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.
