I decided to stay home this weekend. Due to the intense boredom that resulted, I decided to work on a little project I had in the back of my head for a while. May I introduce to you…

I took my 55-200mm zoom lens with me to the oval last night. I think its harder to get nice clean shots with the zoom lens, but when the shots are in focus they can be quite good. Actually I tend to like the zoom lens not so much for racing action shots, maybe because they’re harder to get in focus, but for in-the-moment shots with spectators.  I think this is because with the zoom you can quickly capture something far away without actually having to move yourself, allowing you to cover a large area.  I uploaded a Flickr set, here are a few:

In addition, I did a little post processing using my favorite free software, Paint.NET and put together a couple really cool photos.  There is an effect called “Soften Portrait” which I used in all three with slightly different settings.  For the middle one I used a lot of “Softening” which made it look more like an impressionist painting.  I used no softening in the 3rd picture, but just finished it off with black and white, I think it looks pretty good.  See for yourself…

Still can’t ride bikes, so I’m still working on my hardcore competitive bike race photography skillz. To that end, I hitched a ride down to West Virginia to check out the Big Bear 2×12 relay race on Saturday. Quite a few Pittsburghers were there, as well as a lot of the WV folk that we often see at local races. We’re all one big Western Pennsylginia family.

This was my first time taking photos at a mountain bike race, so I was in experimentation mode. Thanks to my friend Mike, I had a couple of extra lenses to try out. In my backpack, I carried around my Nikon DX5000 camera and 3 lenses: 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 VR, 70-200mm f/2.8 VR and 50mm f/1.4.

I quickly learned that mountain bike races are very different from road races in two ways: 1) There is not really a pack, most of the racers are riding on their own. The whole field is spread out over miles and miles of course at a time. This is especially true in the case of an endurance race such as this one. 2) Most of the race is out in the woods in very confined spaces unlike road races which are out on wide open roads. The biggest trick is that the trees cast a lot of shade meaning it’s either pretty dark or there are patches of bright and dark.

I started with the high powered 70-200mm that I would normally use a lot in a road race. I used it for the start where all the racers were sprinting up a road before they dived into the woods. This was really the only time I saw more than two or three riders together.

I also carried the big lens on my first trip into the woods. I hiked backwards on the trail for a mile or two until I ran into the racers. This happened near a switchback so I tried to get them coming up the lower side and then again as they came by me on the high side.

This is when I started to realize how cramped I was with the zoom lens. So I switched to my trusty 18-55mm lens. This lens is pretty basic and is the one that comes with the camera usually. But really, I use it for a lot of situations because it has a wide range while still allowing me to get up close in the action. I used it for a lot of general shots such as these:

The only problem is it is a little slow with only a f/3.5 minimum, so it was a little tricky whenever it got cloudy and dark in the woods, like for example the 3rd pic above. For this reason, I experimented taking some side shots with the flash. Using the flash, I got a lot of detail on the rider but some pretty sharp contrast with the background, though I kinda think it looks cool. One downside was that I could only get one shot off because it would have to recharge the flash. Here are some flash shots:

Then there’s the 50mm f/1.4. This thing can suck up a lot more light. So much so that I could get very nice rider detail in the woods without the flash. The downside was the fixed 50mm zoom meant I had to get at just the right spot which was several yards off the trail. Here are some of my favorite 50mm photos in the woods:

Nikon makes a 35mm f/1.8 lens that I think would actually be a more comfortable zoom for these situations. When using my 18-55mm lens I often find that I take most pictures around 35mm anyways.

Another thing to note is that I spent most of the day shooting in shutter speed priority mode usually set somewhere between 1/100 to 1/200. I like this mode for the side shots because you can pan with the rider and get that cool blurry background. I also left it in Auto-ISO mode all day because lighting could change much faster than I could adjust my ISO. For the rest of the shots I usually shot in the Sports mode, which is nice when there is plenty of light.

So that was fun. It was a long day of walking around and standing around and getting rained on a little and sweating a lot and eating pulled pork sandwiches. I’m happy I got quite a few good shots. Check out my full photo set from the day on Flickr.

Next weekend I might be going down to Maryland with some of the team for a road stage race. I emailed the promoter about getting a ride in a car during the road race to get some in-race action shots. Another exciting bike race photography adventure!

The Tour of Tucker County was this past weekend. I didn’t do the race because I’m still recovering from some tendinitis, but I did get to play a part in it. I loaded up my new fancy camera and lens and hopped into the wheel car with my friend Sam (who is also recovering from some injury) and followed the 1/2/3 field around the 50ish mile course. The wheel car’s job was to follow the front group swapping wheels if they got flats and help fix small mechanicals. The rest of the time, we just got to watch the race, which was actually pretty fun.

But I also had the job of taking photos, many of which I took while hanging out the passenger window. This meant I got a lot of pictures of guys’ rear ends, but they turned out much better than I thought. They kind of make you feel like you’re in the race. Here are a few of my favorites from the car:

I also jumped out at the top of the first climb to catch all the other fields on their way up. This meant more of your standard head-on shots. What was really awesome was how many people were suffering but would smile and/or throw me some kind of peace sign. Here are a few of my favorites from the roadside:

There’s a full set of photos available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bstephens83/sets/72157624038949751/

But that’s not all! My new fancy camera takes really amazing 720p video too. I took about 25 min of video mostly on the final climb. Because the guys were moving so slow and weaving back and forth, it made for some really dramatic footage, at least in my opinion. And on top of that, Sam’s techno beats playing in the car provided the perfect soundtrack. Check out the video here (note: you can watch in HD on facebook):

I thought the video turned out really well. First time I’ve ever really done anything like that. The 200mm zoom lens I had on really got you right there in the action. The only tricky part is it can’t autofocus once you start recording, but you can focus manually. With a little practice I think I can get much better at maintaining the focus better. Also, sidenote, Facebook is like the best place to upload video like this, it is free and has the largest time/size limits of many sites I’ve seen.

So there you have it. I’m extremely impressed and happy with my new fancy camera. I have to emphasize I am an extremely amateur photographer, I just bought the fancy camera and it does the rest. Hopefully I get more chances like this, I think photos and videos play a huge role in the whole bike racing experience. And like I say, “If there aren’t any photos, it didn’t happen.” That just happened.

I was riding on the sidewalk next to the giant eagle parking lot on my old mountain bike. This guy comes up to me and starts talking about how bikes are great because they save gas. He even told me he was a fan of bumper bike and told me I should be like bumper bike.

Then, right in front of him, I sold the bike to a guy I was meeting there in the parking lot.

“What?! You sold the bike?!” he yelled.

“Yes”

“Awww, why?”

“Well, now he (pointing at the other guy) can save gas too”

Anyways, yes I sold my old mountain bike, a Specialized Hardrock. I hope the guy likes it, it was pretty beat up but fully functional. And I think I gave him a fair (cheap) price. He said he was interested in doing those races that are like triathlons but on mountain bikes. Adventure races? I still have my Stumpjumper so I’m not giving up mountain biking or anything. It had just been sitting in my living room taking up space.

Besides, I just ordered a DSLR so I needed some monay.

I’ve been easing back into riding, still not quite ready to jump back into racing.  But that leaves me stuck at home and all my friends heading off to races.  I’m contemplating the upcoming season-within-a-season of bike racing… summer road season.  And as many of you know, I’ve been writing a lot for pghracing.org, and I’m trying to focus on helping promote local races.  I was trying to think of another fun way to do this.  Well I spent a few hours today whipping up a little experiment.  I call it “Race Mapper”, it reads the upcoming races from the pghracing.org google calendar, plots them on a google map and lists some info.  It’s pretty rough still, but check it out and let me know what you think or if you have any ideas:

For those interested, I used the super cool Yahoo Pipes tool to create a GeoRSS feed out of the google calendar XML feed.

Sunday I hitched a ride out with Soupie to Aliquippa. I wasn’t racing but wanted to watch some racing and cheer on my friends. It turned out to be a pretty wet day

And one of the corners turned out to be particularly slick, taking out a number of racers

The 4/5 race was pretty fun to watch with my teammate Greg nabbing 2nd out of a 4-man breakaway. I always like when the breakaway sticks. The 1/2/3 race was very small and dominated by a single team. By the time Soupie was ready to leave, they had 4 guys together off the front.

Today I am saddened by the news of Franco Pellizotti being left out of the Giro for suspicion of doping. Just this Saturday I was watching him on a solo breakaway at a smaller race in Italy. (Sidebar: I think it’s funny how all the super pros were slumming it at smaller races this weekend) Pellizotti was a fun guy to watch; he didn’t have superhuman results, but occasionally pulled off an inspired win. Any guy that fights all three weeks to win the polka dot jersey at the TdF gets a thumbs up from me. It’s unfortunate that now he has been awarded same the asterisk of suspicion as so many others and now all those victories are in doubt.

I’m battling some Achilles tendinitis in my left ankle at the moment so my season is on hold. Since I’m just sitting on my butt instead of riding, I figured I’d update this blog with some of the riding I did this spring, and post a few of the photos I’ve collected.

My first races of the year were back in March out at the collegiate races in Philadelphia racing with Carnegie Mellon. Only three of us went out, but it was still fun, especially rocking our custom aero helmets (above). The team time trial was just a warm up, then I did two back-to-back races later in the day. Technically… it was only 1.5 races cause that 2nd one was hard.

Then it was on to the next day and a criterium with some twisty corners. My weakness. This season I finally have the motor and endurance to really hang in a race, but put some tight corners in there and I lose a few meters left and right. That race only lasted 15 min .

Then it was back to western PA for the epic Morgantown Road Race. I already described it in a previous post, but this picture shows me already suffering big time on the first climb. It was too freakin’ hot for me.

I had a much better time at the local Mingo Creek road races, where my team did a lot of work to control the race. Our strategy was to push the pace on the one sustained climb, which I took upon myself (above), and then sit in the rest of the way and then dominate the sprint. We won both weeks and I held on for 5th the 2nd week.

Also starting were the ACA crits. The B races are going to be a lot of fun this year. I got in two races down there and was feeling really strong and fast. My team is also quite strong and I think we could have a shot at the team overall if we focus.

Then two weeks ago I started feeling a sharp pain in my Achilles and hopped off my bike. I have been really babying it, icing twice a day, stretching, lots of NSAIDs and taking the bus instead of riding to school. I’ve also taken this opportunity to hit the school gym, lifting some weights. I’ve been needing to work on my core and hips for a while anyways. The pain has dramatically decreased, but I know I’m not in the clear yet. I hope to be back racing in the next couple weeks, but nonetheless I’m happy to have already had some good times racing this spring.

Yesterday I did the Morgantown Road Race. I had ridden the course (which I really like a lot) the week before, sprinting up every climb and powering down. I felt great and was very motivated. But it was about 40 degrees warmer on race day and turned into an absolute nightmare for me. First climb, couldn’t breathe, whole body on fire. It was already over for me. I cruised along but could never get enough oxygen and eventually became dangerously dehydrated. I spent about 25 minutes total just lying on the side of the road a couple times. I wanted to finish though. And I did. Come to find out, I posted the slowest finishing time of the day at 3:23:28 for 46 miles. I’m strangely proud of that. If you look at the full results, you can see A LOT of time gaps. It was a rough day for all. Check out my writeup on pghracing.org for more info.

Today I didn’t really feel like riding my bike. I still kinda felt like I was hungover and I still have a headache. I woke up around 7am and tuned in to watch the Tour of Flanders live online. The famous race takes place in Belgium, so there is a big time difference. In the US, Versus broadcasts a time-delayed replay at 5pm. A lot of people complain that people watching live shouldn’t post any spoilers. Being as I’m addicted to the internet, I’m very opposed to this notion, so I was blasting away updates the whole time. I shouldn’t have to wait until everybody else gets around to watching some race to say anything about it. Not my problem. Anyways, it was an awesome race. All the favorites were battling it out all day long, Cancellara showed why he is nicknamed Spartacus, and even Lance Armstrong did really well. Here’s Cancellara and Boonen just after they broke away. I had dreamed my Morgantown race would have occurred a little more like this:

After watching Cancellara win and looking outside, I did end up going for a 1 hour ride around the city. 20 degrees cooler today and I felt much better. Damn that heat. I suppose I’ll be racing again soon at the first ACA crit on Wednesday and Mingo on Sunday. On top of that, Paris-Roubaix is next weekend, one of the very best pro races of the year. Since I’ll be at Mingo during the race, I suppose I’ll have to hide from the internet all day long and find a way to watch the stupid Versus replay.

Last year the first 25 miles were flat.