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New Years Day ride in the Forest of Dean

Old players

These guys have been around for a loooooooong time. Can you guess who they are? The first is the easiest, the third is the hardest. A little hint: his teammate used to be Lennie Kristensen.

Elite men`s race

There was a bit of pause between the end of the women`s race and the beginning of the men`s race, which passed by with frantic picture downloading and editing.

I left the press centre not long before the race, having the shuttle service in my mind. I had myself transported to certain part of the circuit that was said to be quite tricky. Riding on the quad, I was there in no time. En route, I saw a couple other photographers, walking towards the same spot so I reckoned it might be a good spot after all.
The place looked quite impressive, in front of this descent, I had this view:

The section in question was a steep but fast downhill part with loads of roots on the track. I wondered up and and down a bit to find the best spot and I decided to stay on the lower part so I`d get good background as the racers start to descend. I set up two strobes again, one on a light stand, left to the camera, that would illuminate the riders` face and another right to the camera, a bit behind the riders, to highlight the edges. The two light sources were pointed into the same direction which was above a bigger piece of root, so everything seemed perfect. But things never are. As soon as the cyclist came for the first time and I checked the shots afterwards, it turned out, that I set the focus improperly: a couple feet behind the point, where the lights were focused. The output was more than disappointing.

This was really annoying, but I thought that there`s potential in that spot so I stayed for another lap, concentrating hard to get the focus right. This time everything went well, I was really satisfied the the result.

Moving on, I decided to go the the same downhill spot I was yesterday. I got there just in time to catch them during their first full lap, so I didn`t have time to fiddle much with the strobes, thus I just popped a flash on the camera and shot them. German rider, Manuel Fumic had the funniest shades, hands down.

This spot didn`t offer much, so I switched to the climbing part, that was rather close. A bunch of safe shots followed.

I managed to snap one interesting shot though. It was known, that this would be the Belgian rider, Filip Meirhaeghe`s last race in Houffalize as he`s planning to retire by the end of the season. His home crowd cheered throughout his race, wherever he rode, people were screaming and clapping hands - even his last lap. This picture was taken around his 3rd or 4th lap.

There wasn`t much left from the race, so I went towards the finish area. I missed the lap count (again) so I was rather surprised to see the riders coming by once again. I dropped a flash on the left side of the track, and the sun was nice enough to act as a secondary light source. I really like this picture, the way the two light sources are balanced.

This meant, however that I got to the awards ceremony a tad bit late, thus I didn`t have a chance to get closer to the podium due to the huge crowd.

Elite women`s race

I arrived early to the press center and mounted up (???) for the day. The organizers provided photographers and VIP personnel a shuttle service with quad bikes, which allowed us to get to certain points of the course really fast, it allowed us to spend less time with moving around.

The official press material stated that there`s a very steep climb, right after the start, so I decided to start the women`s race there. Houffalize is less known for its part in the Battle of Bulge, however it had its fair share and there are some old fighting machines, like this German panzer, left here and there as a memento.

I went to the top of the aforementioned climb, where loads of fans were preparing to see their favourite riders to tackle the ascent. The race commenced in a timely fashion and they appeared at the bottom. I first used the 70-200 zoom lens to show the size of the group of the riders: almost 100 ladies entered the race.

As they got closer, I opted for the wider, 24-70 lens, but as I didn`t have any idea, what I wanted to see, no wonder that I couldn`t take a picture with what I was happy.

I was a bit clueless, I didn`t want to go back to the place where I shot the juniors` race yesterday, or at least not just yet, so I walked to a tricky section, near the 4X course, where a daring downhill preceeded a cruel climb. I arrived here by their first lap and didn`t have much time so I set things up on the downhill section. I threw a flash on the right of the camera as a fill light, but it didn`t really look the way I imagined. I got however a bunch of decent shots, that weren`t particularly interesting, but had to have something decent on the racers I had to cover.

The ascent was really close, so I went there, and again, took some really boring, standard pictures, just to be on the safe side.

I wondered back a little on the course, trying to find something interesting. It didn`t take long before I found an interesting corner. I set up two strobes, one from the front, to lighten up the face of the rider a bit and one behind the rider, to give the edges a little accent. The shot didn`t work out however, for various reasons. The rear flash crawled almost always into the frame, therefore I couldn`t use compose the picture the way I wanted. Also, the fill flash in the front just didn`t work the way I wanted.

After a few cyclists, I realized that it didn`t make sense to push it any further, so I made some bland shots and then left the scene a bit later, feeling defeated.

The course wasn`t optimal from a photographer`s point of view, as it was long and the cyclist completed a low number of laps, giving us less chance to take pictures, since we`re not omnipresent, no matter how hard we all try.

The race ended after 3 laps and I hurried back to the press center to download the pictures. There are just days, when you`re not inspired and no matter how hard you try, cannot get interesting shots. All you can do then is to take a step back and go for the safe shots.

Cloudy morning in Houffalize

Junior`s race

The first big thing today was the junior`s World Cup race.

They hit the course at 2:30 pm exactly, the pace was quite impressive. The chilly morning turned into a rather hot afternoon, thus most of the riders requested intense cooling in the feed zone.

Since the official results haven`t been released yet, so I can only give you the pictures.




Kenta Gallagher in his penultimate lap.

Ruby Miller, battling the slope that`s adjacent to the 4X course.

The backstage

I had plenty of time before the juniors` race at 2:30pm, so I looked around the expo area, where the big teams set up their tents and vans.

I spotted as Thomas Frischknecht and Jose Antonio Hermida were exchanging thoughts. Frischi won`t be racing tomorrow, of course, he`s only here as a coach, helping out the guys at Swisspower.

The troubled squad of Felt were having a quiet meal. Recently, more and more unsettling news have surfaced (Martinez gets kicked out for beating up his wife, two other riders sue the team for not getting paid in a timely manner) about Felt, it was good to see, that at least the remaining riders were calm and all right.

Houffalize

I`ve just arrived to Houffalize, after a long, tiring drive. The weather was a bit cloudy upon entering France, but once I left Liege, the sun came out of the clouds and now we`ve got a beautiful weather.
After checking in and getting hold of the accreditation, I`ll check out the course, before the junior race starts.

Off to the UCI World Cup in Houffalize

I`ll go to Houffalize, Belgium to cover the World Cup race. There will be constant updates both here but you could also follow my twitter account.

Midlands XC, Round 1

The weather was really ugly last week, so when Joolze dropped me an email whether I would be interested in covering the first round of the Midlands XC races, I said yes, but I was praying for decent weather.

The weather turned out to be great and so did the race. I took a train to Rugby and arrived there around 10am. Since the race course was quite close to the railway station, by 10.20, I was saying hi to James, the organizers or the race. He was really nice as he provided me with a map of the course, highlighting interesting points for me. I decided to wait for the first start and then head off to the course.

The first interesting point was amongst the woods. I set up the tripod for the flash on the right side of the camera, it leveled with the head of the riders. I wasn`t sure at the beginning which lens should I use, but after a few frames it turned out that the 24-70 lens might not be wide enough, so I attached the 17-40 and it got better indeed.
Canon EOS 5D | EF 17-40 f/4@20mm | f/5 | 1/250 | ISO 400

After taking a few pictures, I moved on, finding another spot, where the cyclists were to go around a big tree. The turn was a bit tricky, as the inside of it was quite muddy, so everybody chose the upper part of the curve. The flash went to the right side of the camera again, but this time it was just a fill light, the key light came from above.
Canon EOS 5D | EF 24-70 f/2.8L@70mm | f/3.5 | 1/250 | ISO 100

This part of the course didn`t offer much more, thus I headed towards the part, where there course went through a motocross track which seemed to be a good spot. On the way there I caught Rosara Joseph, the New Zealander, law student rider on a short ascent. It seemed a pretty good spot as the background should have offered riders going both up and down, but Rosara was so ahead of the pack, that nobody was in the background.
Canon EOS 1D Mk II | EF 70-200 f/2.8L@200mm | f/3.2 | 1/1250 | ISO 100

By the time I got to the motocross section, most of the riders had already finished, so I didn`t have much chance to shoot something decent there, so I headed back to the finish line to see what`s going on there. This veteran racer just finished his race, when his kids rushed to him and looked at him with endless admiration in their eyes.
Canon EOS 5D | EF 17-40 f/4@17mm | f/8 | 1/125 | ISO 100

There was a bit paue after the morning races, but before the little kids started to gather for their race, I spotted this beautiful Klein bike from the early nineties. It showed all the characteristics of those years: the crazy colors, the rigid fork, cantilever brakes, oversized head tube and first generation Grip Shift shifters.
The guy, who owned this bike, had a daughter, who was to participate in the under-10s race. She wasn`t overly excited about the race, however, she got really excited when I asked her to take her picture.
Canon EOS 5D | EF 17-40 f/4@17mm | f/8 | 1/200 | ISO 100

The under-10s race started a little bit after 1:30 and didn`t last long, but this didd`t mean that the young riders didn`t take it  seriously.
Canon EOS 1D Mk II | EF 70-200 f/2.8L@140mm | f/4 | 1/400 | ISO 100

The afternoon races started at 2:30. First the Elite Men rushed off, then the Expert Men and afterwards came the biggest crowd: the Sport Men. I waited for them right after the start, on the first ascent, right after the feeding zone.
Canon EOS 1D Mk II | EF 70-200 f/2.8L@200mm | f/2.8 | 1/1250 | ISO 100

After the start I headed back to the motocross section, hoping that I might be able to catch something that resembles to 4X. I put the flash a bit further up fill-in the face of the riders. These shots are never easy to catch, as they approach with relatively high speed and panning and framing the shot at the same time can be tricky. However, as the leader, Lee Williamson came, I managed to snap this shot, which was exactly what I wanted, so I was quite happy and soon went off to other parts of the course.
Canon EOS 5D | EF 24-70 f/2.8L@27mm | f/9 | 1/250 | ISO 100

I`ve found this spot as I was coming back from the motocross section. I lied down on the ground and apart from from some thorny things, I really liked this vantage point with the shallow depth-of-field and the the dandelions also in the frame.
Canon EOS 1D Mk II | EF 70-200 f/2.8L@170mm | f/4.5 | 1/1600 | ISO 100

I went back to the curvy part of the track in the woods, where I set up the flash a around 20-25 feet in front of me. It wasn`t intentional, but I soon realized, that this was a very good spot as I focused on a point where the riders had to make efforts to get over some roots and it made the pictures a bit more interesting as they were getting through this section.
Canon EOS 1D Mk II | EF 70-200 f/2.8L@145mm | f/2.8 | 1/250 | ISO 100

I didn`t manage to count the laps accurately but I knew that the race should be soon over. But before I headed back to the finish area, I found this little ditch, which promised a few interesting shots. I sat down in the mud (bringing waterproof trouses turned out to be a good idea afterall) and waited for them riders. I took a picture of Lee Williamson, who was still leading the race. I was lucky again, it was my first picture and it came out exactly the way I wanted. Sometimes it`s like that, sometimes I can`t quite reproduce the image I have in my mind, I guess you have to accept when pieces fall into their places - and do so when they just don`t.
Canon EOS 5D | EF 17-40 f/4L@17mm | f/4 | 1/160 | ISO 400

I went back to the finish area just in time to see him arrive. It was rather pity, that as the majority of racers had finished already, it was a bit deserted, having only Elite Men families around. There was a bit of hesitation before the medal presentations, but then they handed them out and we all called it a day.

It was really great day, the track was rather fast than challenging technically, but everybody seemed to enjoy the race and the brilliant weather. Good work James!

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