TWENTY FOUR

USA Pro Cycling XC Mountain Bike Championship, Missoula MT

On July 23, 2011 Missoula hosted is first ever US Professional XC mountain bike championship at Marshall Mountain.  The course was grueling, but the day was perfect. I had to work until 5:30 and the race started at 6:00 so I was a little late in getting the the race and had to "run" up the mountain to get to a good location. After my heart exploded and my lungs popped like a walleye's that's been brought up from the deep too fast, the oxygen delivery to my brain suffered the equivalent of a mild stroke. I just set the ol' Rebel to auto, and jockeyed spots that gave me good comps. 

The race leaders. It was close through the first 4 laps. They are coming up about a 5-10% grade here and going faster than I can go on flat ground.
I don't normally take pictures of moving people or things but this was an opportunity to get really close to world class athletes.


Sam Schultz - Champion on Lap 5
Winner and Local favorite Sam Schulz. This was on a section of switchbacks and the tree on the left was right on the corner were the would turn almost 180 degrees while dropping 4-5 feet. I have no idea how they did this and I watched 20 bikers do it.

The bikers were amazing athletes and completely fearless. They would throw their bikes around the trail as much as turn them. Most of these pictures were somewhere around f5.6-f8.0 and shutter speeds around 160 to 200. Shot everything as JPEG and cropped in IPhoto. No flash. I learned something new - brown dirt reflects a lot of light and provides a really nice fill light for speeding biker's faces. I'll have to file that away.


Grinding out on the uphill.











The athletes were accessible and seemed to enjoy the very appreciative crowd. It was a first for me when I really had a good time photographing a sporting event.

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