Bicycle racing - Tour of Elk Grove

Biffbradford

Big money drew big name teams to Chicago, IL this past weekend. Olympic time trial champion from the USA - Tyler Hamilton. Custom built carbon fiber bike from Texas:

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A final attack by Canadian David Veilleux with 150 meters to go, but it didn't work, he got caught by the guy in the polka dots on the right:





However, the 20 year old Veilleux from Canada had the lowest accumulated time and was the grand champion, collecting a big check!:





More pictures are available for viewing on my SmugMug page: Peloton-Pix.Com

David_S85

Biff, always enjoy seeing good bike racing pics posted here. Wish I could have been there, but that "work" thing.... I missed the Winfield crit too.

I just viewed some of your galleries. Many shots in there are stunning.

shoppix

Elk Grove cycling
Bif - bunch of nice shots from the race. #'s 2 & 3 not sharp though. Do you know why?
#2 with the racer going by those flowers, ? day lillies - would have made good panning type of shot.

Keep shootin'

Darren Troy C

28 grand for riding a bike? Where's my Huffy?

I really like the attack shot....those guys are machines!

Biffbradford

shoppix wrote:

Bif - bunch of nice shots from the race. #'s 2 & 3 not sharp though. Do you know why?
#2 with the racer going by those flowers, ? day lillies - would have made good panning type of shot.

Keep shootin'

I think #2 is just plain out of focus (manual) - that was a panning shot at 6 frames per second, I must have bumped the lens out of adjustment. (plus factor in that he's going by me at 35 mph!) Yeah, it's a shame though that it's not sharp.

#3 is in the final sprint for the line, slightly downhill, so he's coming at me at over 35 mph. That's a telephoto shot with auto, point focus and is as good as it gets! Multi-point focus just never works in shots like this .

A few more for kicks:





FYI, I'm sitting in the grass, next to the road, at the 100 meter line, so I'm zooming pretty hard (hand held too).

Would you believe that the guy in polka dots, on the right, actually WON?!

I'm having a blast with it though. A few more big races yet to shoot this season!

sportsshooter06

The photos are nice, maybe you can try and get some in focus next time.

Biffbradford

sportsshooter06 wrote:

The photos are nice, maybe you can try and get some in focus next time.

I DO try !

There's a good reason why everybody's cycling shots are "blur" shots. "Oh, great blur shot!".

I'm not shooting flowers you know.

winger

Biffbradford wrote:

I DO try !

There's a good reason why everybody's cycling shots are "blur" shots. "Oh, great blur shot!".

I'm not shooting flowers you know.

It can be hard with the fast moving action especially when the action is moving towards you, the Autofocus on your camera can only handle so much. I have the same issue with hockey, and you can add in low light and maybe shooting thru the boards and it is quite a challenge. I usually just ditch the out of focus ones, cause the ones that are in focus are nice. I really like the 1st one in the 2nd set with the long line of riders.

nipprdog

Biffbradford wrote:

I think #2 is just plain out of focus (manual) - that was a panning shot at 6 frames per second, I must have bumped the lens out of adjustment.

Why were you using manual focus?

David_S85

sportsshooter06 wrote:

The photos are nice, maybe you can try and get some in focus next time.

Take a tour of his galleries, and you might want to hold that thought.

stuffjunkie

I ended up riding over to the Tour of Elk Grove Sunday AM and watched the Elite Masters race. Then rode home to get my camera. I arrived just as the role call started for the pro race.

First the obligitory pan/blur shot ;-)



I caught a few of the field at one of the hairpin turns




The breakaway that started almost from the gun, began to fall apart about 10 laps from the finish. Here you can see the guy in the back dropping off of the group.


And then there were four..


With everyone back together about two laps to go, Rock Racing tries to set up Fast Freddy Rodriguez (third rider in green) for a sprint finish.


But as we've seen the guy in Polka Dots is very fast. Fast Freddy was third I believe.


It was a good race venue, lots of spectators. The course was easy to move around. I'll look forward to Downers Grove in a couple weeks!!

Biffbradford

Nice pictures. It's good to see how that sprint ended up ... it was close!

I'm looking forward to Downer's Grove as well. That's a tough one to shoot - not much elbow room on the curbs!As far as using manual focus, often I will do that so I can get more shots in as the riders pass me. If they're doing 30mph (the Pro's do) and I'm using auto-focus, I may only get two shots off in a pass because of the time lag for the camera to focus, and when they're only doing maybe 10 laps if the course is long, that's not many pictures to work with. Manual focus will give me few more.Two days ago I went to the local track to try my luck ... It was hard. The lighting was just bright enough to work with, and I didn't want to use a flash and disturb the racers (if it was the World Champs, that would be different!). It was very hard not to blur the shots. I was using a 2.8 lens, high ISO, and trying to shoot 1/250 or faster, but my technique was challenged.









Anyway, I'm having lots of fun trying, and have a lot to learn!

David_S85

Kenosha/Washington Park scared me. Raced there only once. Northbrook had less banked corners and was better organized. (And better lit at night - hint).