When Good Batteries go Bad

This weekend COGGS held a great event at Spirit Mountain in Duluth. The trail is one of the favorites in the series. It is most likely the most challenging course in MN and the downhillers love it!

Since I havent ridden the trail before, I was struggling with locating good places to take photos. Jay Richards was kind enough to give me insight into some nice places for the expert/comp race. In the upper portion of the trail I found some nice sketchy downhills along with a fast descent with good light for a nice classic shot.

The sketchy downhill ended up to be a bad location, they had a mass start which I was unaware of, since the sketchy downhill began immediately after the switchback climbs to the top of the hill, everyone and theirbrother was dipping into the singletrack at the same time. Too many people generally equals lots of walking/running which was the case here. I guess you could say it worked out to my advantage because my flash was acting all goofy and only firing every 3-4 riders. I have determined my rechargable batteries to be the cause of this strange behaviour from my flash. So My first set of photos resulted in dark faced people running down a sketchy hill with their bikes. Needless to say, not the best sports shot of the day. The image

I was envisioning is the second one.

While my flash continued to act goofy for the duration of the day, most of my shots were absoultely spectacular. The obstacles and views from the top of Spirit are amazing.

To be continued.....

Fav quotes of the day:

"The eyes are the groin of the head"

"Time is the Worlds Warrior"

"Im kind of a big deal"

IMBA Trail School

The last 2 days have been spent with IMBA reps and Fellow MORC members interested in building future Mountain bike trails.  Collins and Kelly (IMBA) Did a very thorough job of giving us the basics of trail building on Friday and they kept if fun and real.  Then today was the exciting part, we got to get dirty!  We wandered through an open prairie section of lebanon which is slated as a trail project to begin in 2010.  We looked at the lay of the land, grades of hills, natural land features, and other items learned in the class the day previous.  Then we got our chance to map out a trail, there is so much more to take into consideration then I ever thought possible.  Props to those who have designed and helped build the local trails in our area.  We are very lucky to have so many miles of trail.  Also thanks a ton to John Lundell and Tim Wegner, trail school was a great experience.

Speaking of Getting Dirty.  I'll leave you with some sweet shots of our new MORC Women Jerseys

2 More Days to go..

Final 1 Complete!



Some photos from the weekend events for your viewing pleasures:








Final 2 due tomorrow 5:30 am. ....

Im so Sleepy

This summer has been crazy. I am starting to feel the full effects of school work, job work, house work, so much work that my fun (photography and biking) are beginning to suffer. Last weekend I photographed the MFC Downhill race as well as the Memorial Classic. As much as I love doing photography and cheering on the racers my head just wasnt in the game. I think the exhaustion is catching up and for that reason I am soooo happy that its finals week so I can get them over with and behind me to relax alittle and get back to the things I enjoy.

My pictures may have been alittle rough last weekend but I hope to rejuvinate and get back in the game by the next race. I will finally have some time to get back on the saddle and cruise the single track. I cant wait!!!!! This thursday I will join in my First MORC Leb ride of the year. The MORC ladies will be sporting their fancy new jerseys and we will have a photo op.

4 more days to go....

Womens Jerseys are in

I stopped by Nitas last night because I heard the rumour that our Womens Jerseys have arrived.

When I saw them I was very pleased. They look so much better "real'. The colors are stunning, the design is fun, the fit is perfect. Great job to the other co conspiritors Nita, Jodi, and Katy. There were some rough moments but the jerseys turned out fantastic and we learned alot so the next time, YES I SAID IT, Next Time it will go much smoother. Nice Job Ladies!!!

I hope all the ladies are as pleased with the jerseys as I am. They were my baby after all, and i dont think a mother thinks her kids are hideous. Well atleast I hope not.

We were going to post photos for the girls but then decided against it. It was so fun to lay eyes on them for the first time and thought the other girls would appreciate that chance. Have an in person unveililng. Cant Wait!!

Red Wing DownHIll event on Saturday and Memorial Trail XC event in Redwing on Sunday. Its going to be a great weekend!!

Elk River Duathalon

I am learning that google does not find my smugmug site all to easily. For those who did not get a business card at the event this weekend and are coming across my blog.




The ELK RIVER/HILLSIDE Fallen Oak Duathlon photos are posted HERE.




Great job to all the racers!!




Congratulations to Matt Kurke for taking the overall win, those Velo Rochester guys really got it!







Congrats to Andy for coming in 4th overall. Nice job Honey!!




























And Thanks to Rich for hosting another fabulous event at Hillside.

Geology

This site started as my mountain biking log, then went to my photo blog, now I am going to tweak it again temporarily and make it into my Geology Blog.  Rocks are one of my passions. Yes Rocks! I am amazed at how they develop, how the slightest variation of temperature or pressure creates an extremely different outcome.  Ie.. A diamond from coal.   There are so many variations and they are so colorful, bright, heavy, light. They each tell their own stories.  I mean wow, thats pretty amazing stuff.   So I spent the other night after a ride at terrace oaks photographing the rocks in my collection. I will be posting them sporadically along with some information on each of them.   The first one is:

Dog Tooth Calcite-

This rock got its name for its similarities with a dogs canine.  This particular specimen came from Montana.  It is a Carbonate Mineral, the formula is: CaCO3, it is almost pure calcium.  If you look at an object through the crystal you will see two, due to the light separating into two rays.

Native americans considered Calcite a holy stone of the land that was given to their fathers by the gods.

Calcite is said to aid with healing of inflamed or itching skin, bone disorders, and this particular color is supposed to help with boosting metabolism.  It also can assist with mental growth and development.

WORS Firecracker Photos posted

Andy and I spent the weekend in Eau Claire for the WORS Firecracker. Neither of us decided to race but we spent a good part of the day on Saturday riding the course. It is such a fun course. I debated signing up and racing all day on Saturday but was glad I didnt come Sunday. I was pretty shot. The course was such a blast with the punchy climbs and steep drops, boy do I miss riding. This course makes me want to check out more of the Wisconsin races. Dave Meyer mentioned Levis at the last MNSCS race, saying that it was great flowing single track. That may have to be the next MTB trip. Yeah its sad, I know. Andy and I havent really left MN for Mountain biking, we have so many good trails around here we just havent needed to. MN had a good representation in Eau Claire this weekend, mainly LCR, some Peace coffee, Hub, LCS, Penn Cycle and Ben Moore from Velo Rochester and Cal From Wannabee Racing. It was fun to hang out and cheer everyone on like the old days. I brought the camera out for one lap of the kids race and for the elite group of racers, otherwise just hung out and enjoyed the day. For those looking for photos, they are posted HERE. I took photos in the same spot for the 1st and 2nd laps of the elite/comp race due to someone being in my first series of shots. He left, so rather then photoshopping the guy out of every photo, I just hung around and got the shots again. Anywho Good Times, See you on the trail. Here is Mckinley being all cute in his shade umbrella.

It was so hot over the weekend!

LCR - Raymond Nickles

Buck and Bluff Riders Charge

I hit up buck on Thursday and worked on my timing abit. Its pretty tricky trying to get the same photo of each biker. They are at such different speeds, heights, and the colors make things interesting to. I was laughing out there when I realized my mistake. I was using a patch of sun and a tree as timing markers, trying to get the shot of the riders inbetween. It started to become difficult when it dawned on me that the sun was going down and my sun patch wasnt even there anymore, there was a completely new one. Doh! I played around with my shutter speed too, trying to find out the average speed for the experts vs the rec classes to get the blurred effect. I can see why John Pederson hung out at the same location for each race. It is virtually impossible to get a good shot of everyone on the first time around with all the varying speeds. I also still havent figured out how he did such a good job of getting those shots on a corner or place with very little movement. I think the effect needs to be done on a down hill or fast straight away for the best turnout. Atleast for my best turnout. Was able to get some really nice shots of the sport riders with some blur. Tried it for the expert class but it just wasnt working out for me. Maybe next time. In the mean time I got sweet shots in various places, the clarity also looks great, its just a different feel in the photo. I think the blur effect is really nice but would get boring quite quick if thats all one got. Maybe its cause Im a chick but i like a picture with some nice scenery. I was also working on an effecct when the bikers top wheel looks large due to its relation to the lens and then the riders has an apperance of riding underneath me. Mainly its the distance I stand from the trail that causes this effect but you need that timing again to get it exact.
Then Sunday was MNSCS #4 the Bluff Riders Charge. The photo directly below this paragraph are probably my favorite from the race. I love how the roots and tree tower over the rider and they were coming over a small climb so they were working nice and hard closing in on the end of the lap. I had intented on doing sport photos here but ended up hiking up to the top of the luge with Andrea, which was well worth it. Thanks Andrea. That is where I got my best set of sport photos, the photo is somewhere below this paragraph. I took a ton of sport photos. Sorry for those that need to fish through to find yourselves. I just got alittle carried away ; )
The other set of photos was taken by using my remote. It was my first time using it out on the trail. It worked wonderfully. I am trying to hide myself alittle more so I dont have a shot of the racer looking directly at me.
Those look great sometimes, but i get them alittle to often, boo! I also lugged my tripod along for the duration of the day.
Silly me, I forgot the attachment for my camera, so that ended up being a worthless extra 8 lbs. I dont have my Adventure 9 pack yet so I had to rig the tripod into place with Twisty Ties. That always makes for an interesting hike.

I am looking forward to the next few weeks hiatus. I am just over half way done with my summer classes. This weekend, being its the fourth, I have less homework then usual so I hope to catch up and get ahead of schedule with it. I am right on top of things now. I will use tonight to get ahead and maybe tomorrow also. Andy and I are headed up to the WORS Firecracker this weekend. I am excited. Its a 3 day event with movies and all you can eat spaghetti buffets and breakfast buffets. YUM! We are camping with The Horners and the Hendricks/Nickles. I finally get to ride my bike on singletrack. Woot! I am also going to try to leave the camera behind so I can just hang with the great company and enjoy hooting and hollaring for all the racers. Thats going to be really hard to do though!!