Carey Hart

I spent a day in Whistler this summer with Heath Pinter, Jeff Lenosky and Carey Hart. This particular photo has garnered a few fans so I'm posting it here as well. Carey shredded the MTB for sure. This particular section always has walkers. It was good to see him charge it!

The highlight of the day though happened after riding. We sat down for a meal at "The Longhorn and Carey gave his brand new helmet to the waitress. the funny part was that the waitress didn't realize who he was until a few minutes later. We knew she figured it out when the service got much better and multiple waitresses made sure we were alright. Haha!

Shooting with One Arm Tied In Front of my Back

Back in September I posted briefly about injuring my shoulder and needing surgery. Didn’t give any detail, and followed up with a number of posts since then. The deal was I had a grade five shoulder separation of my right (shooting arm) and didn’t miss a beat. Here’s how I did it:

Three days after the injury I boarded a plane and headed for Interbike. With a bottle of Vicodin and carefully scheduled adult beverages I managed to continue shooting very carefully with my right arm supported by a sling. I had help carrying my gear and dramatically reduced my use of flash for the most part. All my posts from Interbike and KK’s World Hour record below were shot that way.

The day after KK’s World Hour record I had surgery. After one week off I headed for Rhode Island to shoot the Bike Demo and Cross Race, and then follow along with Bicycle Retailer for the Boston Dealer Tour.

My arm was sporting the “ultra sling III,” had a huge slice in my shoulder, some new hardware. The doctor provided strict order s to not use the arm and keep it in the sling. Even if he hadn’t ordered me the pain prevented it anyway. My solution for shooting turned out to be fairly simple to develop but difficult to execute consistently good results.

The first step was a pre-trigger cord from Pocket Wizard and a Pocket Wizard. This allowed me to hold my camera with my good arm (Left) and still have access to a shutter release (this became the pocket wizard.) It was east to hold the camera in both portrait and landscape orientation and easy to press the shutter, but I did run into some problems.

I’m a manual guy. Moving indoors and outdoors, plus constantly changing weather (clouds, sunshine) meant changing ISO was common. On the Pre-trigger cord for pocket wizard you can’t change the ISO when it’s on so I had to add this step to my shot prep.

Changing the focal point required moving my camera to my right arm not viewing through the viewfinder and guessing that I bumped the joystick in the right direction. It worked about 50% of the time first try.

Changing shutter and F-stop was cumbersome but worked out.

For artificial light it was huge to have help from my usual helper. Thanks Tab! For the newbie’s that helped they did an awesome job with my instructions and limited time.

Chimping shots was nearly impossible- when the pre-trigger is on you have three steps to chimp a shot- so when time was limited you had to spend more time with the set-up and trust your gut.

I have about 3-4 more weeks before my arm is back to shooting strength but am enjoying the challenge of doing things different. Enough ranting here’s some of the results from post surgery.

Master World Hour Record

Just got back from the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA where Amgen/Giant Masters Team Member and Giant Inside Sales honch Keith Ketterer added to the multiple title's he's received so far this year. On today's menu was breaking the Masters World Hour Record.

Congrat's KK! Thanks for letting me blast you with strobes!

Interbike Round 2

Our Minnesota Account Executive Jason Overman took to the desert quite well. It didn't take much of my "mini-sota" accent to get a smile out of him.






The last time I saw Kelli was in Keystone. She was wearing a cast. That was Early August. This was her first race back and if you saw her broken finger it would be quite clear she didn't wear the cast the full doctor recommended period, if you looked at the results from her first race back (Cross Vegas) you'd also figure out she was spending hours on the bike. 4th in Pro women.






Getting a shot of the Adam and Carl Fun show in a Rally Car race seems a lot more plausible then in a bike race. I figured my job would be way easier if I just begged them to stay together through the Cross Vegas race. This way I could get them both in the same shot and conserve memory on my flash cards. Thanks for the help guys. Way to keep it together and look good for me!






I've never shot a "fashion show" before but Interbike provided my first chance. I know the shot's a little tight, and it's a male model, but I couldn't resist showing some of the BMX/DH heritage being shown during the show. 5.10 shoes, BMX cranks and chainring. Please excuse the fixie hipster bike. For the real model shots you'll have to wait.

Interbike Outdoor Demo

I have a ton more where these come from...

We brought the Country western bikes out to Outdoor Demo in Vegas. They saw lot's of use and many smiling faces. This guy was so fast I couldn't catch his front side.






Marks Helms currently holds the title for "best hair on a male at Giant" hands down no contest. It's so good I cropped a large portion of it when I shot the photo so you wouldn't be overwhelmed.






the go to gals running the front reception out at the demo were so fast and we were so busy that even shooting at 1/8000 couldn't stop the action.






Happy hour presented by Giant at the end of day 1. One STP raffled off to raise some money for Tara Llanes. employee at the local retailer and Giant Dealer JT Bicycles won it! Yeehaw!!






End of the day 2. The games that are played to load the bikes are always fun. Jeff Stephens here has it easy. Only two bikes, and no fences to jump or security guards to bribe!

Glove Retirement Party

I'm not sure how long I had these gloves, I know they dug a lot of dirt jumps and have seen many good times. I think they knew what was going on though because within 30 minutes of this shot they successfully ejected me high and far from my bike resulting in a bad shoulder separation and an appointment with a surgeon...

Giant Tracker Hub

The 15 QR is the best thing in MTB since the ahead set. Just sayin'