Leaving Edmond on the 5:45 ferry

Coming into Kingston

The early-bird beats..... the traffic

NW Cup #4 marked the finals of the inaugural running of the NW Cup, 4 race,  Series (formerly combined with the Fluidride Cup).  Some new sections of the race course made for some new scenery and an oldie but goodie with a twist came into play with a set of jumps in the Pro/CatI course.

The layout of the courses made it a bit hard to get from on course to the other to cover the various class, but I think I did a good job. I hope that CatII and CatIII riders appreciate that I found a NEW spot to shoot their race runs. Someone was nice enough to point out that I seem to shoot those classes from the same spot race to race… to race (thanks for that).

Very good time.

Check out all my photos from the weekend here:

NWCUP#4 Photo Gallery (Saturday – Practice)

NWCUP#4 Photo Gallery (Sunday – Practice – Race)

#683 Travis Erickson from gohuckyourself.com haulin' ass down the beginning stretch of the "White Knuckle"

#520 Adam Ransavage on a new section of the Pro/CatI course.

Epic dust.. and a lot of sun... but I'm not going to complain much about TOO MUCH SUN. Rider: #652 Shane Wise.

BBBRRRAAAAAAPPPPP!!!!!!!

#424 Matt Patterson of Dirt Corps being too fast to stay in frame...

Men's Pro - Series Champion - #139 Kyle Thomas

Woman's Pro - Series Champion - #3 Jill Kitner

Mens CatI 0-18 (JrEX) Series Champion - #200 Brian Mullen

One more for the road.... a Pacific Northwest rarity.... epic light. Rider: #655 Nikolas Clarke.

My return trip was not quite as solitary.

45 minutes wait for the bridge, and a 2 hour wait for the ferry.... nice

priceless.... or whatever the ferry cost to come back across to Edmonds

I hit every race to shoot photos. Wide range of weather and the ever-evolving course layout made it very fun, but challenging to find the latest photo-worthy feature of each course.  I will have a review some of my favorite shots of the series and the story behind them in a later post. Stay tuned.

Check out all my photos from the weekend here:

NWCUP#4 Photo Gallery (Saturday – Practice)

NWCUP#4 Photo Gallery (Sunday – Practice – Race)

Race Results HERE

—G

Last summer, one of our very first outings, we decided, or shall I say I decided to go to Sucia Island. During the way up, we were boarded by the coast guard, got the speedometer clogged, and while tapping on the glass of the speedometer, found out the hard way that there was apparently a short in the dash console, because tapping on the glass promptly killed the motor off the shore of Clark Island. Eventually, the boat started and we made it back to Blakely Island for the night. The next day we returned to the boat launch at Twin Bridges, where the boat died again and we ended up bashing the rear of the boat on the gnarly metal log boom. So the following weeks, I got to learn about gel-coat repair, and boat wiring.

This trip, started out with similar luck. Rain water in the bilge made me question the presence of the plug, the GPS crapped out unable to acquire satellites, and the start of crabbing season littered our course with crab pot buoys. But, we ended up busting out the charts, checking the compass and Kyle did a great job taking watch for oncoming crab pot buoys.

For me, Sucia Island lived up to the hype. Got a place on the dock, time to hike around, ate some chicken, and met some nice people on the dock.  It’s a really nice place and we will be back…

All my photos were taken with my new Panasonic DMC-TS2. Water-proof, shock-proof, freeze-proof, I can put it in my pocket… and it can take a nice picture.

Sucia Island in the distance

Haulin' boat

Fossil Bay at sunrise

Trail overlooking south side of Sucia.

Fox Cove at Sunset

Beach at Fossil Bay

Kyle grubbing on some "ghetto sauce" chicken.

Check the my Smugmug Gallery for all of my pictures of our trip.

—G

25% OFF Photo Prints and Digital Photo Downloads from Greg Tubbs // Grubworks Media Productions !! (excluding tax and shipping). http://grubworks.smugmug.com/

Code: GWM4THZ2XX

Valid 07/01/2010  thru 07/05/2010

Happy 4th of July!!

The NW weather this summer has been unpredictable…. But once again, rain or shine, I was pretty excited to shoot this third leg of the NW Cup DH series in Port Angeles. I love shooting DH races….. Saturday was nice….  not a cloud in the sky….. Sunday was a mixed bag of sun to light rain and everything between, but I’m not complaining.

Ok, this about it for my story intro, So much for writing. But why write when a picture tells a thousand words…. and I got a bunch of pictures.

The last time I shot the trail “King Diamond” it was rainy and foggy. This time, with the week of rain prior, everything was nice and green and no dust, no mud and nothing but sunshine on Saturday.

I finally got a chance to shoot at the final jump of the Pro/Cat I course during practice. I would like to shoot this during the actual race, but I think it would be crowded.  I usually try to avoid the crowds on race days.  Typically, I shoot the big jumps, tight corners and anything that might be considered too close to the course during practice. Practice is the time for racers style. No-time for air-time during a race.

Kyle Thomas has been killin’ it this year. And his dedication to the race makes for some good photos. He always has a race stance, race face and does a bunch of practice runs. So I usually end up with some good shots of Kyle.

I don’t think I have been to a race in the last 3 years where Sam Burkhardt was not racing. Transition Bikes is blowing up. What I truly like about Transition Bikes is not only the bikes, its the people behind the company.  Good people.

I think this is Casey.

The JuniorX races started before I could get into my scouted position. So instead of missing half the racers, I decided to do a little experimenting. Mixed results, but better than missing out all together.

Great weekend. I saw a bunch of people that I haven’t seen since last year. Tried out a iPad (hmmmm, I could do that)…. Had a good burger at Jashua’s (the restaurant, next door to the Super8)…..  Good Times. Big thanks Loreto for saving the weekend.

Check out all my photos from the weekend here >>>>>>
(New lower prices for prints and downloads, don’t be shy)

PRO / CAT I

CAT II / CAT III

Thanks  —G

One bad thing about spiders, is that sometimes they just sit there and do nothing. But, on the flip-side, the good thing about spiders is that you can make them mad pretty easily and get a good, agressive pose,  just by messing with it a bit. But they usually will make a brak for it everytime the sprobe hits it.

This spider was pretty cool looking up close. To me, it looked like an Alaskan King crab, like the ones on “Deadliest Catch”. If this spider was as big as those crab, I wouldnt leave the house.

I tried to create interesting shadows against the plainwhite background. Most of the time, I was just lucky to keep the spider in frame. Also something hard about shooting spiders is that they dont take direction well. He acted like he didnt even hear  me , or maybe he did and just didnt care. Spiders can be like that.

More photos from the Arachni-PHOTO session HERE

The weather messed up some weekend plans. But I’m looking forward to getting back to shooting mountain bikes again next weekend at Port Angeles. See ya there.

—G

Of course I’m there mainly as a proud parent supporting the boy, but also these games are great for me to work on action shot skills.

One thing I learned early on while shooting these games, is that guessing where the action will be is not easy. With mountain biking is pretty easy to make an educated guess where the racer will be. With youth soccer, is hard to tell where players are going to be, with or without the ball. 

Using my prime lenses is not easy at all with youth soccer. They are great for mountain bike races because I know exactly where a racer will be, and their range works well with my strobe kit. For soccer, the action is 99% too far away for using the 50mm and 105mm. To use my 300mm, I have to stand at the opposite end of the field because it is just too long with the DX camera body.  If I have a nice sunny day, my 70-300mm VR (I dont use the VR for most sports applicaions) is fine, even my 18-135mm is ok, but only if there is enough light. But for a typical cloudy day, my zoom lenses are just too slow. So, I have come to the conclusion that I need to invest in a 70-200mm f2.8.  (Then a new FX body.)

The full gallery for 2010 Marysville Parks and Recreation Boys U-10 “Marysville Sounders” is HERE

The full gallery for 2010 Marysville Parks and Recreation Boys U-10 “Marysville Sounders” is HERE

More photos ….. Finally got all my photos from 2010 NWCup #2 , Port Angeles, WA posted to the Grubworks Photos Gallery. (I need to be quicker on getting photos up….)

It’s funny how increased world geo-seismic activity can lead to me getting some sweet pictures. This race combined the second race of the NW Cup with the first leg of the PRO Gravity Tour national series, which promised to bring national pro racing teams to the area. Funny things happen. The Sea Otter Classic, in Monterey was a week prior which teams from all over the world attend, since it is the unofficial kick-off to the world’s mountain biking season. Then something unique happened. A volcano erupting in Iceland sent an ash plume across Europe and screwed up flights in and out of Europe for the next week following Sea Otter. With flights delayed, canceled, rescheduled, most of the European riders were unable to fly home.  So many riders and teams opted to drive up to the little race in Port Angeles, WA and make the best of their time in the States and get more time on bikes before starting the World Cup circuit.  Bonus

SATURDAY

Early morning, up at 4:00am to get to Edmonds to catch the 5:10 am ferry, another hour of driving and get parked at the race course west of Port Angeles. The parking lot is a tiny strip on the side of the hill. With all the big teams at the race, I thought parking was going to be terrible, but it was surprisingly smooth (RIP dual-slalom course).

Good day of shooting the practice runs, which is always nice to take the pressure off getting the do-or-die shots during the race. Also it’s great to scout out where to set up for the actual race runs the next day, Also with many racers taking multiple practice runs, I am able to get more than one shot of each racer.

#284 Kevin Littlefield

#60 Ryan Stayskal

#125 Chelsey Stevens

#122 Greg Minnaar

#97 Rachel Atherton

Day done. Off to the hotel. (I don’t miss sleeping in the van).

SUNDAY

I woke up from an awesome sleep at the luxurious Port Angeles Super8 motel. I didn’t get the “suite” upgrade I got last visit, but still nice to be indoors and not having to drive home and back for the night. The same weekend was the “Jazz in the Olympics” festival. This is not cool Jazz or even New Orleans Jazz. This is like DixieLand, straw hats, roll out the barrell, with matching jackets, Jazz. Which lead to an interesting mix of people at the Super8 continental breakfast line.

Ok ‘nough of that. Back to the hill.

Shot some good photos. The location were I was going to set up for the Pro race runs was already occupied by Ian Hylands (his shots are nice), so I moved back up the hill to a somewhat less optimum spot. Bigger events also pull bigger name photographers. But it was all good……my results are always improving, so I‘m happy……

#139 Kyle Thomas

#241 Derek Batchelder

#522 Jeremy Soltow

#3 Jill Kintner

#25 Eric Loney

#97 Rachel Atherton

—G

Check out the rest of my 2010 NWCup#2/ProGRT#1  Photos

SATURDAY PHOTOS /     SUNDAY PHOTOS

My daily morning  ritual…. check e-mail… check Facebook… check PinkBike.com to see what has ben chosen for “POD”.  Today it was one of mine. Score!!   I have been “quietly” been waiting for POD honors for years. Well maybe not quietly…. “Damn, why isnt my photo POD”

 Anyway, I’m pretty stoked….

The great thing about a mountain bike race series that starts in March…. that it starts in MARCH a full month before the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey CA, which most consider the annual kick off to the race season. The bad thing about having the first race of a mountain bike series in MARCH…. the weather. It could be good, it could be bad. This weekend was a bit of both.

SATURDAY

I missed the first ferry to Kingston, but really wasn’t in too big of a hurry. Once in Kingston it will be about an hour of driving to till the race venue at Dry Hill, just west of Port Angeles, WA. Practice starts at 9:00, so I will have plenty time.  I saw Scott Stewart and Levi from Bikeworks of Lake Stevens and got caught up on whats new. I haven’t seen them in about a year.  Scott gave me a bad time about the amount of dust he figures is covering my bike in the garage back home, nothing new there. (PS…… anybody want to by a barely-used “vintage” Santa Cruz VP Free ????)

Roll into the parking lot and hit the hill. Not raining, but not sunny. Like many of the guys racing this weekend will be a good opportunity to try out most of the new gear acquired since last season. A couple new lenses and some new lighting.

I met photographer, Ki Kopkau shooting on the trail.  I’ve seen his work at many of the same races I shot last year and was always very impressed with the quality of his work. It is always nice to finally talk to people that you only know on-line or or only know by nome from visiting their website. I have come to think of other photographers in a similar way that I (when I raced) considered other racers.  They are my peer group. My social peers, which you share experiences, exchange ideas and stories. But to some degree they are “competitive” peers and I want to see how my photo results stack up to theirs.

SUNDAY

Woke up from an awesome sleep at the luxurious Port Angeles Super8 motel (it was very nice, and as a bonus, its very cheap. We retired my mobile accommodations “casa de mazda”, so staying in an actual motel is a bit of something different) got a couple cups of lobby coffee headed back to the race course.   RAIN.   I talked to some of the guys getting in an early practice run reported from that the fresh-cut sections of the Pro/CAT1 course was soaking up the rain and it wasn’t much slipperier that the day prior. That report changed as the rain continued and “Dry Hill” became “Wet and Muddy Hill”.

Anyway this was my first field outing using my newly acquired set of PocketWizard PlusIIs, which I found to have somewhat of a learning curve, but I am getting the hang of them. STill waiting to get a new camera, but figured that could wait. I’m pretty happy with the results considering the weather. I definately have some things I want to do different for the upcoming ProGRT/NWCup#2 coming up in a couple weeks. It was good to get back out shooting bikes. Jake is sick of me taking his picture all winter.

Check out my full gallery of all the photos from 2010 NWCUP #1   HERE

— G

Other than that, I have finally got around to backing up 2009 photos and video and buying some new equipment. I’m really looking forward to this bike season which for me kicks off next weekend at the first race of the NW Cup in Port Angeles.

I got some new equipment to kick off the year also. Some much improved lighting, including some new Pocketwizards and some new flash units, which will definatly help in the dark dank forest of Port Angeles

See ya there….  —-G