getting to grips with riding bike, injured herself falling into shallow water. That segment was lightened by Louie Spence rolling around in the mud, but I could have done without watching Kidd hobble painfully off into the sidelines.
For the most part Tour De Celeb managed to make riding bike look like something you might actually do for fun, and the celebs who had some sort of sporty background seemed to be enjoying themselves tremendously. Let's hope over the next few weeks the less experienced riders get a chance to pick up some skills.
If you missed the first episode you can watch it at my5.com.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
Latest Comments
- rogerwb 1 hour 53 sec ago
Generalisations are valid in this case; there are enough boomers with negative attitudes to young people to be able to block good things like this....
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This risks turning me into a hanger and flogger....
- wtjs 9 hours 59 min ago
In SE London, psychopath riders are the majority of people on bicycles Oh dear! another festive stealth anti-cyclist ☃️
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Well, you know the BMW drivers' saying: knock that house (hospital, social housing, care home, hospital...) down, could save 30 seconds on the trip!
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Could Siobhán paint it red and noone would notice it?
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To paraphrase Field of Dreams, "Build it right and they will come: and use it!"
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And a Happy Christmas to you, road.cc staff!
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47 comments
I enjoyed it, very 'hammy' and I bemoan the fact they've found beginners and mixed them with Austin Healy and Darren Gough both of whom do a bit already... Would have liked to have seen Jodie Kidd push herself, she cmoes across as someone who would have tried hard. I thought Louie Spence was great TV last night, I hope he makes it to the end, he can't carry on that persona all the time can he..?
That is Louie Spence. He doesn't have the skill to run two personae. Unless he dies, he will carry on with that persona.
I must confess that I actually really enjoyed it! OK so the whole 'cycling is dangerous' thing was overplayed far too much and I agree with the other comments here about not looking after poor angelica bell, although it still makes me smile when I think back to when i first started with cleats and proper pedals and couldn't for the life of me come to a halt without making a total hash of it!
Obviously the producers could have done more to help them, but that wouldn't make decent TV would it?? well, except for us cycling nerds! I reckon it'll be fun watching them develop...although, I was disappointed with Austin Healey only managing the 60 mile sportive in 4 hours...thought he would be around 3.5
i enjoyed it and I am also enjoying complaining about it
Healey stayed with the others until towards the end of the sportive, presumably explaining the slow time.
Was actually thinking of watching this but the idea of Louie Spence winds me up at the best of times - in lycra? Yesus.
I thought it was OK. Jodie Kidd getting injured was the outcome of some totally pointless 'team-building' - three of them didn't take part and one got broken - well done whoever thought that one up.
They did seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time on turbo trainers - More time on a bike at a similar level of effort would have been would have better spent - as far as I can see, all it told them was that the one who looked fit and athletic had got a chance, the rest are way off. The ones who looked least athletic and comfortable on a bike, are mostly in tears. The rest are in between (if not being broken on some poorly-conceived obstacle course).
Cleats went as well as could be expected for those who struggled just to move off.
I think anyone watching this who might have been thinking about their CTW schemes or just taking up cycling won't have been encouraged from what I saw. The message that came across from the newbies was that cycling is difficult, painful, frustrating and dangerous.
I much preferred The Coach on Bike a few weeks ago.
Bit of an own-goal really - I hope it balances this out in the coming weeks.
PS: saw Austin Healey in that Cafe Ventoux, so he must be a proper cyclist. Or something
TV show contriving stuff to boost ratings, eh?
Whodathunkit?
Wait, channel 5 still exists?
Think you need to move on from the last decade. Channel 5 has matured quite a bit, and amongst other half decent content actually has some interesting documentaries (Lives in the Wild isn't bad for example).
This could just have easily have been a show on ITV.
dp
The production crew and 'coaches' deliberately set them up for crashes and pain. When Angel Ball turned up to ride a 60-mile sportive on Keo pedals WEARING TRAINERS she should have been fitted with flats. That was out-and-out liable negligence, and if she'd crashed due to a foot slipping it would have been 100% the producer's fault.
Double-sided multi-release SPD's should have been fitted to every bike apart from the guy who actually cycles. Grrr
I suspect the fact the show was sponsered by Garmin and they are all riding Garmin Vector pedals may have had a part to play in the reason she didn't get a set of flat pedals.
Kudos to Angellica riding 60 miles in normal trainers on top of keo style pedals. My feet would have been killing me.
This, that was one of the bigger issues. Ignoring the arguments for and against extra fatigue from flats and trainers, trying to cycle 60 miles with trainers on clipless pedals is frankly Herculean. Kudos to her. It would be interesting to see what conversation the trainers had with her before and why there weren't some flats knocking around.
I recognised Jodie Kidd, and I think I've seen Louise Spence before (but am not sure what he does). Did the definition of "celebrity" change recently?
I only know of J.Kidd & Austin Healy.
No idea who any of the others are but, might fancy watching on catchup for the cycling and scenery if nothing else.
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