spare cycles

I'm dumbfounded a bit to see my photos of the Look 586 Mondrian circulate on the Web. I originally took the photos as a last-minute favor for a post on roadbikereview. How could I turn down a chance to play with a limited edition (1 of 50) bike way out of my budget?

Now the photos are on the worldwide Look Web site as well as on VeloNews. I've always wanted to get my photos in a VeloNews article, but now I really wish I got every beam of lighting perfect. Such is the nature of hindsight and experience. Next time, next time.

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As seen outside my hotel room in Statesboro, Georgia.

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My Look 585 is built, with all credit to Francois/Francis and Thien of MTBR/RoadBikeReview, who soldiered through a long Friday night to make sure I looked pretty on Sunday's group ride. I've posted a photo below that makes it look like I actually did a lot of the wrenching, but, truth be told, I probably spent more time cleaning up my spilled beer. Thanks also goes to Sports Basement, which is rescued us from having to abort when we discovered that the threads on the bottom bracket needed to be chased.

My contributions: I attached the rear brake, right shifter, put ceramic bearings in the wheels, ran and cut some cabling, and did half of the bar tape. A pretty sorry total given the amount of effort that goes into a bike. I got to learn a lot from watching Francis handle a lot of the difficult wrenching, and Thien showed me the proper bike nerd details that one is supposed to pay attention to, such as cutting the rear brake housing so that the Dura Ace logo shows and lining up the tire logo with the valve stem. With ownership of an awesome bike comes great responsibility.

Build list:

• Frame: Look 585 Origin
• Group: Dura Ace shifters and derailleurs, Ultegra SL crank/brakes/cassette
• Seatpost: something heavy scavenged from my old bike
• Seat: Specialized Gel Toupe, also scavenged from my other bike
• Wheels: Neuvation M28 Aero2 with Enduro ceramic bearings
• Cockpit: Ritchey Pro stem and handlebar
• Tires: Michelin Pro Race 3

This build is not 'final': based on the Ritchey booth at Sea Otter, I'm now eyeing their new Wet White finish for the WCS 4-Axis steam and WCS Logic II road bars. It currently has a Ritchey Pro cockpit and I scavenged a seatpost and saddle are from my old bike. The seatpost is especially heavy and is one of the reasons that the build topped out at 17.15 lbs instead of the planned 16.5 lbs. The frame also came in 0.33 lbs over, possibly due to the white paint. It should be in the 16 lbs range when I'm finally done.

All the parts on this build were selected by doing research in the RoadBikeReview forums and the wrenching was done by Francois and Thien, so I can truly say, "This bike build powered by the good folks of:"

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James of Bicycle Design sent me the above photo of me chalking Brasstown Bald. I got to meet a lot of great people in Georgia, including James, and as always is the case with these larger events, I had a lot of talented people to learn from. There are many thanks to give out, and I know I'll miss a few, but here goes:

• Paul and Mario, for the company, food, beer, tips, and 300mm loaner -- many, many thanks
• Casey and Jono, for endless useful advice
• Mitch, for looking out for me
• Katrina, for twice putting up with me handing her a camera and getting me the photos I wanted
• Mark, who saved me on Stage 7 with batteries for my flash
• Lyne, who helped me with my pre-race preparation enough to get me confident enough to go solo
• Thien, for being crazy enough to host my midnight ramblings on RoadBikeReview
• James, Fritz and Steve, for the traffic love

I'm still planning out the next big race to go to. The USA Cycling Pro Championships is a high likelihood; the Tour of Missouri looks very unlikely this year, mainly due to the timing of it all.

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Today's journal will be short and sweet as I've got to get ready to get home and can't wait until the galleries are up to write a post. You can look for more photos to appear in my stage 7 gallery later in the day.

The Tour de Georgia was a blast -- especially the team time trial and Brasstown Bald. I never would have thought after the Tour of California to see an American Tour so heavily dominated by High Road. Pretty much all that was missing for them was a stage win by George Hincapie, which nearly happened in Dahlonega. Hincapie was an absolute workhorse today; he seemed to be at the front of the peloton every time they passed me by.

Today's stage was a hard circuit. I rode moto for the first two laps and got to see the break develop, first with Rhys Pollock almost immediately jumping off the front, to the riders that bridged up. That was pretty much the entire race, up until the peloton finally decided to reel the break in. In between, I got to see a lot of riders off the back, and a lot of teams sending riders back to help bridge back, including Rock Racing and BMC. The peloton looked a lot smaller by day's end. The road was rough enough to throw my feet off the foot pegs on the motorcycle, so I can only imagine what it feels like on a bike.

It's pretty difficult to shoot from a moto on an urban circuit as you're constantly turning and accelerating and bumping around -- another photographer used a 300mm lens to get enough distance as the tighter roads force you to stay further away. I made the mistake of stopping to shoot the peloton roll by; we never got back in front. I ended up shooting most of the stage on foot.

Greg Henderson took the stage and managed to produce an interesting victory salute, especially when paired with JJ Haedo's tongue wag. The podium ceremony was a High Road affair, even if Astana got to have their own champagne party on stage. Levi Leipheimer really is eager to grab the champagne bottles and soak everyone in sight, even if he always seems to end up bleary eyed. Thankfully they didn't give out as many champagne bottles as they did at the Tour of California -- except for a little morning rain, my gear stayed dry.

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Photo by Ken Conley

Tour de Georgia Stage 7 Photo Gallery (in progress)

The final stage in Atlanta was a rugged urban stage with plenty of potholes to send riders off the back in search of new wheels. The field let a break of 12 get away, including Tom Danielson and Rhys Pollock, but High Road, with Big George Hincapie at the front, kept the lead manageable throughout the ten laps. Rock Racing, despite having already lost a couple of riders on the course, worked to bring back the break going into the final laps, but the day was meant to be all High Road: Greg Henderson beat out JJ Haedo on the uphill sprint as High Road successfully defended its overall and sprint jersey. Jason McCartney's KOM jersey was already sewn up for CSC yesterday, and the sprint finish meant that Trent Lowe's lead in the young rider competition was never threatened. Astana had to settle for the Best Team award, which is a great accomplishment, but probably much less than they had hoped for. The Overall Most Aggressive Rider went to Rory Sutherland, the big Health Net rider who showed off climbing legs as well as a daring attack on Stage 3.

Tour de Georgia Stage 7 Photo Gallery (in progress)

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Brasstown Bald is the most fun stage of the Tour de Georgia... for the fans. The intimidating climbs lead to joking amongst the sprinters, like Ivan Dominguez's "Push Me Up the Hill Please" sign that he taped on his bike, then JJ Haedo's chest. His teammate Ivan Stevic noted that he taped it on the wrong side: Haedo was going to get pushed downhill. Dominguez loved the attention: "Everyone loves my sign.... They think I'm joking... I won't be on the podium today but I will be in everyone's photos." He was even handed a "tow" rope, which was strung between him and Stevic (it was noted that attaching two sprinters together is the wrong idea). Stevic pulled his own prank by attacking Dominguez with 100m to go -- for 99th place.

Also entertaining was my favorite ham, Justin England. England paper-boy-ed across the upper slopes of Brasstown Bald but still found the energy to raise his hand to get the fans to cheer. He gave me a good tongue stick out before heading to the finish.

Getting to the top of Brasstown Bald is difficult, even for the media. Very few cars are allowed up the climb, but thankfully the race organizers do their best to make sure everyone can find a ride. Even with a ride, there's still the steep 1K section to the top that you have to walk by foot. Fans are kind enough to cheer you on -- or make fun of you. Either way, you're spurred on. One fan was having passersby chalk their state onto the road so that the geographic origin of the fans would be properly cheered. I scribbled an ecstatic "SF!" after noting that their California chalking only gave shoutouts to LA, San Diego, and the mysterious RPD.

There's nothing like the Brasstown climb in the Tour of California (and certainly not the Tour of Missouri). Obviously it's harder; It's also more fan friendly. The parking lot at 1K to go serves as a festival central with a large-screen TV setup and makeshift seating in the traffic circle. A shuttle ferries fans to the top, so there's kids instead of the wall of team-kit bikers that you see at the top of ToC climbs. I ran into Rebecca and Amy of chechurubiera.info -- they were responsible for the Asturias flag flying proudly in front of the TV screen. I also ran into James of Bicycle Design again, this time with kids in tow (one of the nice things about having a shuttle).

My spot for shooting the race was easy to choose once fellow photographer Paul handed me a 300mm f/2.8. If you're wondering why my photos look different than usual, it's because I got to use this mighty lens. The way it can make spit pop is just incredible and it was letting me sight action that was occurring over 100m down the climb. I've never had a reel of photos that I had to do so little processing to. If someone feels like sending me $4k, I'll be sure to add one to my arsenal.

The news of Siutsou/Sivtsov's overall coup came as a big surprise. I had stayed down the climb to shoot the sprinters coming up (because I'm cruel) and then went up to the finish line, so I didn't even know if Lowe or Leipheimer had taken second. When I heard multiple discussions of, "how do you even pronounce his name?" in relation to the yellow jersey, I knew that it was not young Trent Lowe being discussed.

Brasstown Bald Gallery

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