Couple months back, I was really delighted, when I finally got hold of a rather pricey adapter from The Flash Centre, that allowed me to connect my Canon EX 580 flash with a Pocket Wizard transmitter since the earlier EX 580 flashes lack the standard pc-sync socket. It meant that I could trigger both my EX 580 II and the older EX 580 strobes with my Pocket Wizards from then on – theoretically. It soon turned out, that for some reason, the EX580`a power output cannot be adjusted as smoothly as my EX 580II`s output. I`m not sure whether it applies only to my unit or it`s a wider problem but I needed a solution.

So I started to look for a cheap flash unit that allows me full manual control. Being familiar with the renowned Lighting 101 manual by David Hobby, I came to the conclusion that snatching a Nikon SB 24 from Ebay would provide me with what I need. Though it only works in Nikon hotshoes, and only in manual mode (no TTL, not even on Nikon bodies), that I would not mind as I`m planning to use it only off the camera.

It soon turned out, however, that this won`t be an easy task as the supply of such speedlights is rather scarce and whenever one surfaces, it is sold at quite high prices (£60+).

I turned to ebay.de which offers a bit more reasonable prices (EUR50+) but the days when one could snatch such a flash for peanuts is way behind us.

Reading this post on Bikeradar.com made me remember an encounter last year in Beijing, during the Olympics.

On the second day of the track events, in the beautiful but remote Laoshan Velodrom, I was sitting in the second or the third row in the middle section. An American family sat right next to me and we exchanged some niceties after a few hours.

It soon turned out that they all belonged to Taylor Phinney – mum, dad, the whole lot. They shared with me that he`s a big promise in cycling even though he`s only 18. Though he finished 7th in the men’s individual pursuit qualifiers, but his folks insisted to keep an eye on him as there will be big things to come. Later Phinney himself joined them so I shook hands with him and carried on watching the event.

And now he`s a World Champion, congratulations! I guess this is just the beginning.

It was an unexpectedly long day yesterday.
It started at 5am, when I got up and after quick shower, I headed to North London to pick up two other guys who were to accompany me on the long and boring drive to Plymouth. The dawn was beautiful and the scents signalled that spring is here for sure.
It took bit more than 5 hours door to door, but the traffic was light, so it was as painless as it gets. Upon arrival to Plymouth, I dropped the two lads in the city center as they weren`t too keen on the see in person the Soggy Bottom race.
It was a bit tricky to find the race center, but finally I managed to get there. The pee, fuel and breakfast stops during the drive resulted that I missed the morning races and I didn`t have to wait much upon arrival for the second race. Riders from different age groups and leves were competing at the race that started 12:30.

The venue itself is a shooting range where they shoot at those artifical clay thingies. This resulted in huge amounts of broken clay refuse all around, in annoyingly wild colours.
Right after the start, there was a quite hefty climb so it seemed to be a good point to start.

After the big climb, I followed the course onwards which led to me a not too technical, but rather fast downhill section.


I had left my [Gorillapod](http://www.joby.com/products/gorillapod/findmygpod/?make=Canon&model=EOS+30D) in the car, so I had to ask for some help to hold the remote flash for me.

Most of the riders reached quite impressive speeds, the mostly dry track didn`t cause much trouble.


There was a quite tricky park by the end of the course: the riders had to pedal through a shallow but cold creek – which they duly did with much joy. I remember, back in the days, when I was riding , I always dreaded such crossings, though I used to be in dread of lot of things, not just crossing water.


The final lap found the riders quite exhausted, but I reckon, the beautiful weather was at least a bit of a consolation.


The next generation is already in the pipeline.

Even though I felt absoluteley beaten when I got home around midnight, but still, it was a great day: I`ve spent some time with friends, the weather was magnificent, I`ve met [Joolze](http://www.joolzedymond.com/joolzeD/Home.html) and I`ve seen my first ever British mountain bike race.

Dear Reader!

I`m glad that you`ve found this newly started blog. Let me introduce myself briefly.

My name is Balint Hamvas, I moved to London this January. I started to work at the London branch of the company I have been working for the past 7 years at home, in Hungary. On weekdays, I create digital media plans and digital strategies for our clients, but the weekends are strictly for cycling and for photography.

I used to do mountain biking for a long time, however, after a crash, I had to stop for a long time and never returned to full speed. Yet my love for photography brought me back to cycling in the past three years.

The whole affair started years ago, back in 1995, when the first UCI MTB World Cup was held in Hungary. I saw and photographed three more World Cup races (two in Hungary, one in
Kaprun) with my old Zenit camera before it died.

For years, I hadn`t done much photography, but in 2005, when I bought my first DSLR camera, I was keen on going back photographing cycling. Thus, in the past 3.5 years, I spent countless weekends at Hungarian National races, trying to learn as much as possible. I was fortunate enough to be able to go even to a few Wold Cup races as well, in the
past 2 years: the Worlds in `07, Maribor in `07, Andorra in `08, Schladming in `08. I also went to cover a number of cyclocross in the last six months: Tabor in `08, Roubaix in`09 and the Worlds in `09.

I was fortunate enough to be at the Olympics, I managed to snatch some pictures at the
track cycling races and the amazing experience took me to Manchester a couple weeks ago to see the last race of the Revolution Series.

8 months ago I started a blog on cycling and photography – you can
find it at http://mtbfoto.blog.hu The emphasis is on cycling, but I also share my pictures made for other projects and every now and then, I write about photography as well.

Now, that I moved to the UK, I wanted to start my English language blog. The covered topics would be the same, though being in the UK means that I`ll try to visit as many races here as possible share my impression and pictures.

The first race will be the Soggy Bottom race, near Plymouth, tomorrow, so either see you there tomorrow, or check back later for pictures and hopefully for some stories as well.