Cycling Photos

July 2006 - Posts

• Floyd-osterone - Pump You Up!

  As many of you know, I recently had a theory that Floyd was from Planet Krypton based on his awesome performance in the Tour de France. However, that theory may be flawed in light of recent reports of increased testosterone levels in the Floydinator. Share it with Flickr If you take a look at some of the shots of Landis crossing the finish line on Stage 17, it's pretty clear that he's got a heightened level of testosterone. Heck, mine was raised just from watching the stage. Source All jokes aside, I'm choosing to believe Floyd and the rest of the accused riders (see, Operation Puerto) until they admit to doping or until they are proven guilty of doping under through appropriate legal methods. However, that does not mean that I won't have a little fun with the headlines on occasion. As a final thought on the topic, Chris from the Speedgoat blog did a great job of putting into words my feelings about this mess: DOPEY'S STILL MY FAVORITE DWARF Oh, o.k. so now they're telling us Floyd dopes, but uh, that whole absolute destruction of the Liberty-Seguros-Wurth team and massive shaft you clowns gave Alexandre Vinokourov. Well oops! We were totally wrong there, but now we're deadly serious again and you have to believe us. Ullrich and Basso will be dunked until proven witches, and Mr. Landis, well, we're going to send you back to the farm. You know what? Test me. Minimal sleep, lousy diet, 20lbs overweight, and just generally one bubbling pear-shaped pot of stress, toenails to follicles. So show me the piss cup. I'll bet I'm positive for all kinds of things. Hell, anyone who's ever eaten at Kentucky Taco Hut or been Supersized will probably light that test up bright enough to land a plane. Better still, test a bunch of people. The community of cycling fans deserves to know what's involved with these tests. Test yourselves while you're at it. Let's see what a steady diet of Cheetos, Baskin-Robbins, and traffic exhaust fumes will do. Either professional cyclists are the biggest bastards in the world--or one out of every 200 tests is going to come back with an "analytical anomoly." And you know what? If I rode a bike for six to eight hours a day for years, had a resting heart rate near the single digits, and ate a diet made up of Gu, Powerbars, and chemical powders sprinkled in my water, I think my physiological condition would be a bit "altered" too. So enough already. I don't care what Dick Pound comes up with next. Stinky socks in Hincapie's hotel room, a Shiatzu massager in Leipheimer's car. Whatever. There's always going to be a positive result, and here's why: Cycling's the skinny kid on the beach. I've watched NBA players double their muscle mass over the past ten years, and professional football? Once upon a time I tutored college athletes, and each week you could hear the linemen coming down the hall from further and further away. By their sophmore year, you could hear the elevator straining before they even reached my floor, and companies were already giving them free shoes. Baseball tough on drugs? Please. Here's the deal. Nobody gives a rat's ass what those athletes do. Making a lot of money for somebody? End of story. Carry on, then, Atilla. But endurance athletes are suddenly the whipping boy, suddenly under the microscope, and all I'm saying is that it's a recipe for disaster to pretend you can take chemicals out of endurance athletes. Hell, every Sport class mountain biker I know is mixing at least some glop into his CamelBak come race day. So unless we define what it is we think we want from these guys--bread and water only, or whatever--and until we make violations more reliable and obvious than they are now, I quit paying attention. After the damage done to Vinokourov and all the time and money lost in the implosion of that team, I'm holding all of these watch dog agencies and organizations to the same standard they hold endurance athletes: they're guilty until they can prove to me--fat bastard at home on the couch--exactly what somebody did wrong. Technorati Tags: Cycling, Photos [link] Posted Jul 28 2006, 06:13 AM by EricReagan with no comments

• Mennonite Weekly Review

  Get it here! Technorati Tags: Cycling, Photos [link] Posted Jul 24 2006, 10:53 PM by EricReagan with no comments

• Brokebike Mountain

  Came across these shots on the Knoxville Cycling Forums. For some reason, not sure why, Moveitfred came to mind when I saw them. Relatively on-topic to Lance's new man-crush is the Brokebike Mountain video, which should not be confused with the Brokeback Mountain sequal below. Nor should it be confused with the alternate storyline of Brokeback to the Future, Point Breakback Mountain, or George Bush on Brokeback Mountain. Since I threw the Brokebike video in there, I'll take this opportunity to shamelessly plug the MS150 I'm doing next month. Feel free to view my MS150 page and donate here. Technorati Tags: Cycling, Photos [link] Posted Jul 24 2006, 06:12 PM by EricReagan with no comments

• Tour de France Photo Collection

  No, I wasn't there, but I thought I'd point you to all the Tour de France photos I could find. If I've missed something worth noting, let me know and I'll add it to the list. Casey Gibson's galleries over at Velonews Graham Watson Cyclingnews.com photo index Floydlandis.com Caroline Yang Official Tour de France site Bike Zen BBC Yahoo's cycling gallery - includes a shot of Pres. Bush on the phone with Floyd offering a congrats (maybe Floyd can teach him how to ride a mountain bike?) Fox's Best of the Tour de France CBS Sportsline galleries - also consider taking a look at their Cycling Homepage, which features a story headlined Move Over, Lance Bicycling magazine - photo and video gallery Flickr photos from the average Joe Enjoy. Technorati Tags: Cycling, Photos [link] Posted Jul 23 2006, 10:18 PM by EricReagan with no comments

• SuperFloyd Strikes Again!

  If you haven't heard, you'd better take a look now! No pictures from me today (my iMac died) but look at the shots over at Velonews from today's stage! Technorati Tags: Cycling, Photos [link] Posted Jul 20 2006, 05:44 PM by EricReagan with no comments

• SuperFloyd!

  In light of recent news, apparently Floyd Landis is also from planet Krypton. Funny thing, I never noticed at "S" on his jersey before. . . . Maybe all of the great American Tour de France stars (Lemond, Armstrong, . . . Landis?) are destined to overcome some insurmountable affliction in their rise to the top of the podium. Here's to hoping Floyd sees the podium this July! Share it with Flickr or Smugmug. Technorati Tags: Cycling, Photos [link] Posted Jul 11 2006, 01:20 AM by EricReagan with no comments

• It's Worth Walking Sometimes . . .

  I guess some of the guys should have thought about walking, eh? Just thought I'd pass along that the Showdown at Sugar XC photos are done and online. Next up is work on the DH and Slalom shots. I've also got a little video of the Slalom race that I'll pass along. Since this is a mountain bike shot, I thought I'd pass along that the NMBS was is full for force again this weekend. That's all for now. Cheers folks! Go Floyd! Technorati Tags: Cycling, Photos [link] Posted Jul 10 2006, 02:26 AM by EricReagan with no comments

• "Don't Take a Picture of That!"

  That's what he said when he got up and started down the hill again. He must've heard the repeated clicking of my shutter as he was crashing. Sorry man, but it made for a great shot. Too bad it was the Pro Men's XC Race, eh? I took a little spin in the dirt myself over at Panther Creek on Sunday and managed not to do this. I took a friend of mine that had been wanting to give mountain biking a try. He didn't spill either. Of course we got off our bikes and walked a time or two, he almost threw up from climbing, and I drank all 100 oz. of water in my Camelbak. A load of fun though. Let me give some big kudos to the Canon BG-E3 battery grip for the Rebel XT. I took roughly 900 shots throughout the day and still had charge left in it! I have no idea how long it'll last. But if you've got a Rebel XT you should consider getting one. It also makes the vertical shots sooo much easier! Technorati Tags: Cycling, Photos [link] Posted Jul 06 2006, 02:50 AM by EricReagan with no comments

• Kobzarenko Champion of 2006 Tour de Beauce

  Let's step back from all the drama in the Tour de France right now and recognize some of the riders that make racing in North America so exciting. Valeriy Kobzarenko is a tough and powerful rider that has earned success on both the road and track. A former Ukrainian National Champion, his soft-spoken demeanor is replaced with a singular focus, once he pins on his race number. The hard roads of Eastern Europe were his training ground and this 3-time Olympian uses the toughness he learned, to become a rock-solid and dependable racer. He can be counted on by his Navigators Insurance teammates to bring the speedsters to the line for a mass-sprint, or drive the bunch into the gutter on cold, wet and windy days in the north of Europe. - Source Bio Kobzarenko jumped into the yellow jersey on stage 4's 15km time trial by stomping down a sub-21 minute time, which was second only to Danny Pate of TIAA Cref. Navigators put 3 riders in the top 5 on stage 4. Kobzarenko would hold on to the yellow jersey for the overall win and splash some champagne. Source: tourdebeauce.com During the Tour (if there's enough riders left to compete), you might want to keep up with what the Navigators team is doing: 07/05/06 07/17/06 National Road Festival - Silver Springs, PA USA NRC 1.2 07/12/06 07/16/06 Cascade Classic Bend, OR USA NRC 2.3 07/15/06 07/23/06 Tour of Qinghai Lake CHN UCI 2.HC 07/15/06 07/17/06 Tour de White Rock BC Superweek CAN NRC 07/19/06 07/19/06 Gastown Criterium BC Superweek CAN NRC 07/21/06 07/23/06 Tour de Delta BC Superweek CAN NRC 07/22/06 07/23/06 Owasco Stage Race - Owasco, NY USA NRC 07/22/06 07/22/06 Mt Holly - Smithville Invitational GP, NJ USA NRC 07/23/06 07/23/06 Freedom Tour of Long Hill - Stirling, NJ USA NRC 07/24/06 07/30/06 The International Tour de ‘Toona - Altoona, PA USA NRC 2.2 Back to some photography tidbits: My gear for this Tour de Georgia ITT shot was a Canon Rebel XT; Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 lens; and a Canon 420EX flash. This is an example of what I've show before - get low and get the face in the shot. Not really a tough shot to grab with the right gear if you're also in the right spot. Did a little post-processing too. Usually, I just make some minor adjustments in Adobe Lightroom Beta 3 and export the file as a JPEG, which I upload to Smugmug for hosting. Smugmug is the best photo hosting solution I've found. Check out their unlimited photo storage and sharing - FREE Trial of SmugMug. I did Lightroom thing here too, but I also decided to toy with it in Photoshop too. I learned a new technique for sharpening the other day. New Sharpening Technique: In Photoshop CS2, Dulicate the Background image from the layer menu; Select the new duplicate layer; Select Filters-->Other-->High Pass; Set radius to 10 - click OK; Select soft light and presto, you've got yourself a sharpened photo without the "funny edges" that you often see with the Unsharp Mask technique! Not sure what I'm talking about? Want to understand post-processing with Photoshop a little better? Consider a good book by Scott Kelby - the best Photoshop teacher I've read. My personal favorite is The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers. I'm open to comments on how the sharpening looks - also boosted the saturation in the blues for a little more punch off the background. G'nite, the Prologue starts in a little over 8 hours! Technorati Tags: Cycling, Photos [link] Posted Jul 01 2006, 03:54 AM by EricReagan with no comments