CSC Invitational

The CSC Invitational, organized by Rob Laybourn's Arlington Sports, has gained marquee status.  Every year, it grows larger, attracting higher levels of competition and talent.  In 2008, there were world champions, Paris-Roubaix champions, Olympians, top amateurs, teams that will compete in the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia.  World press.  A great show.  Laybourn almost singlehandedly has made Arlington a world-class cycling venue.

At the June 1 races, weather was great for picture taking, cycling and sunburn. Took about 2,000 images and published a few hundred to the web -- one collection for the amateur, women's pro and kid races, and another for the 100 Km men's pro race.  Shooting was pretty good.  I experimented a bit with manual focus and got some nice split-second shots of racers cutting a corner quite close.  Most shots were about F8, 1/1250 and ISO 400 or 800.  Crowd candids about 1/320.

Bike Jam

The kids and adult racers at Saturday's Bike Jam were incredible.  I shot about 1,700 images, and posted a few hundred to the web.  Light was fine -- bright, sunny and contrasty.  I pushed ISO to 800 for the later races, which gave good depth (e.g., F8+ @ 1/1250).  The Canon 5D handles high ISO very well; it's tough to see different image quality from ISO 400 to 800.

My friend and favorite bike photographer -- il miglior fabbro -- Kevin Dillard was at the Jam, so we coughed-it-up a bit.  I did a number of shots of photographers at the race.  I think these guys and gals are sometimes the odd appendages that really inform us about what is going on.  Not unusual for a 75-degree sunny day athletic event, there were a lot of gorgeous folks about.  And some canines.  So you'll find them in the mix of spandex and sweat.  Also, some blue sky American flag images.  Memorial Day weekend 2008.

Can-Am U19 Challenge

The Can-Am U19 Challenge (organized by Skylands Cycling) is consistently the best all-around  junior bicycling race on the East coast.  2008 marked NCVC Juniors' fourth consecutive year at Can-Am.  We brought seven young men to the three event omnium -- an uphill mountain time trial, a ballpark criterium, and a fairgrounds circuit race.  All very beautiful venues -- and, for once in quite a few races this season, the weather was perfect.  A little rain closed Sunday's circuit event, but that was good against lofty expectations.  The guys did great -- several podiums, and a team trophy.  My 17 year-old pushed to a mid-race tie for first place overall (GC -- general classification), but was marked, blocked and faded to a very respectable top-ten GC result.  His powerful teammate grabbed GC 2nd in the 17-18 year class.  Next year, when both boys will be racing age 18, is quite promising.  Same story for our 15 year-old hot shots.

The photography was pretty good.  950 images; posted 210+ to website.  (Satisfactory yield was pretty high -- near 40% -- but didn't post many shots with folks I didn't know.)

Stuck ISO at 800 except for in the best light where I shot 400.  This let me work at 1/1250 and F8 +/- ... The cycling photography sweet spot for the 70-200 F4L seems to be F8 -- sharp and reasonable depth for the action.  Bicycling seems to require about 1/1250 if you're not panning.  I adjusted ISO to be near this sweet spot for action ... crowd/candid stuff generally gets about 1/320 ... higher if I want more bokeh.  Got a couple nice race shots at about 1/320 while panning.

Lots of kids racing bikes, a number of good crowd (and friend) shots, and a couple odd dog and bug images.  Enjoy.

Poolesville Road Race

NCVC's Poolesville Road Race is always epic: 4-to-7 ten mile laps (depending on category) on country roads, with a one mile dirt stretch along the Potomac River. The dirt is often sketchy, with gravel spots and potholes. One dirt section got about covered with water-bottles shook loose. About 100 volunteers required for the event. I worked morning shift as lead driver for the Women's Pro/1/2/3 race. In afternoon, I shot some pictures. Good light, nice contrast, ISO 400, 1/1250 shutter speed, better quality. About 60 posted to web. Take was low because about mid-afternoon I got called to EMT duty. A junior went down hard, (briefly) unconscious. I followed his care to the ER that night, where CAT scans showed normal. While paid EMT squad was busy with this patient, I treated others at finish area. Long day.

Crashes (Tour de Ephrata)

Crashes are compelling events at bicycle races.  I'm not sure exactly why.  I'm set by personal history, a sense of pain and desire to help.  When I was seventeen, a drunk driver ran a red light and hit my car.  Bad news: bottom GCS coma score, brain surgery, left-side paralysis, much damage, long recovery.  Many folks did God-lovely things to help.

A bunch of folks crashed at the Tour de Ephrata in Lancaster County, PA.  My seventeen-year-old son chased a strong threat in the Cat 3/4 criterium:  he overcooked a 90-degree turn at about 30 mph, hit the curb, settled his bike and flew into a wall.  Lots of abrasion, deep bruises to his upper left arm and, later, pain in the clavicle/acromioclavicular area.  We swathed him.  JayDawg (who crashed Saturday) gave solace.  Monday's X-rays showed no fracture.  He'll race Poolesville Saturday.

Ephrata was the first bike race in several weekends without rain.  Saturday's road race had nasty cross winds and chalky light, but Sunday's Pain Mountain time trial and town criterium were better -- light gray sky.  1,000+ images.  More than I needed; whittled down to 170+ posted.  Shot most everything at ISO 400; sacrificed depth of field.  In retrospect, ISO 800 would have been better.

Ephrata images here; movie here.  Lots of race shots, brief crash series and some farm critters.  Though he crashed in the crit, my son finished in the money on Pain Mountain, so overall the weekend was a great success.

Carl Dolan Memorial Spring Classic

Another rainy day at the races.  Caught three events -- masters 30+/40+, Cat 3/4 and Pro 1/2/3.  346 images; pushed 70+ to web.  Started with ISO 800, then dropped to 400 when light improved. Race shots at 1/1000 second, auto aperture.  Rain limited mobility; plastic bag over camera.  Wind hit 35-45 mph during last event, cancelled due to lightning.  (Tornado reported down the road.)  A number of crashes in several races.  Not a pretty day, epic.  Changed focusing mode to more center-weighted.  This improved picture quality for action shots; the lens hunted less to focus.  Abandoned event when last race cancelled; tent ripped useless, referee and post-race pavilions flattened.

Mac Pro much faster for post processing.  About 5 times faster than MacBook.

Licensed a dozen pictures to a team's sponsor; funds donated to Ethiopia Healthcare Network.

Mac Pro

Bit the bullet.  A great first-year plus in the Apple world with my Macbook (Intel 2 GHz Core 2 Duo) transitioned to more serious iron:  I grabbed a Mac Pro from Craig's list.  The Mac laptop is great, but it isn't designed to be left on most of the time and crunch gigabytes of RAW files -- or so I reasoned.  The Mac Pro is a chunky tower, runs two dual-core CPUs at 3 GHz, and came with 5 Gb RAM and a terabyte of storage (across 3 internal hard drives).  I'm cautious about high-tech gear from Craig's or Ebay.  This unit came from a respected firm that chose not to go Mac, and had two years left on its Apple Care service program.  I researched comparable refurbs at Apple ("Refurbished Mac" at store.apple.com), learned the machine's history ("hardly used since our old IT guy left"),  reviewed the machine on site, slept on the deal, and checked kitchen points with Care.

I picked it up Thursday lunchtime and set it up that night.  Ran Software Update to get the latest version of Tiger (it was running OS X 10.4) and other things.  Hooked-up the Macbook with a firewire cable, ran Apple's Migration Assistant to transfer data and applications, and after about an hour, the MP was racing on its own, running the old programs, email and the like.  I dawdled into the early morning, arranging disk volumes and back-up routines to my liking.  (A 232 Gb main drive holds boot and application files; a 750 Gb drive holds Aperture libraries and iTunes music; and a second 232 Mb holds Aperture vaults.)  I use a 500 Gb external firewire drive for backup.  Friday, I picked-up OS X 10.5 -- Leopard.  It installed without difficulty.  I configured Leopard's Time Machine to back-up the main drive (but, importantly, not the Aperture images).  I configured SilverKeeper to back-up the Aperture libs.  Everything seems to cook pretty well.  I'll take pictures at Sunday's bike race and gauge post-processing performance that night.  One item I yearn for is a reliable, affordable Blue-Ray drive, that will allow me to burn 50 Gb disks that I can store off-site ... prices will probably drop to $300 or so this summer.

The MP is playing iTunes (Schumann) and the MB is tucked in its case, ready for the next flight to Africa or out-of-town race (Ephrata, I think).  No more beach balls.