The Adventures of Jono

Reading

Today I shot the 3rd race in the Commerce Bank Triple Crown week in Reading, PA. Reading is really challenging to shoot because it is boooring. It's lacking scenics and the downtown is slowly being revitalized but it's got a long way to go. What I do like though is the challenge. Anyone can go to a beautiful place and get nice shots but put someone in a visually boring place and see what they get. Ragged roads, abandoned warehouses, old bars and row houses were the setting for today. What to do, what to do?

Finally the racing got started and I took off on the moto to get some nice safe shots that I had gotten before. After getting the easy ones I remembered a place I had seen one year earlier. Tim scooted us around on his Beemer with ease, we had just worked together in Allentown and it was great to work together again. (Thanks to Paul McKelvey for the photo) We headed back out of downtown and up to the historic area. Their are some really nice old houses up there. As we cruised along I saw the place from last year so we pulled over to check it out. Come to find out it was actually a cemetery. Across from the cemetery was a beautiful old mansion that is now a B&B. Well I couldn't pass either of these up so I got off the moto and had a look around. The light was awkward. The angles weren't working. With nothing looking good I walked through the big iron gates of the cemetery just to see inside. I walked through, had a quick look and turned to go back out when I saw it. The archway that I had just walked through was beautiful. Above it the ceiling arched up like the inside of an old cathedral and the gates were opened in with the light hi-lighting them against the dark stone columns. That was it, time to make it work.

I took a couple test shots and got the camera set up. The idea was to show off the beautiful architecture of the gates and the house but not so much the race. As the race got close some old guy rode his bike down the side of the road and stopped right in the middle of the driveway leading to the gates.....happens every time. I can't tell you how many shots I have had set up only to have someone decide at the last second that they need to cross the road and stand in front of me. Or a moto, will cross in front just as the riders are going by. It never fails. Fortunately this time the fan was pretty nice and moved quietly when I asked him to. Tim, my moto driver, then stayed out front to keep it from happening again and let me know when the riders were coming. With everything in place and the gate on lock down we sat and waited. Finally the lead cars came. The motos came and then the riders. All I had to do was click away. Click I did and I'm pretty happy with what I got. To me it looks more like somewhere in Europe then Reading, PA. Not too bad considering it took me a year to get the shot.

Still here

It's been a busy couple of weeks so no posts but I'm still here. This week I'm Philadelphia for the Triple Crown aka "Philly week". Mark Z and I started things in DC at the CSC Invitational on Sunday. I posted probably the most photos I ever have from one day of racing that you can check out here Usually we head up to Philly right after the race but this year we had an extra day in between races so we decided to stay in DC and see some sites. Our first stop was the Spy Museum which was pretty cool. They had all kinds of gadgets and stories from the beginning of spy history. If you get the chance definitely check it out. 

After that we headed over to see the Korean War, Vietnam and WWII memorials. It was humbling to walk through and think about what it all meant. I thought about my grandfather while I walked around the WWII memorial.

I thought about his brothers who made it back and the one who didn't. Last summer I learned that his brother was an Army Ranger and was in one of the gliders that went behind enemy lines on D day. My grandfather never talked about it because it bothered him too much but his sister told me the story not long before she past away last summer . Somewhere their are still boxes of letters sent back from Europe and even souvenirs that the brothers sent home as they swept across Europe on their various duties. Even though it always bothered my grandfather I was proud of what he did. Probably should have told him.

The Vietnam Memorial was eerie to me, the names make it different. When you look down the wall and see all those names etched into the stone it seems more real. Flowers are laid at the base of the wall and wreaths or little American flags that flutter in the breeze. In some places kids had made cards that were still left from memorial day. Families were there and looking for names of friends or relatives. It was mostly quiet. For a moment I wished that I had a name of my own to find but it didn't take long to remember what those names really stood for.

Once we finished there we walked over to the Lincoln Memorial. We read Lincoln's inaugural speech and maneuvered around the other tourists to try to get some photos of Lincoln. It's pretty fun being a tourist but credentials would have been nice, maybe a photo bib like we get at the races. I guess that would take the fun out of being a tourist though. 

Now we are up in Philly and I've got some time off in between races so I'll get caught up here. Maybe I'll even come up with some good material from race day.

Oh happy dogs

I'm home again and the dogs are happy. Nothin better than getting home to a happy dog. Roxy could hardly contain herself as I walked in and she bounced around the room, onto me and over and under oh-so-patient Kona. Me being away is new to Roxy since we've only had her since September. Actually we got her and a week later I left for the Tour of Missouri. (The photo of her was actually a yawn so if you see her don't be nervous.) But over the winter I was mostly home so now she is really getting broken in to not having everyone home all the time. Kona on the other hand is well used to it and just goes about her business whether I'm here or not. Her big thing is swimming so as long as her donut shaped tennis ball material thingy gets thrown into the pool she's a happy camper. She's the swimmingest pit bull I've ever seen and the season is about to peak. Everyone always asks how I can stand the Arizona summers but I love them. It's perfect, I get to play and so do the dogs.

We've got lots going on here with work and house projects. The big news is the progress on the new house. This week we had the inspection done on the plumbing and we'll be doing some in-floor electrical work in the next couple days, a little excavating and then the floor gets poured. Right now we're thinking that framing will start within the next 2 weeks. For those of you who haven't been keeping up on this or haven't heard about it yet I'll give you the quick run down. 2 years ago Paula and I bought a piece of land out in Gold Field Ranch which is on the north-east side of Phoenix. It's a rural area but still close to everything by Phoenix standards. Since then we worked with architect Tom Hahn to come up with a design for us that incorporates the environment and our lifestyle. After hours upon hours of back and forth and pouring over plans we settled on a final one. He calls it "fractured". The idea is based on the thought of taking a hike or a ride on a scenic trail and stopping along the way. You know how your going along and then you come to a scenic overlook so you stop for the view. Then you go some more and come across a waterfall and you stop to see it and so on and so on. This is the idea of walking through the house and taking in the scene along the way. You walk in the front and the entry is made to make you stop and look around. As you turn the living room opens up and the views go straight out the back towards the mountains. This carries through to each part of the house just as if you were out on a hike and taking it all in. The best way to describe the inside will be industrial modern. Were using as much recycled and "green" material as we can realistically afford. It had started out as a "green" home but I think at this point it just has some green elements. We were all starry eyed at the idea of building green but when it came down to it it was just too darn expensive to do it completely that way. But we'll do our part with the things we can and it will be pretty darn cool. It's been a culmination of years of dabbling in the real estate markets, slaving over a hot oven, burning the candle at both ends and walking uphill in the snow both ways to school to make it happen and now that things are actually underway its overwhelming and exciting. A lot of work but exciting non the less. I'll keep you updated on the progress.

In the meantime I've been updating my galleries with Tour de Georgia photos. I've gotten 150 or so online now and I heard today that ROAD Magazine has chosen the Tour de GA issue cover.....but I'm not telling you which photo it is. You'll have to wait and see. :)
Here is a shot of our crew minus me. This was on top of Brasstown Bald, stage 6, after everyone had cleared out. We spent our time in the press room up there and finished up just in time for the sunset. After this we hurried down and drove over to Athens to see the finish of the Athens Twilight Crit. I had to finish doing captions and send from the car so that I could get out and see the last 20 laps. Kirsten was all kinds of giddy because her boyfriend Davide Fratini, or is it fiance' now hmmm, was racing. Of course I couldn't stand it so I had to go back to the car and get my camera out to get some shots. It's a good thing I did because I think I was the only one that got a decent finish shot, or at least from what I saw. Shooting those races at night is tough stuff and always a bit of a gamble and I've certainly missed my share. Mostly though I figured if I just shot and got it over with it would justify us hurrying off to get some food. It was a long day considering we had just finished the hardest stage of the TDG, worked on photos until 10 pm and still hadn't eaten anything. My days at the races mostly revolve around rationing food so the time lines are critical. That night my time lines looked like a back alley in Baghdad after the Marines just chased Al-Qaeda through it. Oh wait, Al-Qaeda isn't in Baghdad anymore....well maybe they are. No, no they shouldn't be. Well whatever, I didn't get to eat until somewhere around 11:30 and that's what is important. In the end though it was a good time and I was glad we went. It made for a nice break from the hectic schedule of being at a Tour.

Another day.....

another airport. It's that time of the year! Yesterday I finished shooting the last day of the Tour de Georgia and this morning I am off to Virginia. I'll be spending a few days back in my home town of Va. Beach before heading up to Arlington for the US Air Force Cycling Classic. I'm looking forward to catching up with some old friends and doing a little riding during the week.

While I'm there I'll do some updates here and pull out a few photos from the week. I finished up the week pretty well and everything went smoothly. Not everyone had such good luck and we did have a couple moto crashes. The worst was with Don McQueen and John Pierce. At the beginning of stage 5 we had a neutral roll out and just after the start a couple pedestrians walked out in front of them. Don had just looked down at his map when the fans stepped out and BAM they all went down. John Pierce slid across the pavement and got rid of the skin on his right elbow. Don got a little minor road rash and broke a rib. One of the fans broke a leg in two places while the other was taken away in a neck brace. As far as I know everyone was released from the hospital that evening.

Things happen in a split second during the race. Motos can go down, riders go down and cars get smashed up. Also on stage 5 the Healthnet team car ran into the back of the BMC car. Everyone spends a good part of the day inches away from each other in the caravan and bumps are pretty common. I think being in the heart of Nascar country was sinking into the directors heads a bit too. After the hit the BMC car's bumper was dragging so they ripped it off and threw it in the woods, no pit to pull into out there. Healthnet got pushed off the road after the airbag popped and it stalled. Shake and bake baby, shake and bake!

Well those were a couple of the highlights from the week. Boarding announcements are ringing in my ears so it's time to pack up. I'll post some photos as soon as I get in and settled. Now boarding rows.......

It's on!

Today was stage 2 of the Tour de Georgia. Yesterday we began stage 1 out on Tybee Island which was a pretty cool start. Everyone seemed pretty laid back and relaxed after spending a couple days out there relaxing by the beach. For us it's pretty much business as usual. We've got the regular Cyclingnews crew here of myself, Mark Zalewski and Kirsten Robbins. Mark does the live coverage and race reports each day while Kirsten works on news items and quotes from the day. We've all been working together for the last 3 years and Mark and I for about 5 now so we've got a pretty good system of things. Every day we pack up at the hotel and get to the start of the race so that we can each head off to our respective jobs. I'm on the back of a moto each day shooting so I gather gear and head over to it. Mark is always in a media car so he makes his way there after talking to some riders and getting a scoop for the day. Kirsten gets quotes from the riders as to how they are feeling, how the day was yesterday or about whatever else is going on. The quotes she gets at the start end up going into the live coverage later in the day. And thus our day begins. At the end of the race Mark talks to some riders or maybe team managers or whoever he needs to to get info about the day. Kirsten gets quotes from the winner and then heads to the press conference to get some more time with the big guns from the day. After I have shot the finish I get a couple shots of the winner and then head over to the podium to get those shots. When the podium is wrapped up I'm off to the press room to start my editing and sending out photos. We all finally meet up there and get caught up on stories from the day and then it's nose to the grind stone to try and get our work done before they close the press room. Sometimes we don't quite get done in time so we'll head off to find a good coffee shop to work in.

Stage 1 was pretty short so the day went fast. It always takes a day or two to get into the rhythm of things and Monday was no different. This week I am on the moto with my friend Chris Monroe. Chris and I have worked together off and on since his first time as a "photo moto" at the first Tour de Georgia 6 years ago. He's great to work with and we get on really well with each other. We had a bit of a rough day on stage 1 though. The sprinters seemed eager to keep things together so that they would have their chance at the end of the day so that kept the group bunched up a lot. And with the roads being narrow that didn't make it very easy for us to make our passes. Not long after the start Chris and I were on a pretty wide section of road but riders were spread from shoulder to shoulder when we needed to get by. Things get tight like that sometimes and sometimes tighter than others. But Chris kept us right on the edge of the road for as long as he could and finally we got to a section where there was a big paved median which seemed like a good place for us to get by. He laid on the throttle a little bit to get us past a few guys before the median ended. The bad part was that we had traffic poles in the median; they were those thick round kind that are fixed to the ground and if you hit them with a car they would bend over. I can now tell you however, that they do not bend quite so much when they are hit by a motorcycle or a camera. The first one seemed to glide off of us without any prejudice but the second one hit with a loud thud. At the time I was shooting over my right shoulder so I didn't see it coming but I felt my camera swing back after I heard the hit. I really didn't think much of it until I looked down at my camera and the lens hood from my 70-200 was missing. The guys in the front of the bunch never yelled or anything so I am thinking it just shattered and landed on the other side of the road instead of heading towards the riders, thank goodness! Chris had done a great job of keeping us out of trouble with the riders but my camera bore the brunt of it. I'd rather it be that way instead of being "that guy" and taking out a rider. I shot the rest of the day without much trouble until I got to the finish. The boys were coming in fast....really fast. I got myself set up for the finish shot but when I looked through my camera it seemed fuzzy. When I flipped the camera down and looked at the front of the lens I saw that the UV filter was shattered, that traffic pole had taken it out. So I quickly unscrewed it and flipped the camera back up to catch Ivan Dominguez take the win. Never a dull moment.

Well .........maybe a couple dull moments. Stage 2 today was a slightly less than spectacular stage to say the least. Georgia has some beautiful countryside don't get me wrong. I really like shooting this race but sometimes, as with any stage race, you just have to get from point A to point B and today was pretty much one of those days. you know were board out there when the photographers start taking photos of each other. Casey Gibson and I had the amazing timing today to take photos of each other at exactly the same time so that we could see each others flashes go off. It's the little things.........

That's all for today. It's gotten late and we've got another big stage tomorrow.

Sweet Tea!

Oh yea, bring on the sweet tea! I'm in the airport in Atlanta on my way to Savannah for the start of the Tour de Georgia. What's the best thing about the Tour de Georgia? Sweet tea. With all of the traveling throughout the year the TDG is always one of the highlights because of the southern hospitality. And of course no trip to the south is complete without overdosing on sweet tea.......

They are announcing boarding for my plane so I'll have to expand on the pleasures of sweet tea later. Tomorrow I'll have photos from the pre-race press conference so stay tuned to Cyclingnews for those. Monday it all begins and it looks to be an exciting week. Rock Racing has been let in to the race so we'll see what kind of craziness they bring. Thursday we'll have the first ever team time trial for the race which is gonna be a blast to shoot. I've not shot a team time trial since probably the 2005 Tour de France so I'm pretty excited.

Plane is boarding so I'm off. I'll check back in once I get settled into the race.

Place your bets!

Now here is something were not used to seeing at the US races.....roadside betting. This photo was sent over from Belgium by my old pal John Pierce. Those people know their bike racing! It's similar to people who follow football or basketball here in the US and know players from there college days through the pro ranks. In Europe fans will start to follow riders as juniors even and then espoirs and on. The odds-on favorite was definitely Boonen but it looks like Hincapie wasn't getting too bad of odds compared to a lot of the others.

It's old news now but at the end of the day Tom Boonen (photo by Luc Claessen) ripped the legs off the rest of the bunch for the win. If you haven't read the whole report you can read it here on Cyclingnews. My buddy James Haung was there this year and he's loaded up some cool bits in the tech section too. It was pretty interesting to read about what guys were doing differently to bikes just for that day and also what guys didn't change anything.

Speaking of tech! I've got 2 new bikes in the stable for testing. James Haung and I are doing a really cool test with the LOOK 595's. The 595's come in 'Origin' models and 'Ultra' with the Ultra being the stiffer of the two. James and I each have 2 bikes built identically and our job is to try and see if we can tell which one is the Origin and which is the Ultra. The Ultra uses 15% more carbon fiber to increase the stiffness for bigger guys like myself or even smaller sprinters who want that little bit extra. These bikes are sweet! Each one is built with SRAM Red components, Ritchey carbon bar and stems and Mavic Rsys wheels. Were going to spend a couple months on these and then we'll have a full report on our findings so stay tuned.

One more thing. I read a great quote the other day that I wanted to pass along. I'm not sure who said it but it read like this...."I hope I am the person my dog thinks I am."

Think about that one and have a good week.

ROAD....Tour of California

For those of you that might not know it I am a regular contributor to ROAD Magazine. I love working with ROAD because they are more photo oriented than anyone else. A lot of my shots are scenics and display best when they are used big which ROAD does. And they use good paper so the colors come out really well. On the production and editorial side of things are Tim Schamber and Neil Browne. Tim does all of the layout and is the photo editor while Neil chases the stories. The thing I appreciate about the magazine is that it provides a different view of cycling than just having strictly race coverage. In this time of the internet it doesn't make much sense to go hardcore with the race coverage in print when everyone already read about the race 3 weeks earlier on the web. They have also pushed me to improve my images. When you work with a magazine that prints your stuff big then you better get good shots.

With all that said, the current issue for May is dedicated to the Tour of California. The issue showcases the work of photographers John Segesta, Al Crawford, Carson Blume and yours truly. I get all misty eyed thinking about what a privilege it is to work with such a good group of guys. In the future I'll take some time and give a little background on each of them but in the meantime it's just plain privilege to have my work right next to theirs.

Whenever I talk to to people they always ask about how I got certain shots, equipment etc. So what I am going to do is use ROAD as a reference material and talk about some of my photos from each issue. If you don't have ROAD you can get a subscription here. Otherwise you can got to Barnes & Noble or something like that but doing a subscription is the cheaper way to go and hey, it comes right to your house.

My plan is to give specific page numbers as a reference and I'll talk about the photo on that page. Their is always a story behind the shot and if anyone has questions you can post them here or just e-mail and I will post the question and a response. Big fun!

So everyone run out and get a ROAD Magazine and I'll start posting some stories!

Could it be?

Another new blog? Yep, it's true, I have created another new blog. Well its not all new but I have changed to a different blogging service. This one does more and I really like the way they display my photos. I'll also be able to add in some extra little bits here and there but those will stay a surprise until they are posted. :) One more important thing I now have is an RSS feed and you'll see that link over to the right or click this link.

I hope everyone enjoys the new layout!

Updates and flashbacks...Tour of California

Well the Tour of California photo gallery is bursting at the seams after several late nights of editing and uploading. Right now it sits at almost 400 photos in the gallery. In total I took just about 9,000 frames
between the press conference before the race through the last podium on Sunday. Of course a lot of those are sequences like finishes where you might click off 30 frames as they come across the line so I think that total number is a little deceiving. In shooting the finish like that I'll only save maybe 1 or 2 of the good ones and dump the rest.

Just before I left for California, literally the day before, I got a shiny new Canon Mark III. That definitely made a difference with the number of frames I took since the Mark III shoots at 10 frames per second. And being a 10 megapixel camera that means some pretty large files. So to help with the large files I also got the new Lexar UDMA memory cards and UDMA card reader. This helps things a lot when downloading at the end of the day since the new cards are 300x for speed verses the older "high speed" cards which were 144x. What this translates to is download times which are more in the 4-5 minute range for downloading 2 4gb cards at once with 2 piggybacked readers verses more like 8-10 minutes each for the older cards using 1 card reader. And what that translates to is being able to get to editing faster which means I can post photos quicker, which means I can leave the press room sooner, which means we get to dinner quicker, which means we get to the hotel faster and therefor get to bed sooner. One hick up in the chain, not including time spent at the bar of course, and it means you get less sleep and are a little more worn out for working the next day. Over the course of a 7 day race those little bits of lost sleep add up and significantly add to your overall feeling of being completely shattered by the end; which you are going to feel anyway but the idea is to minimize that as much as possible and the simple purchase of the latest read/write technology can place you well on the road to redemption.

Flashbacks......cold...rain...7 hours on the back of a moto. What was I thinking? On stage 4 this
year we got some horrible weather. We'd all been watching earlier in the week and hoping that the forecast would change but our prayers would not be answered. That morning I put on every layer I had and even broke out my Gore-tex socks. Gore-tex socks are my last resort. If I break out the Gore-tex socks you can be sure that there is some apocalyptic weather headed our way and it would be high time to make sure the insurance policies are paid up, you've said "I love you" to everyone you care for and you've made your peace with whom or whatever you worship. I think my prediction was spot on for stage 4 and I believe any of the riders who left the start line that day would agree.

Highway 1 had the potential for providing a beautiful backdrop to what is quickly becoming an early season favorite in the pro peloton. Instead we got sheets of rain blowing in sideways buffeted by 50 mph gusts of wind that blew icy sea air into our faces. In some places visibility dropped to what seemed like the inside of the visor on my helmet. At one point the rain was stinging my face and the wind was blowing my helmet backwards on my head so I stuck my hand up inside my helmet to cover my face and pull down on the visor so it wasn't blowing around. People at the races always say how great of a job I have, how lucky I am. Well I can't argue that but on that day the romanticism wore off and I would gladly have traded any one of them for there place in line at Starbucks to get a grande caramel machiato while waiting in town for the finish.

What kept me going on that day was several things. One of those things was the riders themselves. Geez can those guys suffer. To be sitting next to the break and the rain is coming down, the wind is ripping across the road and it just can't be any worse of a day to be out on a bike and those guys keep hammering. Not only do they keep hammering along but then at the end Dominique Rollin has the where-with-all to attack. What planet is that guy from? And then you've got big George Hincapie right behind him! While that is going on my fellow photographers Casey Gibson, Doug Pensinger, Graham Watson, Tim deWaele and Al Crawford are right there shooting all the action. I know they are just as miserable as I am but they are still working so why should I do any less? To top it all off our moto drivers are the guys taking the brunt of the wind and rain, at least I get some break from sitting behind the driver. Of course most of them do have electric jackets to keep them warm so don't feel too bad for them. :) But seriously, as cold and wet and nasty as it was they still got us where we needed to be when we needed to be there and I did not hear of one mishap that day. I can't explain how good those guys are to do what they do with us poking and prodding them all day. I've been in more high adrenalin situations on the back of a motorcycle over the years than I can count and I've always made it out without a scratch because of the spectacular driving done by the professional crew of drivers we have at the races. I'd go anywhere and back with them.

At the end of the day it took me almost an hour of sitting in the car with the heat cranked to get myself to stop shaking. I changed some layers and got rid of the wet ones. My cameras and gear was completely soaked but somehow I got it all through the day without anything being unusable. Even my flash which tends to fill up with water made it. Normally the water fills up the back screen and I use it as a sort of gauge. If it gets to a certain point I know it will be OK and things aren't too bad. But if it goes past that mark and the water continues to collect then its a bad day and trouble is coming. I guess you could look at it as the flash being half full or half empty. I'm a pretty optimistic guy but as far as I'm concerned if the flash is half full that's a bad thing.

It all goes back to the Gore-tex socks. I use them in the worst of weather and they are meant to keep my feet dry and warm. On stage 4 they were anything but and when I finally took them off at the end of the day I would say they were just about half full. As comedian Lewis Black says, "something has gone askeeew." The socks called it but even they couldn't withstand the wrath of mother nature that long cold day on stage 4. In the end it will be a day for all to remember; an epic 7 hour day with hellish weather that many didn't survive. It will go down in the history of cycling as the day another great Canadian cyclist was recognized with the win by Dominique Rollin. For me, I will never forget the wet, cold misery of that day and you can be sure that at the next race I'll have some better @%$# socks!