Lance Armstrong, Stage One, 2010 Amgen Tour of California. Nevada City, California. May 16, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Lance Armstrong riding to the starting line for stage one of the 2010 Amgen Tour of California professional bicycle road race.
The 2010 Amgen Tour of California started this weekend with a road stage traveling from Nevada City to Sacramento, California. I made the ridiculously long drive up and back to shoot the stage, starting in Nevada City perhaps three hours before the start of the race, later making an abortive attempt to intercept the peloton just south of the town of Auburn, and then making it to the finish in Sacramento, where I found a spot about 200 meters from the finish line.
Since I’m not photographing the race officially – now that would be a kick!* – I take my own idiosyncratic approach to photographing the event. I try to shoot the start of the race, an intermediate point (if possible), and then the finish. But shooting actual racing from the sidelines isn’t an easy thing. With this in mind I also photograph a lot of other “stuff” that surrounds the event of the race. Today I first shot some of the crowds in the middle of old Nevada City, then walked the portion of the course that looped through the downtown area before it heads out onto the open road. But my main plan was to spend the hour or so right before the race in the team area, where it is often possible to grab some good close shots of many of the riders. One of the strange and wonderful things about pro cycling, at least in the United States, is that you can more or less walk right up to some of the biggest names in the sport, and right before the race they usually ride through the crowd to get to the starting line.
I picked a few likely team vehicles and hung out, eventually getting a good series of photographs of sprinter Mark Cavendish, the eventual winner of the stage. (I’ll post some of these photos later.) Then I picked out a spot at the lower end of the team area, knowing the eventually just about all of the riders would have to pass by within feet of me… including Lance Armstrong.
I have a number of photographs from previous Tours and other cycling events posted in my gallery.
* Believe it or not, this landscape photographer (and ex-cyclist) sometimes fantasizes about photographing a stage from the back of a motorcycle. Yeah, hard to believe. :-)
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
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Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM at 400mm
ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/2000 second
keywords: amgen, tour, of, california, stage, one, 2010, bicycle, road, race, pro, professional, usa, north america, sports, nevada, city, lance, armstrong, radioshack, team, starting, riding, line, smile
Ahh – so we have a thing or two in common. Up until I became a father, I spent close to the same amount of time (though not quite) on the bike. Also came close to racing, but never quite (trained regularly with an older friend who’d been a Cat 1 rider about a decade prior). Have spent many summers climbing the roads near Mt. St. Helens & Rainier on a bike and doing lots of aggressive century riding.
I recall some of your tighter crops from prior years. Congrats on getting through the crowd at 200m from the finish, that’s pretty impressive. Looking forward to the next few . .
Hi Jeff:
Yes, I almost was a bicycle racer – used to train with folks who raced regularly – but life was such that I never actually raced. I put in several 10,000+ years of training and serious riding and (Californians will relate) did the Death Ride a number of times.
You are right that the 100-400 isn’t the fastest lens for shooting sports. I have to work to get the most out of it when action is involved, though I can do it. (Check the gallery link for some stuff that was shot during racing conditions during previous TOCs.) The 5D2 isn’t the fastest sports cam either! Shooting the informal portraits of rides at 400mm is intentional. I’m trying to isolate them from the often-busy surroundings of the race preparations and so forth. Another technique I use is extremely tight cropping of the shot. (Not the case in this one, but watch for a few that will come up shortly.)
The stage was actually very well attended! The crowds in Nevada City were huge, and there were fans all along the course in each of the places I checked. Downtown Sacrament was just plain packed!
Dan
Not at all hard to believe. I did not realize you were an ex-cyclist! No wonder you make such an effort here, year after year. I’ve seen in your archives all the great shots you’ve gotten – it’s a remarkable set of personalities from the past few years. This is really nice separation considering the lens you shot with isn’t the fastest in the world, but I guess when you rack it out to 400mm you almost can’t help but get that.
Managing to find a place near the finish, after having stopped at an intermediate point, seems remarkable. Perhaps the stage wasn’t as well attended this year as in the past?