Cycling Art

Seen in Saugatuck, Michigan.

Morning Ride

With the warmer weather, it's getting easier to take photos during the morning ride. There was no way I was going to take off my lobster mitts and expose my bare hands to 20 degrees and 17 MPH self-generated winds just to take a picture of a rider I probably won't recognize due to the amount of layers they're wearing. Anyway, today I took some photos early in the ride and what follows is the best one. Turns out my fitness level only allowed me to take a few shots early in the ride when the pace was slow and I could easily stash the camera and catch up.

Still, a nice start to the spring riding season.

Northbrook Cyclocross

photo taken by Luke

I got a late start to the "Save Ferris" cx race in Northbrook. That figures. Since it is the closest race to my house and I took for granted that I could sleep in a bit and not pack the night before. Big mistake. I wanted to arrive with at least an hour to register, attach my number, warm up and pre-ride what was rumored to be a challenging course (it was). Instead, I got there only about a half hour before race time and, in the rush to get on the course, attached my number on the wrong side (rookie mistake thinking that all races require the number on the same side). Luckily a patient race official was able to right my mistake with seconds to spare before the start.

The one practice lap I got in told me the story of a very technical, twisty, off-camber festival. No barriers to jump over (rats, I'm getting good at that) and two stair climbs. This is going to be, er, fun.

I registered to race both the 40+ Masters race and the 4a race. It was a damp 37 degrees when I arrived, but at least there wasn't any wind. As usual, the Masters got off to a very fast start and my position near the back didn't help much. As we got through the first section of twisty, off camber turns through the trees, a rider went down ahead of me. I was able to avoid hitting him or the many riders around him and dismount, run past them and remount. Looking good, but not for long. My first fall came on the hairpin turn at the top of the sled hill. It was the first of four or five falls on that initial lap. I attribute this to either my being too aggressive on the turns (which is an improvement over my usual tentativeness) or the lack of the right tires for the conditions (as if I have any others). I also decided to run that turn for the rest of the race.

The first lap cost me time and confidence and I wound up taking 27th out of 31 which is a slight improvement over Hawthorn. Ed got a nice shot of me looking pretty intense:



I now had three hours to kill before the 4a race. I ate a sandwich, drank some coffee and a lot of water and put on some additional clothing for warmth. I also took a few pictures and rode around to pass the time and help keep me warm.

I did get in one more practice lap after the women's race and this was key. I got some great advice from Tom S on how to handle that first hairpin turn on the bike and was able to practice it two or three times.

For the 4a race, I made sure to get a good starting position. This was important as there were 54 riders in this field and that first turn would probably get ugly. Not being in the top 10, I didn't get called up, but I did get in the second row.

I hammered the start as if it were a closing sprint and kept good position for the trees. I handled that hairpin turn on the sled hill perfectly (if a little slowly) and raced a nearly clean race. Unfortunately for me, I lost time every lap on the stairs to faster climbers and the various areas of the course that were muddy sapped my strength and speed. It was also getting windy which didn't help. I was very happy with my race and thought I did better than 42nd place.



Overall, a really great cyclocross race. I prefer the more technical course, because, well, they're more fun. There were also a lot of photographers out and you can see their pictures here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Morning on the DPR

We did about 45 miles on the DPR this morning. This was my favorite picture.

I'm Published!

Well, not really, but this was fun to find. A photo of mine was used in a blog posting. As my son would say: "How random is that?"

Hawthorn Woods Cyclocross Race

I raced both the Masters race at 10:00 and the 4a at 2:15. This was taken after the 4a race.



That about sums it up.

Photogenic Lake

Rode the trail at the end of the day Wednesday. This is what greeted me when I arrived back at the parking lot:

Morning Ride

No, I didn't race in DeKalb this morning. I didn't want to drive an hour and a half to race in the rain with possible thunderstorms. I didn't relish the idea of riding in a park on a metal bike with the threat of lightning. And no, wet rubber tires don't provide any protection against lightning.

So instead, I did the 8:00 Des Plaines River Trail ride. As you can see, it was a beautiful morning here, way out east.



It was a small group today, but it felt good to get in two hours of riding on the trails.

Note to Gurnee, the underpass under 176 is open and not under water, so you should change the sign.

Glencoe Grand Prix - Results

The results are posted for the 2008 Glencoe Grand Prix.

So far, this is the most popular photo I took at the Glencoe Grand Prix.

Taking Pictures While Riding

Those of you who know me, know that I rarely ride without my trusty Canon camera. I keep it in my jersey pocket and use it to take pictures of the epic rides and epic riders who ride with me. I tend to favor the hand held method which gives me the flexibility to take artful pictures like this one:



or shots of fun stuff I see along the way like this one.



If you prefer to only take pictures of what is directly in front of you, Photojojo shows an inexpensive DIY method of attaching a camera to your handlebars.

I imagine one could attach a video camera the same way, although it seems that the best way to go would be the helmet cam.

Have fun. Ride safely.

Groan

Had my first $50 fill up earlier in the week. Makes these gas rewards credit cards (h/t to consumerist.com) even more appealing.

Setting Out

Saturday morning. I'm still learning how to use my camera and what the best default setting would be for when it's in my jersey pocket. I like to use the continuous drive mode while riding, but this limits which shooting modes I can use. I am also learning that most changes to default settings are lost when the camera powers down. The net result of all this is that this shot was overexposed. I did my best to fix it in Photoshop and felt it looked better in black and white. Still not happy with it. Also, I missed a later shot of the xXx-Athletico paceline when I inadvertently put the camera in timer mode, not continuous drive mode. Damn gloves!

Oh, and it was a great day for a ride too!

Bike By Shooting

I've been under the weather the last two days and not able to enjoy the warm weather we are having. This photo is from the last ride I took before a virus brought me down. Ahhh, memories...

Trail Ride

For a nice description of the Sunday Daniel Wright Woods ride see the Go Faster Jim blog. This gives me an excuse to post a post-ride picture and compose a baiku (I think Fritz's beeper just went off).


Sun warmed frozen trail.
The spray of mud hits my frame.
Still life with crank arms.

Daylight Saving Time

I hate the longer DST year. Sunrise today was 7:22 which means that it's just getting light as I'm leaving coffee after my morning ride. That's OK for December, but it just shouldn't happen in October. Especially since we are having a nice Indian summer. Anyway, on my way home, I stopped and took this picture. Something good has to come of this.

And for Fritz, a baiku:

Daylight Saving Time.
Post Morning Bike Ride Coffee.
It's Still Dark Outside.

Bike Drive Photos

I am in the process of learning how to use Flickr to post pictures on the web. The Bike Drive photos I took are all at this address. I posted all the raw shots I took and the ones I edited with Photoshop. You can post comments there or here.

UPDATE: I'm still practicing on Flickr. I really didn't mean to use groups to sort the photos. I deleted the group and moved the WB photos into a set. It's all very confusing.