Tired as I was going in to the event I really enjoyed this year's Sea Otter Classic. Building on the experience from 2010 I concentrated on mountain biking and didn't shoot a single frame of the road race series. I experimented with a variety of angles and lenses, often in positions that were technically challenging and occasionally dangerous... once or twice during the dual slalom practice sessions I had to scramble to avoid being hit by a cartwheeling bike. I shot tight and shallow while riders passed me rendering auto focus tracking useless. I prefocused and tried to time riders entering the frame... which given the variability of line and elevation made for a low percentage of keepers. Nevertheless it made things far more interesting than shooting at f8.
Although there was broad participation from all ages in the various brackets, it was the energy, styling and lingo of the young riders that powered the event. Overheard. "I can't believe how loamy that sweeper was" and "I was all gooned out through that one" Riders' kit and bikes are festooned with branding: SixSixOne; FiveTen; Fox; Manitou; Commencal; Turner and of course, Specialized, Cannondale and Trek. Helmets, padding, masks, braces, provide some protection but I'm amazed at the sheer guts on display. When you consider how high and how far these riders jump, the number of crashes is surprisingly low, but when they do go down they take a pounding.
Here goes then with some of my favorites from this year's Sea Otter. For the record, in the first shot below I removed a bag hanging in the tree behind the young man... should have asked him to take it down as I spent about ten minutes trying to get a bike in the frame with him.
There's not much time to do justice to the Paris Roubaix story in the time available. I should be in the garage pulling gear for tomorrow's trip to the four days of Sea Otter as I'm still incredibly jet lagged and can't stand the thought of another late night. It was a week full of fun with the Specialized boys, Matt from CyclingNews, Neil from Road Bike Action and my Dutch friends Wilfred and Matthias who drove for us. I shot the Roubaix bike, clothing, team prerides, cobbles and finally the race itself on Sunday. Along the way I bumped into Daniel Pasley (creator of the Rapha Continental) who was shooting a project for Castelli; big grins at our collective good fortune.
We managed two cobbled sections in addition to the start and finish of a very dry, dusty classic. I'm still not sure how I feel about covering big races. With so few opportunities to catch the peloton, it's extremely frustrating. I managed ASO accreditation into the Velodrome but not a photo vest to get closer to the action before the race finished. There's more I could say about that situation but in the interest of diplomacy and future access I'll leave it at that.
What follows is a mix of images from the race and the assignment. I'm still struck by how quickly the whole thing wraps up post race. Riders shower, while mechanics power wash bikes and cars at a rapid clip. Three hours later we're having dinner at the Sheraton in Brussels, George Hincapie sitting directly behind me at another table, all cleaned up and relaxed like nothing happened. PRO.
That last assignment to cover the launch of the Specialized McLaren Venge gave me the chance to do two things I've been wanting to do for ages. The first was to get up to Glasgow for a little landscape shooting with my uncle Douglas. We had a good time and managed a pretty spectacular visit to the winter wonderland of Glencoe. Images in a following post.
After the short hop back to London I donned the robes of a penitent (in my case a Rapha winter jersey over nocturne T) and cabbed it from Paddington Station to Kentish Town where Rapha makes its home off Perren Street. I've visited Slate and the Portland office on a couple of occasions but this was my first chance to touch the black stone at the heart of my favorite cycling brand. It was a pilgrimage long imagined and long overdue.
After dispatching the cab, I trundled my rollers though the gate and into the Imperial Works close where Rapha makes its home. The offices sit immediately adjacent to the Kentish Town station and the constant schedule of trains is a good metaphor for the stream of orders that now leave the building daily, bound for every corner of the cycling world.
I negotiated three, or was it four, flights of steep diamond-plated stairs... passing the former offices of Rouleur in one of the hairpins... to arrive at the crossroads of business (on my right) and design (on my left) where all the ideas, patterns, pixels and production gets sorted. Simon Mottram, Rapha's convivial Managing Director was expecting me and after parking my luggage next to the flat-top-tube Colnago propped against the wall behind his desk, he gave me a grand tour. Looking very fit and wearing what appeared to be mtb SPDs Simon put faces to the names of friendly Rapha folk like Joe Hall, Simon Huntsman and René Groot who'd been on the other end of emails over the years. Sadly I missed meeting Simon's other right hand, Laura Etherington, who was out for the day.
Simon Mottram at work
Convening the design roundtable
Simon recounted Rapha's humble beginnings when he Luke and Claire got things started in a single hutch of the rabbit warren of rooms they now occupy throughout the building. In all the excitement Simon admitted some of the details of Rapha's rise to prominence get sketchy at times, but in those instances he defers to my pal, and Rapha's historian-not-in-residence, Brian Palmer for their Hansard. It might also be said that were disaster to befall the earth and cycling as we know it obliterated, Brian's bike shed bunker on Islay would contain the complete genetic record of Rapha's creative efforts. All hail the best dressed man in Scotland.
Much of that Rapha style now springs from the mind of another pal, head designer Graeme Raeburn, who momentarily broke away from a design meeting for a handshake hello and a promise of lunch to follow. The Rapha peloton now counts more than 60 riders and many of them ride into work each day. Having witnessed the insanity of bike riding in the City, that definitely qualifies for combat pay in my book. Other than Simon's bike the rest of the fleet was tucked away elsewhere in the building, but obviously never far from mind.
Coffee in the Pink, Bottles out the Sink
As Simon took me around to the various functions of the office one thing struck me as incongruous with my imaginings. My experience with Rapha USA, colored by Portland, the Continental, cyclocross and custom bike building had me expecting the same courier-tempered, urban vibe I get from the house on North Mississippi. The difference was less ink in London, and not a beard in sight. If Portland is hip, London is cool. At least that was my impression.
After giving me a generous hour in a busy day, Simon broke off for a scheduled call with a just rousing Slate Olson (it was 6 am Portland time). With his meeting ended, Graeme reappeared for the short walk to the fabled Mario's cafe for some lunch. Mario's apparently doubled as the Rouleur editorial office much of the time prior to their move to new digs a few miles away.
Rapha's collaboration with the ASO produced this year's Paris Roubaix Sportif jersey, t-shirt and musette. While polyester naturally wouldn't have been Rapha's first fabric choice the jersey will be within the means of thousands of participants who will wear it with pride.
With a company ride and day-off planned for the next day, René Groot and Carrick Whitney appeared totally focused on clearing their respective plates.
Graeme Raeburn is a quiet, thoughtful reed of a chap who doesn't let on just how good he is on a bike. He's completed the Cent Cols challenge, spun out an ass-numbing 416- and 429-miles in his last two 24-hour TTs respectively and started the whole Festive 500 phenomenon that pushed everyone's chair back from the holiday table last December. He's still happy riding the steel Enigma XC that Jim and Mark arranged for the Cent Cols, and perhaps that's why the carbon Specialized frame sitting on the windowsill behind him has yet to be built up.
With service from Mario himself we had a good chat and a tasty lunch before heading back to the office. I spent the next couple of hours hanging about taking pictures and basically soaking in the atmosphere of the place. Simon Huntsman, who heads production, appeared to have the neatest desk in the department. The display cubes behind him included the latest Specialized Prevail helmet and a Giro throwback called the Hammerhead (in it's original packaging).
Something tells me there might be an IT position opening up soon.
All too soon, it was time to put away the cameras, say my goodbyes and catch a taxi to Waterloo Station for a train ride South to rendezvous with the Specialized launch team and the real work of the trip. I expect the next time I visit Rapha HQ they may be in new digs, having outgrown the available space at Imperial works. If that's the case I can't wait to see what the future holds for the black and pink. The success they've had is well deserved, and it certainly hasn't gone to their heads. Many thanks to Simon, Graeme and the whole Rapha crew for their generosity over the years and a great afternoon.
Next week I'm off to shoot Paris Roubaix week. I've got a few new tricks up my sleeve that might let me post an image or two from the road. We'll see... there never seems to be enough time or enough sleep to do everything I'd like.
Specialized made only 40 pairs of these black beauties for the Venge launch at McLaren. Now that I've photographed them in pristine condition I can get around to enjoying them. They are a nice reminder of a trip that included the amazing McLaren Technology Center, a good visit with my uncle and the highlands of Scotland and photographing Matt Goss riding the Venge to victory at Milan San Remo. Maybe Specialized have some commemorative Wellington boots for the upcoming Paris Roubaix assignment. Thanks guys.
There's nothing plain about this policeman's clothes
Linus and a Girl
Fans line the barriers at the start
Regulation footwear for female photographers
Cancellara signs in for Japan
Normally smiling, Cancellara was all business... you knew he would be there at the end
Thor's championship stripes
Matteo Tossatto (going by 'TOSO' on the helmet)
6:50:56 The Race Director's car flies into the finish just ahead of the last motorbikes and charging riders
We chased the race all day with little to show for it. We reached San Remo about 45 minutes ahead of the race, and after a little pleading accompanied by an iphone review of the week's McLaren images, I had a photo vest.
Then Matt Goss delivered the mail, beating Cancellara in the process. Fabian had been unusually serious back in Milan and it was no surprise that he was there at the end. Goss made a late-inning choice to ride the new S-Works McLaren when Mark Renshaw decided he hadn't enough time on his to choose it over his Tarmac. What a momentous choice that was, which isn't to say Matt's legs didn't do most of the work... it was just that the new bike saved a little bit of his power for when it mattered most.
I positioned myself well back of the photographic pack as they prepared for the obligatory victory salute. Instead I wanted to get the winner when the bike stopped moving. In Matt's case when the bike stopped, he got off and sat on the ground, surrounded immediately by microphones before the first cameras (including mine) arrived. He looked shattered and somewhat incredulous at this achievement. When he stood and walked back towards the finish he looked somewhere else, perhaps replaying in slow motion the ferocious charge that got him there first. Great embrace between Matt and Erik Zabel.
How in the hell did you manage to script that I thought to myself. We're finishing a week of shooting for the new bike and it wins first time out the paddock. Wow.
Many thanks to the Milan San Remo organizers for being so generous with the last-minute accreditation. I waited for fifteen minutes to thank each of the three people who helped me during the day. I even got a hug from one of them for the McLaren win. OK wish I could write more but it's going on 4:30 am and I'm shooting a ride in four hours. Many more images of MSR to share when I get home.
I saw my first iteration of the Specialized Venge in the wind tunnel over a year ago. It was a big deal to shoot today's launch, not only to see all the hard work and scientific research pay off for my friends at Specialized, but to see the initial product of a special partnership with McLaren unveiled. The McLaren Venge will be raced for the first time this weekend at Milan San Remo. Three riders on each of Specialized's three pro teams (HTC, Astana and Saxo Bank) will have them. Cavendish, Renshaw, Eisel and Vino among the nine.
The McLaren facility is awe inspiring. The architecture "surfaces" from the landscape and flows along the edge of an enormous cooling pond for the wind tunnel within. Every facet of the building speaks to the companies engineering and championship pedigree. No detail, fastener, strut, surface, material, texture, lighting, interaction, or behavior is left to chance. A stable of storied McLaren cars sits poised as if to race again on the grand McLaren "boulevard" inside. A legion of engineers and designers stand behind those cars in work spaces, labs and offices as spotless and engineered as the cars themselves.
There's more to tell about this amazing experience but for now enjoy a handful of my images from the assignment.
ThinkTank Photo's Impressive Roller lineup (L to R): The cavernous Logistics Manager, the generous Airport Security V2 and the amazing Airport International V2
I'm still shaking my head in disbelief. I've been using ThinkTank's Airport Security V2 for almost two years now. Rolling into assignments, packing and unpacking the working layout of the bag blindfolded, flying domestically confident it would fit in any overhead bin provided I'm in the top half of the boarding order, and talking my way past the occasional airline employee intent on putting my gear at risk in the belly of the beast. Returning from France last summer I felt the rules closing in, and even though the overheads readily accepted the bag, I decided the next time over the pond I'd be traveling with ThinkTank's smaller International roller.
The Tale of the Tape
Externally the Airport International V2 measures 14” W x 21” H x 8” D versus the Airport Security V2 at 14” W x 22” H x 9” D. If this was a fight I'm not sure you'd give either journeyman a tale-of-the-tape advantage, but by shaving an inch off the height and an inch off the depth, ThinkTank has created a stealthier bag that really looks smaller without sacrificing its effective capacity. I call that magic. When gate agents are scanning the milling crowd for full-flight cabin victims, it's amazing how those extra inches stand out. By comparison the International should slip past that scrutiny as easily as a black-clad super model.
That was the theory anyway. When the bag arrived early in the week the visual difference had me convinced I would have to make some serious compromises in gear for upcoming assignments in the UK and Italy. The photo below shows the two bags sitting side by side: the incumbent fully loaded and the challenger in its stock divider configuration right out the box. I'll admit I sat staring at the two bags for some time before making my first move.
My go-to everyday Airport Security V2 layout (L) and the stock Airport International V2 (R) before divider reconfiguration and gear transfer.
The King Stays Put
My 200 f2 is king. I wanted its weight at the bottom of the International in the deepest part of the bag. ThinkTank's designers don't seem to have anticipated a horizontal layout quite like mine so I had to improvise a little with the divider piece normally used to seat a body and lens combo. Note to Doug and the designers at TTP, how about a horizontal divider for the bottom of the bag with an attached padded top flap to baby big glass. I've got something just like this in the bigger bag cannibalized from some other system long since sent down to the minors. With the 200 seated, the next challenge was to locate the two bodies. After some experimentation I built a central padded divider box that put them on the wings, hot shoes down/RRS L plates up (well protected), and from there the rest of the layout fell into place and my grin began to grow.
You can see from the inventory schematics below the only significant sacrifice was my 85mm f1.2. Given the versatility of the 100 and the beautiful wide-open performance of the 200 for portraits, I won't miss the extra weight and the sketchy AF performance of the 85 that limits its usefulness to static subjects. All my key gear safely stored, nothing strained or forced, and it's a good working layout. Loaded like this it weighs 35 lbs.
Click to view a larger image of the final layout.
What had to fit. Click for a larger view of the contents.
What didn't make it or isn't needed
Ogio's Tanker 9600 Will Swallow Everything Else
With the essentials safely billeted in the ThinkTank International, Ogio's mammoth Tanker 9600 will accommodate clothes, toiletries, my monopod, a collapsible softbox, three 430 EX IIs and a couple of Justin clamps. I stick the monopod inside a hard cardboard tube for extra protection and enclose a manifest for customs to minimize searching about in the bag to figure out what the electronics are. Of course flashes could be stolen, but it's unlikely. My final piece of luggage is the large Rapha backpack. It carries my laptop, 5DII chargers (2), one or two external HDs, card reader and cables.
My thanks to Ogio for supplying the Tanker 9600. I love the SLED system, big wheels and interior divider (though spoiled by camera bags I wish there were a couple more structural options inside). This trip will be a great test of the heavy lifter. I'll have a review of the Tanker next month.
My first two ThinkTank Rollers have provided exceptional trouble-free performance. Wheels, zippers and handles work as well as they did on day one and the resilient exteriors show no signs of wear or damage. I expect nothing less from the Airport International. It has already surprised and delighted me by absorbing the critical gear I need with me, and it gives me increased piece of mind that I'll fly under the radar through airports. With more than $15,000 worth of cameras and lenses safely stored in the bag, $329 is a fair price to pay for superior TTP design and quality. I wouldn't roll any other way. The ThinkTank International V2 Roller
It was two years ago that Juli and I spent two weeks in February with Douglas Salteri, my uncle and Scottish landscape photographer. Check out his site to see beautiful images from all four seasons of our beloved Scotland. Together we traveled out to the Hebridean islands of Lewis and Harris which are well North and West of our friend Brian Palmer's island of Islay. I'd taken along a bike borrowed from Jim and Mark at Enigma, and when I returned I only processed the bike photography.
Last night, for reasons that probably have to do with accounting procrastination, I finally worked on some of the landscapes from the trip. In two weeks I'm heading back to the UK to shoot an assignment for Specialized. It will be a quick trip but I'm going a few days early to visit Douglas in Glasgow and hopefully shoot a few frames with him. Brian, I don't know if we'll get over to see you but better keep the shed locked just in case.
While discussing Dromarti's latest gloves in an email thread with Tim and Brendan, Brendan comes up with this classic little vignette.
Wanted to share a good one with you guys while we are on the subject of high priced cycling goods and getting slapped. I bought a pair of Rapha Cyclo-Cross bib knickers from Competitive Cyclist that went on sale for a measly $155 or roughly 1/3 of my annual cycling budget.
Right after I placed the order I got the UPS note as to when the delivery would arrive and it happened to be on Valentine's Day. I also happened to be working from home on V-D because I am such a fine example of a supporting and caring husband. I offered to pick the boys up from school at 3PM.
On my way back I round the corner to our street and what do I see? The UPS truck parked in front of our house. Wife must be looking for a vase and a spot for what should be 58 dozen roses.... she is wrong. I power slide into the driveway and dive in mid-air as the driver is reaching for the doorbell and slap his hand away. It's my Rapha... not roses.
I was thinking about McQuaid and Mubarak. One of them has ruled his domain with an iron hand, refused to implement democratic reforms, stood in the way of progress, suspended due process and generally dismissed the people he is supposed to serve. But enough about McQuaid.
Facebook, Tweet, take to the streets. There appears to be a greater chance of overthrowing an entrenched Egyptian despot than getting the UCI to embrace democracy in the affairs of cycling. The rider protest of the race radio ban in Mallorca was a start but the revolution has a long way to go before it secures a real voice in the governance of the sport. Perhaps it's time to start pulling up the pavement in case the UCI launches a camel charge, they've already invalidated race results and threatened to cancel elections, I mean races. Isn't it time the U.S. state department started putting diplomatic pressure on McQuaid to step down.
Elsewhere the revised version of the UCI approval protocol for frames and forks resurfaced with all the grace of a Mubarak concession speech. Oh, that's right, there wasn't one. Little has changed in the new document. It bears the same autocratic sense of a entitlement, but there's been nothing short of a miraculous reduction in the cost of scrutiny. Perhaps the Swiss government's willingness to freeze Mubarak's bank accounts caused the UCI to rethink the usurious sums they were trying to extort from manufacturers. For those that thought the original price structure was a naked money grab, I'd say the new fee structure confirms it.
The full approval process for monocoque frames requires a "contribution" of $6,200 instead of $12,000 and it only applies to time trial and track categories. Monocoque road frames are now subject to the intermediate procedure which means road frame approval has effectively been marked down from $12,000 to $3,800. Corporate bean counters take note, this is how to waterboard squeeze your suppliers. Apparently there was a significant amount of padding in the original lab fees. What a surprise.
There's even mention of tolerances between drawing and prototype for the first time. It's a shame there's no easy way to quantify intolerance because this regime has plenty of it and its high time professional cyclists get out the saddle and on to the barricades. It's not like they have to worry about tanks showing up at the official sign in... do they?
As events have shown us a lot can change in eighteen days. I like to picture McQuaid and Mubarak in retirement opening the charming M&M B&B in Sharm el-Sheikh complete with UCI-approved bike rentals that only a Saudi prince could afford. It's just a matter of time, I think the hieroglyphics are on the wall.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, you'd think 23,000 pictures would tell the complete story of this year's Tour, or anything else for that matter... but telling is one thing, understanding another. Six months after I shot the last images of our team arriving in Paris, I still haven't been able to put the whole journey into perspective.
Not a day goes by without something or someone triggering a memory from those remarkable three weeks. The more I remember, the longer the Tour gets. A grand tour acts like a giant spring that compresses everything inside it; especially time.
If you're thinking about whether you've got a grand tour in your legs. You'd be surprised like I was that it is possible if you've got the heart. I hope you'll join us this summer... I really want to go back and experience the magic again. Another team, another route but the same rewarding struggle. It will change your life, it has changed mine. Grand Rêve.
read the complete post at Rêve -->