Back to work, cloudy skies, and nights of sorting through photos I took at the ’09 Sea Otter Classic.

The trip, on whole, was  great. No ghetto living on this trip or a long drive. The tight business budget allowed for a discount flight, a cheap hotel, and a sporty rental car. I could get used to trips like this very easily. There were glitches on the trip and I have come to realize that, in many cases, I am my own worst enemy. Got lost driving more than once, locked the rental car keys in the trunk, almost missed my return flight, there was many more, but those are the highlights.

Thursday———————–

I flew from Seattle to San Jose and drove to Monterey. Got there a little late, but was able to catch some Cat 1 down hill practice.

Friday————————

Cat 1 Dual Slalom (morning)  /  more Cat 1 DH practice (afternoon).

pics coming

Saturday———————

Pro Dual Slalom.  Woke up to a foggy morning, loaded up, and on the hill by 8:30.

Lots of good riding. Shooting photos at the Sea Otter dual slalom is like many of the big bike events, where you have all day to sit in the sun, get sunburned, try to find shade and watch people.

I think that there should be “Spectator Rules and Responsibilities” for spectators at races, concerts, and other such events.

Rule 1 – As a spectator, if you are not photogenic, dont stand in the front row, behind the burm, near the jump, or basically anywhere that you will be part of a photo composition.

Rule 2 – As a spectator deemed photogenic enough to serve as background, pay attention to the event, or at least keep your head in the general direction of the action.

Rule 3 – As a spectator, hold your position when the action is pending or in play.

Rule 4 – As a spectator, if positions are not established, yield to the guy with the better photo equipment.

Again, these are just guidelines…..

Sunday — DH racing all day.

From there, it was a mad drive back to San Jose, catch the flight back to Seattle, drive back to Marysville and go to bed. Great time, but I’m tired.

I have LOTS more photos in the Grubworks Stock Photo Gallery. If you want more info on the availability of any photos in the Sea Otter gallery, e-mail me directly at greg@grubworks.com.

All in all, it was a really good time. Too many photographers, but what you gunna do. Mark and Miles from “Bones over Metal” did a bunch of video of all the gravity events and already have them posted.  Saturday night I went to the movie premier for “Barred for Life” the new DVD from Bjorn Aunet and RockStar energy. To open the movie they played “Days of Dirt” the new flic from my homie, Theo Dillworth of Allout Productions. More about those two movies soon. (but just to note early, “Days of Dirt” rocked).

—G

Im packing my bags, charging batteries and checking my photo gear all in preparation for the Sea Otter Classic at the Laguna Seca race track near Monterey, Ca. I plan on shooting photos of the dual-slalom and the DH and hopefully get a chance to check out the shoreline and local scenery. A bunch of the ads you will see in magazines will be from these of these events. New gear, new bikes, should be a good time.  —G

I’m pretty stoked. We just got our new grubworks photo gallery up and running yesterday. The grubworks.com site will be going though some maintenance in the next week or so to get the new gallery integrated better to the main site.

All photos in the galleries will be available for sale as print or direct download of the photo file, different size, price options, its pretty cool. There is also the ability for us to host HD video, more to come on that later.

Until we link the gallery with the website, you can access the grubworks photo gallery HERE.

Last weekend was the kick off for Northwest Moutain Bike DH racing with the first race of the 2009 Fluidride Cup.

My buddy Loreto Julian, another photographer / bike rider, came along to shoot photos instead of racing due to a knee injury that is on the mend.

The first race was at Port Angeles and I wanted to make sure that I did’nt miss the first ferry. The first ferry was really early in the morning but the next ferry across to kingston was hours later and we would get crappy parking miss plus be missing out on the action on the hill. Ok, I’m there a bit before 5:00am was the first one there, (and as it turns out, this was good and bad). Its early April so it is still freezing out, so while checking e-mail on my phone, listening to the radio, decide to turn on the heated seat in the truck, because, come on, I don’t need to freeze like an animal. Loreto shows up about 15 minutes before the ferry is scheduled to load. Blah, blah blah, about then the light on the dash lights up “CHECK CHARGING SYSTEM”. Which I did to find that the truck was dead.

Loreto remembers that he has jumper cables in his car in the parking lot and takes off to get his car (limp, hop, limp, hop). Back he comes, we fire up the truck and just as Loreto drives off to take his car back to the lot, the ferry worker flags me to start boarding. So being first in line I pull ahead and off to the side and wait. Here comes Loreto, (limp, hop, limp, hop) he hops in, and after 20 or 30 cars that will not let us back in line, we are on and over.

So lesson learned, dont listen to the radio and heat you ass for an hour in the truck if the engine is not running. Thanks again Loreto for the quick thinking and keeping me from looking like a dumb-ass (or at least more of one).

Ok, back to business. Great race and pretty decent weather for the first race of the season. Here are some pictures from this weekend at the Fluidride Cup #1 DH

Lots more photos from Fluidride Cup #1 here:

Grubworks Gallery – Fluidride Cup #1 Practice

Grubworks Gallery – Fluidride Cup #1 Race

Great weekend. It was good to get out of the house and take pictures of bikes. I think the family, and dog, are sick of me photographing them all winter long.

Race results are up at Fluidride.com

Also check out Loreto’s photos at Julian Photography

—G