Psycowpath Mountain Bike Series is Off with a Weekend of Racing

Saturday morning, the Psycowpath Mountain Bike Series started the 2013 season with Jewell Jam - a time trial helt at Jewell Park in Bellevue, NE.  Jewell Jam was the first race of a two stage race.  The second stage was the Swanson Short Track Race.

Swanson Short Track was held Saturday afternoon at Swanson Park, also in Bellevue, NE.  The course of the Short Track Race was reported to be 0.9 mile in length.  This made for a full day of racing!

The photo here, is of Junior (13-15) category racer Jack Ferguson of The Bike Way Racing Team.  Jack was the first racer on the course.

Race results are available on the Psycowpath web site.

I attempted to to catch a photo of each racer during both Jewell Jam and Swanson Short Track.  Race photos are available a http://win-photo.photoreflect.com.  As usual, photos posted on the web site are "proofs".  When a order comeoms if for a photo file, I will retrieve the original camera raw file for processing.  The processed files will be e-mails to the customer.

Screwed up the focus on many of the photos at Jewell.  I had the telephoto zoom lens set on "anual" focus to shoot Eagles at Lake Manawa.   Wondered why I was having problems getting a focus lock with the camera.  Realized the problem and corrected the error for Swanson Short Track.

Please note that I did NOT stay for the last race of the day - Category 1  Short Track.  It was just too much in one day.  As it was, I had to suck/chew on a Shot Blok on the walk up tp the start line to ward of a bonk.

Photos of today's Swanson River City Shootout should be posted tomorrow.

Race Season Has Begun

The Psycowpath Mountain Bike race season got on a great start yesterday with 2 races. The first race was Jewell Jam Time Trial, held at Jewell Park, Bellevue, NE.

The weather and trail conditions wee about perfect. Solid, yet slightly tacky tread. Temperature in the 50s, climbing to 70 and a light breeze.

The winner was Stephen Jarrett, course trail leader. The photo above is of Steve as he burned up the course.

One problem with races at Jewell Park is the parking. Most of the parking is at an elementary school about 6 blocks South of the park. That can be taxing after standing on the hillside for 2 1/2 hours. Thanks to Dave of Moose Tooth, who gave me a ride to my car.

From Jewell Park, it was a quick stop at Mickey D's for some "food" and over to Swanson Park.

The Swanson Park races were "Short Track" events. Originally it was going to be a mountain bike crit through old town Bellevue. Maybe next year?

The short track races were exciting. Mass starts with riders navigating some 0.7 miles of grass and singletrack. Was not sure how long I would stay at the race. I shot the first 4 races. Did not stay for the 5th (last) race and awards. I had enought. After all, there's the Swanson River City Shoot-out to shoot today.

Photos I shot yesterday are on my race photo site -- http://win-photo.photoreflect.com

Lesson learned: White Balance - I tried to adjust the balance for overcast, shade and sunny. The photos shot under "cloudy" and "shade" on the Canon are too warm (red tint). Sunny was OK. Think next time I will just leave the white balance as "Auto". Luckily, with the main camera (T1i) I was shooting both RAW and JPG. So, before I deliver files to my customers, I can correct the color temperature.

Lesson 2: Bring a bike to shoot races at Jewell. Its a long walk up the the car.