This weekend was the fourth installment of the Ontario Cup XC series, which was held at Mountain View ski hill in Midland. The race was organized by the fine folks at Chico Racing who did a fab job as per usual. The forecast was calling for rain but I was prepared and didn’t want to miss this one. Midland is approximately a 1.5 hour drive north of Toronto. I got up at 6:00 am to ensure I would make the 8:30 race.
I got a few flavour shots of the start, then made my way up the course to find a good spot to catch the racers coming through. Unfortunately the location I chose was a section of the course which the 8:30 start was not riding. Rookie mistake I know but with the tiny web map I had and the last minute course changes it was an easy mistake to make. I managed to make sense of it for the rest of the day but was never 100% sure until I saw the riders roll through. I definitely let out a sigh of relief when they did, especially the elites. Even though I was there to shoot the race as an event, I was hoping to get a few good shots for Norco, Trek and Cycle Solutions.
The weather in the morning was terrible – ten degrees and raining. My camera was nice and dry inside my new Think Tank Hydrophobia but I got soaked. I had my Gore Tex jacket, which kept my upper body dry, but my North Face hiking boots had to deal with more water than they could handle. The tall grass, which was just covered with water, saturated my pants and boots within minutes of making my way across the hill from one section of singletrack to another. Rubber boots would have been the only solution but hiking around in a pair of those all day isn’t much better. Eventually the sun came out and although I never got dry, I was at least a bit warmer. So far the track record for shooting MTB in Ontario has been, scorching hot for DH and wet ‘n cold for XC.
I shot most of the morning using available light with the Nikkor 300mm f/2.8. Such a nice piece of glass. I wanted to capture the lush, saturated look wet foliage gives. The venue also had some nice, open field sections which I wanted to try and showcase. I may like the 300mm more than the 400mm, it’s just that much easier to handle but still has great bokeh and is tack sharp. I used my Manfrotto monopod to shoot the finish line sprints but hand-held it for the most part. The only issue I had with the 300mm was that the racers eyes were drawn to it like deer to headlights. I even had some riders shouting out “sick lens dude”. For the 1:30 race I shot with 3 strobes and set up in a few different locations. Other than getting wet, I had fun and am very happy with the shots. Here are a few samples.
All my images from the race are available here in the FastTimes online store. http://fasttimesinc.com/store/index.php?gnum=136
If you are one of the riders in the images above and would like to use them, you may do so by purchasing the $25.00 digital download from the online store. Landscape oriented shots will be the same size as the portrait ones, these are only reduces to better fit my blog dimensions.
Thanks to Sean, Adam and the great team at Chico Racing. Thanks also to all the great racers for coming out and racing despite the elements!
Filmmaker/photographer 
