Day Seven: Friday

I am on my home turf, it is sweet because I didn't have to run around like an idiot searching out logging road maps and pestering the other media folks for information. The first thing I did was head out in the Toyota to a slick rock section on one of the trails. This proved to be a great start, the road was in great shape and wide which lead to me having a great time rallying the truck to where I would set up.

This was the first day I actually pulled out any lights bigger than a camera mount size flash. I set up 2 Alien Bees around the rock face. I usually only carry one battery so I also have to pack a power bar and extension cord. Well after a week of living in a messy truck and not using my  big lights I forgot the power bar. So I only had one light running, I did have a 580 in my bag but it didn't generate enough juice to give any rim effects.

After I shot most of the top guys I packed up and headed to the West Side trails, I headed to bridge that crosses the river. This bridge used to be really cool because it used to be just a log that fell across the river. Now it is safety first, but still a good feature. I think it was in a Nissan commercial before without the ropes. I shot bunch of stuff here and later moved on to the Lost Lake trails.

These are my favorite trails in Whistler. The are so overlooked because they are not gnarly and everyone has to be gnarly here. They are buff rolling singletrack trails that wind and loop there way around a small lake. I've never shot in them but have always wanted to. i didn't get to shoot the trails i had hoped for but did get a sweet shot of Kelly Emit, who lead the way for the winning team.

I later headed down to the finish. My friend Dre took 2nd and he was stoked and just as I got to the finish line, Fanny crossed and took 2nd in the ladies open. So all was good. After a few hours of hanging about I went to grab 6 pack. On my way back I saw 2 guys, one had just the front end of his bike and the other had the rest of the bike on his back. They still had about 5km's to go. So I went back to the finish with a couple of lawn chairs, a 6 pack, my camera and waited for them to run and roll in. It was pretty cool to see these two guys give all they had so they could finish the big 7 day race.

-Ian

Day Six: Thursday

We took the ferry over to Horseshoe Bay yesterday from Langdale where the race ended. Then drove up to Squamish and again slept in another baseball field. Its weird because as soon as we entered the Squamish area I started feeling like the trip was over. i guess I was close to home and did not want it to end.

I've come to decide that it is better to just try and nab a few good shots a day at this event then rather run around everywhere and miss the riders I want to shoot. I wont mention the team but one of the teams I'm trying to get shots of walks every section i set up at. Its really annoying. And to further the frustration my team had to pull out of racing the day when some stomach pains made Vanessa really ill. So again for the 3rd day in a row I sat around waiting for them to come through but no show. But in reality it doesn't matter because Ness put herself through hell and Im just glad she is gonna be ok.

Good news is Andreas Heslter took the stage win after some inter-team bickering with his partner Max Plaxton. Both ripped the poop out of the course and finished well ahead of everyone. I also rode around with my friend Dave B today, because his wife is Vanessa. It was good to see him out because his knee was all messed up from a staff infection. He literally spent 3 weeks with tube coming out of his knee that was attached to a pump in a box that sucked out gunk. Before that he had a nurse stop at his house every day and pull many feet of gauze out of the open wound on his knee. He has been right fucked and for a man who runs on outdoor living- it was good to get out there with him. To bad his girl got sick.

So my Lightroom program has gone completely ape. I tried so many things to get it running correctly again that when I finally got going again, I forgot what I did to get it going. So now I am afraid to close it because last time I did I lost all my edits on 5 days of shooting. That sucked and its now 10pm and I'm back home because stage 7 is in whistler tomorrow. I've been editing pictures for the last 3 hours and am now finally cooking up some ichiban because I had no time for the store. I hope my luck pics up soon.

-Ian