But for the tire, the race was won.

The story of frustration, as told in four images.









Local fave Jeremiah Bishop after just having limped across the Greenbrier finish line with a flat tire. Coming in 4th place.

A couple more from Greenbrier

(Click the images for larger versions)

Another in my series "No idea who this guy is, but I liked the shot". I foresee this being a long and interesting series.


"Sponsored by..."

The rest of the top 4 riders in UCI points (if I understand the race numbering scheme correctly). From left to right:

2 Jeremiah Bishop
3 Chris Eatough
4 Jeff Schalk

Pictured below (in my earlier post), the #1 UCI points guy, Todd Wells.

Before and after

I shot the Greenbrier Challenge Mountain Bike Race in WayTheHellUpThere, MD today. Actually, I shot only the UCI Elite/Pro race, and the start of the SS/Clydesdale/Expert group. I had planned to stay longer, but by the time the pros race was over, I'd had enough standing-around-in-the-sun time.

Todd Wells managed to pull out a win despite flatting about a kilometer from the finish line. The gods must have been smiling on him, because Jeremiah Bishop, the racer who had been in the #2 position, flatted at nearly the same moment. They both decided to ride in on the flats. Todd managed to keep up the pace and win. Jeremiah came in over 8 minutes back (in 4th place). Full results here.

As they lined up before the race start, I snapped a decent "before" shot (click the images for the slightly larger versions):



At the end of the race, I was at the finish line and caught him coming in for the win on his new prototype "airless tire" system. It promises to be all the rage in the '08 season:



More shots of the race to come. Stay tuned.

Another Lodi '05

Here's a shot where I got a cool background blur. I desaturated the image, and decided I liked that even more than the original.

Lodi 2005

Here's another one of those "I have no idea who this guys is, but..." shots.



The "but" here is that he looked like he was having a damn good time. That goes a long way in my book. This is early morning. Maybe 8-8:30am. If you're enjoying yourself at that hour, you're doing OK.

12 hours of Lodi 2005

Here's a shot I took at the 12 Hours of Lodi race back in 2005. I forget why I processed this shot, but the guy is a local. He may have written me asking for a better copy than the unprocessed (and god-awful) original I had posted to pbase.

Anyway, here's the end result after a little love and attention.

More Leesburg

Two more shots from Leesburg. I liked this shooting location because it told the whole story in a sentence: "You're in a mountain bike race on a farm. The end."

Clicking on the photos takes you to the unedited, slightly larger versions.

Leesburg Baker's Dozen

Another one where the colors really stand out.

Last cross-post (hopefully)

Here's another shot from this past weekend's Leesburg Baker's Dozen race. Originally posted on my other blog. Now that this blog is up and running, I don't expect to do this cross-post nonsense anymore. Nothing but fresh content, evermore.


"Some Guy Dropping In"
2007
oil on canvas
(just kidding)

New photos

Here are a couple of my favorite race photos from this past weekend's Leesburg Baker's Dozen. Click on the photos for the full web-sized image.

Rider Mike Buchness (thanks for the ID, Lee!). I like the way the photo came out, with him riding right out of the frame.



Don't know who this guy is either, but I love how the bright blue of his jersey/shorts compliments the bright orange of his bike. No saturation enhancement on this shot, either. It's straight out of the camera.

That's it for tonight. Look for more favorite photos in the future.

Oh, and I've migrated all (I think) of my old bike/racing posts from Rant-o-riffic at this point. So this is *the* place to check out the best of my race photos from now on.

Master plan for TooFatToRace

The plan for this blog is...

To be a place where I can direct people (usually mountain bike racers) when I post hundreds of new race images to my pbase site. Racers can come here, then jump directly to the most recent series of photos I have online.

...and...

To be a place where I can highlight my best/favorite race photos, so as to isolate them from the hundred of other race photos that I don't necessarily like so much...or that are just run-o'-the-mill shots.

Kinda like a portfolio of strictly mountain bike race photos. Who knows, maybe one day Sports Illustrated will happen across my little collection and the phone will ring. Maybe.

Leesburg Baker's Dozen

I spent a few hours yesterday (4/20/07) out in Leesburg, VA shooting the Leesburg Baker's Dozen 13 hour endurance mountain bike race. It was a beautiful day and I'd have been happy to spend all 13 hours shooting. Unfortunately prior commitments left me only a couple hours of shooting time. Luckily, many of the friend's I had in the race were running solo, so I had plenty of chances to catch them in action.

My pbase gallery of the photos (straight out of the camera and ham-handedly resized) can be found here:

http://www.pbase.com/gmr2048/leesburgbakersdozen&page=1

If you see a shot you like/want, let me know and I'll get you a full sized version. Some shots may look better smaller. If I can (and if necessary), I'll clean up the photo too. If you want to use the shots anywhere non-commercial (message boards, blogs, whatever), I'd appreciate a link back to the gallery and a photo credit. If you want to use the image commercially, contact me. I'm cheap and easy ;)

And finally, please feel free to cross-post the gallery link to the all of the usual MTB sites so people can see themselves in action.

Intro

Since I do a fair amount of mountain bike racing photos, I decided to consolidate them under a single blog banner. Welcome to TooFatToRace.

To email me, use toofattorace at gmail dot com.

I'll post my most recent set/links shortly (from the Leesburg Baker's Dozen race on 4.21.07). As time permits, I may even go back and migrate older bike racing posts from my other blog to this one.

Feel the Love

I received an email from a buddy pointing out that Team Bike Works, organizers of the "12 Hours of Lodi Farm" race, have updated their web page for this year's event and have used one of my photos from the '06 race on the home page.

Pretty cool. I'm fairly sure I told them last year that they were free to use my shots on their page as long as they gave me a photo credit and a link back to the gallery. Both of which they did. I just kinda wished they'd have shot me an email mentioning the usage. Here's the shot they used after last year's race:

Anyway, this year's race is the same weekend as another event at which I'm volunteering my photography...err...skillz: The American Red Cross of the National Capital Area's Fire & Ice Ball (The National Capital Area Chapter's Annual Gala).



So a busy weekend is planned, but hopefully I'll come away with a bunch more MTB race photos, as well as a bunch of formal shots of Gala attendees. I've never shot an uber-formal event like this. Here's hoping it goes well. Oh, yeah. I'll be sporting a tux, too.