Thredbo

Cannonball day 3: Downhill Seeding and Pumptrack

Cannonball day 3: Downhill Seeding and Pumptrack

Thredbo Cannonball, done and dusted for 2026!!!

Starting our run on the home straight and continuing with day 3 of 4 at the Cannonball festival.

Below and the following few posts are a few of the images I took on day 3. All the images can be found over on the Outer Image website here

Rockshox Aus Downhill Open: Seeding runs

The Cannonball track is another tough one for me to find new shots. It changes even less than the Flow trail. I have been shooting even longer too, since the days of the Redass downhill series, but it is so much more dynamic than the Flow trail. Downhill is still one of my favourite disciplines in mountain biking. Rumours are floating around about a new downhill track in the making, so fingers crossed we see it next year.

Oakley Pumptrack

A fast and furious event, as always. Once practice has finished, the pace really picks up. There isn’t usually any space to stop and reorganise lighting. Each rider smacks out their lap in about 20 secs or so, then as soon as one finishes, the next kicks off their run. Certainly gets through the event quickly.

Day 1: Specialized All-mountain

Day 2: Fox Flow Motion and Maxxis Dual Slalom

Day 4: Rockshox Aus DH Open and Deity Whip Wars

Posted by Richard in Bikes, Events, What's going on
Cannonball Day 1: All-Mountain

Cannonball Day 1: All-Mountain

Thredbo Cannonball, done and dusted for 2026!!! It’s always a busy, busy week for me. Up early, big day shooting trackside on the mountain, then editing late into the night, then up and do it all again. We try to get the day’s images out each day so they don’t pile up for us too much. What an office I get to work in though!

Below and the following few posts are a few of the images I took over the week. All the images can be found over on the Outer Image website here

Day 1: Specialized All-Mountain

Day 1 was the @specialized_au All-Mountain. A new section of track was added to the top of stage 1. It was great for the views, but the wind got up and became a bit problematic. It was so gusty that, unfortunately, the gondola had to be shut down. Then, as it picked up further, the top access lift had to be shut, meaning the elites could no longer access the top of stage 1 and had to start halfway down. Still, a great day racing and one of my favourite tracks to shoot in Thredbo, as they always seem to add new sections.
.

Day 2: Fox Flow Motion and Maxxis Dual Slalom

Day 3: Rockshox DH Seeding and Oakley Pumptrack

Day 4: Rockshox Aus DH Open and Deity Whip Wars

Posted by Richard in Bikes, Events, What's going on
A decade of Cannonball

A decade of Cannonball

This year was the 10th anniversary of the Thredbo Cannonball. For us, I think, it was the seventh year shooting the event under the guise of Outer Image. It’s been great to see this event go from strength to strength and has become the premier MTB event in Australia attracting athletes from all across the continent and even from abroad.

It is always a hectic week of work shooting the Cannonball Festival for Gil and me with a solid five days of shooting and doing our best to get the images tagged, edited and uploaded each night after the day’s activities. If we don’t, the stockpile of images tends to grow larger and larger as the week goes on. This year we delivered around 7500 images to the competitors on behalf of Thredbo Mountain Bike.

Below is a selection of images that I took over the week. But the full gallery is over on the Outer Image website.

Posted by Richard in Bikes, Events
Cannonball ’19

Cannonball ’19

Another year almost over and once again rounding out the events for us over at Outer Image was the huge Cannonball MTB Festival held at Thredbo each year. I think this is the 3rd year that we have now shot Cannonball for Thredbo MTB and Red Bull Australia. Each year we see the event just keep growing. This year there were around 1000 riders competing in the 5 events over the 4 days, All Mountain, the Flow, Pumptrack Challenge, Whip Wars and the Australian Open Downhill

BTS

For us, this is a big event. It’s not just the 5 days shooting trackside where everyone sees us but it is also the hours of work that goes on behind the scenes in order to get the images out each day to the competitors. We routinely went to bed no earlier than 1am each day (if we were lucky) and arose at 6.30am ready for a quick breakfast and to head back out on the track to do it all again. It’s a long weekend but it’s so much fun.

Below are a few of my favourite images from my weekend rolling in the dust. You can find the full gallery over on the Outer Image website

Posted by Richard in Bikes, Events, What's going on
A big weekend in the mountains

A big weekend in the mountains

I had a weekend down in Thredbo a couple of weeks ago. The 3rd round of the gravity enduro races was followed by a big start to the season of downhill racing here in NSW.

Cold nights and warm days made for some great MTB weather in the Snowies over the weekend. Kicking off the weekend was the Rollercoaster on the Flow trail. Not a lot of overly technical sections on this trail but a lot of fast-flowing berms. Gil took the lift up and covered the top half of the mountain while I walked up and shot the bottom section. The smooth fast berms saw a lot of folks coming in low as they flew past, laying into the berms as far as they could go.

Sunday saw the start of the DH season for us. Many familiar faces were out on track along with a lot of new ones. This time Gil and I swapped, me heading up top and Gil walking from the bottom. A cool breeze right up top meant I didn’t linger too long but quickly headed down to warmer climes. I tried revisiting a couple of old favourites on the way down but wanted to shoot a new location. I settled in on a corner and the trees just above Snakes and Ladders and spent most of the race there just trying different angles.

Thredbo always puts on great races and it’s always a chance to get away for a few days beforehand to explore the region. I’m already looking forward to our next visit down there.

All the images were supplied to the competitors for the Rollercoaster courtesy of Fox Racing Australia and BH Bikes. The downhill images were supplied by Redass.  Be sure and swing by their Facebook pages and say thanks. And of course to Rocky Trail Entertainment who brought it all together and put on yet another awesome weekend.

Posted by Richard in Bikes, Events
National Downhill Series Rnd 3 – Thredbo

National Downhill Series Rnd 3 – Thredbo

A couple of weeks ago saw me make the trek down through NSW’s beautiful high country to cover the final round of the National Downhill Series at Thredbo. It was certainly a great event set in awesome scenery. The Elite Male series was taken out by Troy Brosnan and the Elite Female series by Michelle Crisp.

Below are a few shots from the weekend’s festivities.

Posted by Richard in Bikes, Events