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Cyclephotos does New York City - well, kind of
After a frantic last-day-at-work-before-a-long-holiday, I was ready to leave London. My extensive traveling in the last couple of months had taught me how to pack quickly and efficiently, without leaving anything important behind. So I was calm and prepared when I arrived at Heathrow last Thursday, little bit before 7am.
After the humble on-board services of my previous intercontinental flights in my life, I was impressed by the wide variety of films and TV shows British Airways was offering and since I had chosen seat with ample legroom, the actual flight was almost perfect. The landing went well and we were waiting for our cases in no time. Up until this point, everything went well, my only concern was that my throat ached more and more.
Finding the right tube line to central New York wasn't as easy as I thought but, eventually, I was on the right train, en route to Penn Station. Then a funny thing happened: I bumped into two fellow photographers, Jan and Michal from mtbs.cz. They were about head out to do some sightseeing, so we rode the same train for a while and chatted about New York.
Getting to my hotel took me longer than I expected so it was about 3pm when I was able to head into the center of New York to do some proper sight seeing. I took my camera with me and snapped a couple of pictures. Prior to my journey, I'd bumped into a blogpost that advertised an event at Rapha's NYC store, so I built my afternoon around that, making sure that I got there at 6:30pm to see who's the fastest mechanic in NYC.
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The spring in Houffalize...
I have just arrived at Houffalize, I'll head out to the course and try to figure out the best spots for tomorrow. More to come soon.
Best moments in 2009 - part 2
This time, it was me who cycled. We went to Cambridge to see friends and Cath and Ben invited us on a beautiful ride through the early-autumn, British countryside.
Back in the business: Forest of Dean Enduro race. Amazing weather, a couple hundred riders and a beautiful forest.
Treviso, Italy: the venue of the first cyclo-cross World Cup race of the 09/10 season. The weather is surprisingly warm for an early October date, it exceeded 20 degrees.
Zdenek Stybar fixes his helmet before the Treviso cx World Cup. This is one of my favorite photos of the year, I like the concentration and the isolation of Stybar.
Niels Albert was clearly the best rider on that day, no one was able to stop him. Cyclo-cross legend, Sven Nys was still suffering from fatigue after the mountain bike season so he dropped out of the race early. This caused him many problems later the season, as he lacked the points to get a decent position at the start line.
Jan Verstraeten is one of my favourite racers: he makes the funniest faces during racing. You can't take a photo of him where he's not grimacing. The World Cup race in Plzen, where this photo was taken, was properly muddy, as you'd expect from a cyclo-cross race.
Christian Heule before the third round of the UCI cyclocross World Cup in Nommay. This could have been the first occasion that I could have tried out my brand new Radiopoppers with two flashes, however, the batteries thought otherwise on raceday, so only have a couple frames from the previous day.
Koksijde, crazy weather and sand, sand, sand. Tom Meeusen jumpes off of his bike on this photo, I managed to catch a quite interesting moment, however, I'm not too satisfied with the lights.
This was a big day for Stybar, in Koksijde. He was getting closer and closer to win a World Cup race and finally, his perseverance paid out handsomely.
My favourite shot of the year. The right rider, the right lighting and the right moment. Also, Stybar won this race as well.
Remarkable weather in Kalmthout, it was heavily snowing through the day but it didn't seem to bother most of the riders. This photo was taken with a 24-70 lens and its 2.8 aperture allowed me to separate the theme (Gabby Day) from the background.
Last race of the year in Zolder, or at least for me and it was probably the most surprising one. The first couple laps saw a couple unexpected riders in the front of the pack and the winner, Kevin Pauwels was also a surprise. It wasn't my favourite race, it was very hard to get around the course and I didn't have time to do the scouting properly. Will do better next year.
Best moments in 2009 - part 1
2009 was a very long and eventful year: I moved to London, I started to cover bike races on my own initiative and I've met some really amazing people. The next couple photos will sum up what just happened in the last 12 months.
On my second weekend in London, I took the Eurostar to see my second ever cycle-cross World Cup race in Roubaix. The weather was horrible with loads of mud and rain and I barely knew the riders, took me ages to add keywords to photos. It was fun, though, it was an amazing race.
My Christmas present: a trip to Hoogerheide to see the cyclo-cross Worlds. It was bloody cold and the sheer number of fans made it nearly impossible to move around the course but it was great fun indeed. Next day, the biggest snowfall hit London and the UK, halting an entire nation, giving me the so much sought-after snow. Oh, and sorry, the photo: it's Phillipp Walsleben, en route to his U23 World Champion title.
At the time, I didn't know who she was, all I knew that she was British (the jersey helped a lot) and that was enough from me. I later sussed out from the start list that she was Gabriella Day, one of Britain's top cyclo-cross rider.
Still at the CX Worlds, Czech rider, Zdenek Stybar tackled a corner. He was pretty strong, however, on that day, he was no match to Niels Albert's speed. Yet, he seemed pretty happy with his silver medal.
The man of the day, Niels Albert. He rarely smiled and never looked back. He put down the hammer from the start and didn't really give a chance to the rest of the field. At the time, I was unaware that just a year ago, he was competing in the U23 category. Pretty impressive.
I'd heard about the Revolution Series by accident a couple days before the last round. I bought a train ticket to Manchester and witnessed not only some amazing track cycling action for more than 7 hours but the heart-warming good-bye ceremony of the legendary Arnaud Tournant who retired after that race.
The first UK NPS race in the Forrest of Sherwood. I didn't see Robin Hood but I did see an interesting race. And the saddle-less rider.
May started with my first and only MTB World Cup in 2009. I drove to Houffalize. The first even was the 4X and I had to remember myself that it is a very tricky sport to photograph and I hadn't done that for ages so it wasn't easy to bring myself up to speed and snap decent photos. This is one of the better ones.
I had rented an extra Pocket Wizard for this weekend and it was a good idea, indeed. I snapped this photo of Julien Absalon in the second lap and I was very proud of it for a long time as this was my first shot where I used two flashes. In hindsight, I don't like the composition of the photo but it was a necessary step to learn more about working with multiple flashes during races.
Sex sells, as the old adage claims, so I wasn't too surprised to see that this photo was probably the most popular photo I have taken this year at the World Naked Bike Ride in London.
Early August, the hardcourt bike polo European Championships.
End of the first 12 moments, stay tuned for the next 13.
Goodbye 2009 - Hello 2010
Dear readers,Thank you for your attention in 2009, I hope I was able to offer you photos and stories that you found interesting. I will keep working in 2010, there are a couple interesting project lined up already, but more on that later.
I wish you all a very happy and successful New Year, I'm going offline now, I'll be back with the best photos from 2009 next week this time.
Take care,
Balint
Plzen
I'm still not finished with the final Plzen race photos, but in the meantime, here's a couple pictures from the day before. We went out to have a dinner at display restaurant of the renowned Pilsener Urquell beer factory. The picture quality is a bit dodgy, they were taken with my Blackberry.
Alberto Contador at the London Cycle Show
Science in Sport, one of 2009-alberto Contador's sponsors, set up an autograph session on the first day of this year's Cycle Show in London.
Before this year's Tour de France, I wasn't particularly fond of Contador, but the way Armstrong and Bruyneel treated him throughout the 3 weeks was atrocious in my opinion, so he had my support after the first week of the race. I've met some cycling legends, but never a Tour winner so it made sense to buy a ticket and see him in person.
He arrived at 11:30 sharp, as it was advertised. He immediately started to sign autographs, to it was stipulated that no one should ask him to add his/her name.
A young fan and his icon.
A quite substantial crowd gathered to get his autograph and he patiently handed out the signed posters.
A happy and satisfied fan.
According to the organizers, this yellow jersey was one that he actually wore during the Tour.
Around Treviso
The course opened at 2pm so I decided to look around Treviso a bit. It was a great plan, however, I forgot to turn on my alarm clock, hence I got up at 11am and couldn't spend much time around the city.
The fishmonger's market was closed by the time I got there, however they placed this visual clue for those didn't have a clue.
I was surprised to see that you can be a nerd AND wear stylish clothes - just choose the right brand.
This place didn't have a menu in English so I chose my lunch blindly. Half my luck, this turned out to be my choice, it was all right but originally I wanted something erm.... warm and more lunch-like. And for €16, I clearly felt ripped off.
Sheerness
T-Mobile Flashmob from the inside - or how I became a superstar
Therefore, when a friend of mine told me about the yesterday`s flashmob, I got curious and decided to take a look at it. They said that it would last from 6pm till 7pm, I had something else to do from 7pm, so it sounded as a perfect way to kill some time.
I got there a wee bit after 6 and it had already started. This time, the theme wasn`t dancing but singing, it was called "Singalong". The center of Trafalgar Square was cordoned off so they could control the crowd. I wanted to get a bit closer and got lucky as the cordon opened only for a little while but I managed to get in.
I got there a wee bit after 6 and it had already started. This time the theme wasn`t dancing but singing, it was called "Singalong". The center of Trafalgar Square was cordoned off so they could control the crowd. People were having fun and everybody was taking pictures like they were paid to do so.
It was quite impressive as 5000 people sang Hey Jude in the late afternoon sunshine.
10-12 camera crew was wandering around and was filming up close the singing faces who didn`t seem to mind at all, moreover, everybody was cheering and waving, hoping that they might get some time on the screen.
I was taking a couple pictures here, when my nose started to bleed. I couldn`t do much, so I stuffed a piece of tissue into my nose, to block the blood. I worked, but I looked silly like hell. I headed a bit back and spotted this singing family and the cameracrew in front of them. Seconds later, they were singing live on the big screen, so they doubled their effort and sang with even more enthusiasm.
After taking the picture above, I had to check it, so I started to fiddle with my camera. Suddenly, I realized that people near me are cheering and shouting and nudging me. I looked up and I saw this camera, right up in my face. Quite a surprise, believe me. I shot back with my camera, then tried to hide. However, a hostess approached me, saying that I looked sooooo funny and soooo adorable with that tissue in my nose and I definately must sing and let the camera show it. And she also mentioned some money as well. I couldn`t resist, in the back of my mind I saw naked girls, expensive cars and insanely posh hotels and all the paraphernalia of fame. I sang (no idea what the song was) and I was on the big screen for I don`t know how long.
Finally, the camera shifted off me and another hostess approached me with a release form. It was sobering: it wasn`t about endless parties, fast supercars, ridiculously expensive suits and other paraphernalia of fame, just a standard legal text, stating that in case my part makes to the final cut, I`m entitled to get 500 quid. Not that bad, though.
I stayed a bit longer and I realized what it could be like to be a superstar. With that exotic piece of tissue in my nose, lots of people recognized me from the screen, the shy ones were just pointing fingers towards me, the brave ones asked to pose for a picture with them and I did that happily. I might need to get used to it - should my part make it to the final cut. You never know.
