Brooke Miller, national champion twice over. Christine Thorburn, 2-time Olympian training for her farewell ride at World's. And many more. It was a great field at the Giro di San Francisco today. It's been too long since I've shot a race, so it was a great course and great field to shake off the rust.
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| Lauren, not at Santa Cruz |
Cat 3 ripping up the pro crit:
Winning a pro race, in a solo break no less. Dang.
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| Photo by Ken Conley |
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yes, I blew the finish shot and tried to hide it with bad creative photoshopping...
Ronde van Brisbeen 2008 Circuit Race Photos
Stage 2 of Ronde van Brisbeen is a 1.7-mile circuit race in the Brisbane Highlands. This year's event was brutal with its smack-you-in-the-face headwind on the climb to the finish. Gusts were strong enough to knock over the hay bales used in the turns.
BMC led an attack on nearly every lap up this climb with Cal Giant covering, which quickly shelled most of the pack. Surprise entry Freddie Rodriguez looked fairly comfortable in the lead group, having just finished off a burrito 15 minutes before race time. BMC sprung a two-man break with Nathan Miller and Brent Bookwalter that quickly gained a minute lead. A Cal Giant rider tried to bridge but the windy conditions were too much. Fast Freddie tried to pull it back, but he eventually found himself accompanied by only two riders: one of them from BMC.
I used this race to practice for the Tour de Georgia. You can probably tell from the gallery what shots I was practicing. I don't like going for the special effects shots too much, but they're fun in small doses.
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| Photo by Ken Conley |
Scene: sitting on a hill overlooking the finish, a bike is laying still in the grass. "Popssssssssssshhhhhhhhhh..." One of its tires gives up -- it bore its rider to the finish, but Copperopolis took its toll.
I went out to Copperopolis this year, billed as the Paris-Roubaix of California. Intead of pave, there are roads that were never properly paved, cattle grates, and water bottles dislodged by the bumpy descent. The course itself features beautiful climbs up canyons, a lake, farm lands, vineyards, and rolling green hills. As a photographer, I couldn't be more thrilled that I wasn't riding, especially after I saw so many riders carrying their broken bikes.
Several winners were disqualified for crossing the yellow line at the finish, making it the most decisive part of the course. The yellow line started in the final 100m to the finish and was a bit like putting a driving test at the end of a brutally difficult day.
The Pro Men's race was a BMC vs. Cal Giant slugfest. BMC brought Taylor Tolleson, Mike Sayers, Jackson Stewart, Jonathan Garcia, and Scott Nydam among others. Cal Giant brought their armada of 14 riders. Tolleson and Sayers were among the four BMC riders and four Cal Giant riders in the lead break of eleven that started the final lap. I left before the actual finish, but I hear that Tolleson won.
Another bikerbert race report, in which the life of a little girl is spared and bikerbert learns that the bodies of other riders are cushions
Continue reading "Bikerbert race report: Burlingame crit, Time to Pay the Piper" »
Pescadero Road Race is a fun race to shoot as (1) it's not an office park crit (2) there be lots of scenic country and (3) there are multiple laps. My assignment for myself this time around was to break in my new equipment: my 580EXII flash, and 16-35mm II haven't justified themselves yet, and my Photoshop CS3 prize was still waiting to be unwrapped.
Former USPS rider Dylan Casey rode the M35+ race and won the final sprint, except he got relegated for crossing the yellow line into oncoming traffic. Crossing the yellow line in front of the judges table wasn't a problem in the Pro 1/2 Men's race: second place Chris Lieto flatted and MTB Pro Barry Wicks was able to coast across the finish line with arms raised in victory.
Sarah Bamberger of Cheerwine took the victory in the Elite 1/2 Women's race.
For your entertainment: my friend Al/bikerbert describes his most recent crit experience. You might enjoy reading if:
Continue reading "bikerbert race report: Crits and Oatmeal" »
Damian Gonzalez has posted his Cat's Hill video on the Delta Velo site. I talked with him at the race about the logistics of shooting from a motorcycle and, frankly, I'm a bit terrified :).
I had to cancel my South Bay Invitational MTB plans but I got plenty of photos at Cat's Hill. It's a fun little course that throws rider repeatedly up a steep climb, so there's plenty of dropped chains and riders running uphill on foot. It also turned out to be an ideal place to practice my zoom panning technique.
Many of us (photographers) got fooled by the Mike Sayers effect. After watching Sayers crank it up Cat's Hill again and again, we all immediately thought the victory was his as he jumped for the sprint. So it is that at least three of us had our cameras trained on him as Safeway rider Dan Martin came up the inside through the shade of the tree in his stealth-black uniform for victory (sorry).
Levi made another appearance at Copperopolis (aka Cali's Paris-Roubaix) this year and took the win. Greg Drake of Alto Velo has a race report. My hopes are up that this means Levi will make another appearance at Sea Otter as he's been a good photo subject for me this year.
Apparently, Levi had attacked on the final climb and popped Kevin Klein and Andy Jaques Maynes with Kevin continuing alone and Andy being absorbed by the chasing group containing his teammate, Jesse Moore... Needless to say, Levi took the win. Kevin Klein was nipped by the chasers from behind right at the finish after being out there all day long.
The Tri-Flow Menlo Park Grand Prix was a bigger event this year with more sponsors, etc... I went to go watch Dan race the 45+ and 35+ events as its much more interesting to take photographs when there are particular riders that you are targeting -- it's easy enough to point your camera at a peloton and get a photo of some rider in focus; it's much harder and more important to pick out a particular rider. Of course, Dan made it easy by driving a breakaway for almost the entire race.
I also used the criterium as a chance to practice shooting sprint finishes as well as 'trick shots'. Pans are easy enough, but I really wanted to start getting the hang of the zoom pan as I'm planning on trying it out on the corkscrew at Sea Otter. I've included my results below.
Zoom pan, aka Dolly Zoom, aka "Hitchcock zoom": I don't know what the right name for this is, but I've been enamored of the technique ever since watching Hitchcock's Spellbound. With a Dolly Zoom, you move the camera backwards as you zoom in to keep your subject the same size while weird things happen with the background DOF. With cycling photography there is no dolly but the rider is coming towards you. All you have to do is zoom out while keeping the oncoming cyclist the same size. If you pull it off, you're subject will look fairly normal but you'll get interesting streaks around. If you go to fast, you'll get weird sorts of distortion, which I guess can be fun once or twice.
I shot these at 1/30th - 1/50th of a second on my 70-200:
Pans: this is a simple technique, not hard to execute. It's the bread-and-butter of cycling photography techniques. I'm snobby enough that I don't like taking these sorts of shots. I took a couple for fun, but most of my time was spent on the zoom pans. I shoot pans at around 1/160-1/200, which keeps it fairly easy.
See also: Menlo Park GP 2006
It only took me six months, but I've finally processed a set of Burlingame Criterium photos (30 photos). This was the first race that I shot with a Canon 30D, so it took some getting used to. The improved focusing of the 30D also allowed me to attempt some new shots, including some cornering close-ups.
I'm also testing out some new processing styles for my photos. I've gone high contrast + warming filter on most of these. I also tried a couple of soft-focus filters for grins, which are meant to hide the fact that many of the highlights are blown out I'll see what style I prefer come Tour of California time.
Crashes:
Soft-focus tests (post-production):
Cornering close-ups:
Al, Jill, and I went to the Menlo Park Grand Prix to get our pre-Tour-de-Georgia fix. It was fun watching a bunch of local cyclists -- some of whom I had recognized from the Alto Velo club meeting I attended -- racing for club and personal glory. I was tempted to hop on my bike and attempt to finish a Cat 5 race, except I didn't bring my bike because I'm terribly afraid of crashing.
I was surprised by the number of crashes for such a flat circuit (1km around an office park). There was at least one crash in all three of the races I watched and if you look closely in the photo above, you'll see a rider going down on the straightaway. One Cat 3 rider I talked to said she had her very first crash, which was caused by someone running into her in a turn. The worst I saw was at the end of the Men's Elite 2 race when an Alto Velo rider went down hard crossing the finish line. Another rider was sent flipping over him and managed to leave his cleat attached to his pedal. Both riders were fine, though the Alto Velo rider had some nice road rash.
We chatted with one of Al's former clients that raced in the Men's 5 35+. This was his ninth event and his wife told him that he could shave his legs when he made some money off of his racing. After all the crashes I saw, that seems like some really good motivation to start winning (or to quit).
The Morgan Hill Grand Prix was two great races -- both the Men's and Women's pros turned in great efforts. In the women's group, Christine Thornburg barely held onto a breakaway to take the race -- she was nearly caught on the final climb, and on the final straightaway the entire pack was breathing down her neck.
In the men's group, it was an example of one rider completely outclassing the rest -- Dave Zabriskie, the winner, races for CSC, an international team, whereas many of the other riders were locals racing for local teams. Despite the complete domination, it was entertaining to watch as he executed his tactics without fail. Zabriskie was racing without support from his team, so he first brokeaway from the pack to get some of the better riders to chase him and form a virtual breakaway team for him. He then attacked that breakaway group to break off some of the Webcor riders (there were 3 in the breakaway), and with one final attack he was able to solo multiple laps to victory.
As usual, I took quite a few photos of the races, though it was a lot easier than usual to filter the photos, as a large percentage of them were out of focus or contained shots of bare road. I thought my fancy new telephoto lens would solve all my difficulties shooting photos at bike races -- I would have beautiful, crisp, close-up shots of bike racers battling for victory. It turns out that you actually need talent to shoot photos of people moving 40 miles/hour, but I'm happy to get the practice. I have a far greater appreciation for Graham Watson now. I uploaded a small set of the photos that you can checkout:
Morgan Hill Grand Prix Photoset
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