Mountain Biking

Oct

2013

Thule B24 Mountain Bike Race

Last weekend Gil and I travelled down to Bright, in Victoria, Australia to cover our first 24hr race under the guise of Outer Image, the Thule B24 enduro. This was our first 24hr race together and it was certainly a lot of fun. The trip down was an adventure in itself as we were detoured due to bushfires then another due to a nasty crash which together put us about 6 hours of course (always good to take the scenic route though). We arrived in Bright midday on Friday and quickly set to walking the track and finding our locations. Bright is a mountain bikers paradise with mountains all around and trails weaving up and through the forest everywhere. It certainly was not hard to pick our location, the problem was more what locations would we not have time for.

The organisers added a new category called the Esprit De Corps. I haven’t seen this in MTB races before but I imagine that we will be seeing it a bit more in the future. It added a more social aspect to team riding. Your team needed to complete a certain amount of laps over the course of 24 hours but you had the option of all riding as a group. So if you were in a team of 6 and you do a lap with all team riders it actually counts as 6 laps.

The race kicked off at 12 on Saturday. It was quite a long weekend but well worth it. Probably not as long for us as it was for the riders though. We shot well into the night and were up again and into it before dawn. In the last couple of hours things became rather hectic again as all the riders crammed in the last few laps. The smiles which had faded in the early hours of the morning were back too with some riders even going past me giggling Delirious or just very happy I wasn’t quite sure which)

All in all a great weekend away. I will be heading back down to Bright in a few weeks and I’m looking forward to it already. I have a few plans in the making.

Oh and just in case you were wondering, the winner of the solo category was Shane Roberts who completed 22 laps or around 374kms.

Sep

2013

Shimano MTB GP 5 – Stromlo

Last weekend was the final round of this year’s Shimano GP enduro series held on the wonderful trails of Mount Stromlo Forest Park near Canberra. Again I was there with OuterImage to capture the action. There was forecast for rain but once again the weather held and we had beautiful clear skies. That did mean the track was a bit dusty for the riders but it did give us the chance for some interesting shots.

Stromlo Forest Park is situated on the side of Mount Stromlo near Canberra. There is some beautiful trails there. Some years ago the area was destroyed by a fire which burnt most of the trees to the ground. A massive replanting program has since happened and slowly the area is regaining a lot of its trees. With the trees being quite small though views around the trails can be wonderful looking out across the surrounds and across Canberra.

Over 300 competitors competed this year at the Stromlo event and after shooting the whole series I recognised many familiar faces there too. Eliza Kwan and Troy Herfoss took out their 7hr solo categories while Kyle Ward and Wendy Stevenson took out their 4hr categories. Just in case you were wondering, as a rough idea the course is usually around 10km’s in length. Troy managed to complete 15 laps or around 150kms in 7 hrs.

So that’s it for this year as far as this series goes. We are quite often out shooting for fun at many local tracks around the Sydney region. If you see us out there be sure and stop for a quick hello. If you are competing in any races soon there is always a chance we will be around too, we tend to swing by a lot of them even if it’s just as spectators.

As this was the final in the series Gil and I would like to say a big thank you to all the competitors who raced this season and made our work as much fun as it is. A big congratulations to all the winners from the races and the series. And of course a huge thank you to Martin and Juliane from Rocky Trail Entertainment for all there hard work in putting on such a wonderful series.

Aug

2013

Revolution Magazine Issue 32

I’ve got a few shots in this month’s Revolution Mag. I had the chance to do a bunch of product shots for them with a couple of action shots thrown in to show the bike in use. We shot the Santa Cruz Bronson, the Jetblack Race Rack, some new threads and shoes from Sombrio. If you are in Oz get down to your newsagent and check out the mag, It’s always packed full of goodness for mountain bikers.

: My photos in print, Revolution Magazine Issue 22

: My photos in print, Revolution Magazine Issue 22

: My photos in print, Revolution Magazine Issue 22

: My photos in print, Revolution Magazine Issue 22

: In Print, Revolution Magazine Issue 22

Aug

2013

Mountain Biking at Ourimbah and Oxford Falls

Mountain biking at Oxford Falls on Sydney’s north.

Sunday I took my Einstein strobe out for a play. I use Odin triggers by Phottix to fire my flashes remotely. They are fantastic with my speedlights allowing me to access all functions of my speedlights from my camera. Just recently Phottix released a firmware update for the triggers which included giving me the power you use hi-speed sync with studio strobes.

Einstein syncing at 1/1000th

Normally I cannot use my Einstein past a sync speed of 1/200th of a sec with my 5dmkii. With the new firmware update I can now push the speed up to 1/1000th of a sec. giving me much more stopping power. This means that even in the shadows cast by the Einstein I will be able to freeze motion. Its all still early days and it takes a bit of fiddling around to get the settings right. I can only seem to sync them at full power at the moment which is kind of limited. I will need to make myself a cheat-sheet and write all the working settings down.

So I took it all up to Ourimbah downhill track on the weekend to test it all out. I had a bit of a dual reason for visiting there as next weekend is one of the Redass Downhil series races and I wanted to get some ideas for shots. On the way back as I still had time I swung by Oxford Falls downhill track to see if there was anyone there and got to fire off a few shot there too. So at this stage I am looking forward to next weekend.

: Mountain biking on the Ourimbah trails north of Sydney.

: Mountain biking on the Ourimbah trails north of Sydney.

: Mountain biking at Oxford Falls on Sydney’s north.

: Mountain biking on the Ourimbah trails north of Sydney.

: Mountain biking at Oxford Falls on Sydney’s north.

: Mountain biking on the Ourimbah trails north of Sydney.

: Mountain biking on the Ourimbah trails north of Sydney.

: Mountain biking on the Ourimbah trails north of Sydney.

: Mountain biking at Oxford Falls on Sydney’s north.

Apr

2013

Shimano GP Round 4 – James Estate

There is a new course on Rocky Trail Entertainment’s Shimano GP’s circuit and that’s the trails of James Estate Winery, where round 2 was recently held. The race marked the opening of the trails to the public. The 10km track winds in and out between grape vines, out the back towards the edges of Wollemi National Park before bringing you back through the vines and even weaving you through wine-vats on the way back to the start. The start was conveniently located by the cellar door where plenty of sampling of the local produce was done.

Well done to Rocky Trail, Graeme Scott and all involved withe the James Estate Winery race for putting on such a great day.

Dec

2012

Lens Testing at Oxford Falls Downhill Track

Downhill, Oxford Falls, Australia

A couple of months ago I handed in my 28-300mm L lens to my local repair centre. It had been a long time since it had been serviced and it certainly gets enough abuse. It had a broken roller and wasn’t moving through the focus range smoothly. They were quick and prompt with the service getting it back to me before the week ended. I was quite happy with the service until I actually came to use it. From what was a broken roller I now had issues with my aperture, my image stabiliser and the lock that let me keep the lens shut. After jumping up and down in frustration at the camera repair man who more or less told me it was all in my imagination I took my lens directly to Canon. Almost 4 weeks later and nearly $1000 out of pocket I got it back so this weekend was spent putting it through its paces to make sure that it was all running smoothly again.

I spent a few hours on Saturday and a few on Sunday up at Oxford Falls downhill trails just shooting with a few friends and a couple of random riders. Quite happy with the shots. It’s great to have my old faithful back again and Canon, despite taking a silly amount of time to repair the lens, have done a great job at fixing, it. Thanks to all who were there and let me shoot them.

Enjoy.