What is this fan insinuating????

In a Mans Mind... it all gets reduced to this....

Tour of Ca Tagger
Ranchos Cycling Team, SD

ToC Crew Day -9 Stage 7

And fade to black...........
The end of of the biggest American tour has hit. We had 750+ thousand web viewers each day, 2.5mil. roadside viewers - biggest attended US sports event of all time! We were prime time 9pm in Europe last night live (sun) for 3hrs and the world-feed TV coverage was met with great reviews. This all comes on the heals of the hardest tour I've ever shot. Rain, wind, weather, ice and sand, long transfers, fogged lens, bad com's, freaks and crashes.... it was frickin great (looking back)....
Weird tour issues that don't make air were a-plenty, Cavendish getting squeezed into us as we are trapped in the gutter, and I'm leaning into him to keep him up, Eki making an evasive move into us with the team car and hitting the moto, descending trapped in front and scrapping the thru the corners sending a shower of sparks into the riders at 55mph, and a loosening of the bowels on the moto..., banging into cars thru the traffic jams in the bay, rocks falling off the mtn. sides in ft of us and the riders, tip-toe corners on wet ice downhills, frying my iPhone in the rain, some chick showing her tits to us (and 200 thousand) of her closest friends in PR's last K, and Go Home Lance signs......
The hill top KOM's in the US have reached a fever pitch - Europe has nothing on the US. I really feel this one race put US racing on the world map - good times, good times.....
Thanks for following-

ToC Crew Day -8 Stage 6

With what we are doing production wise here, our TV compound is huge – a bit of a little village with a ton of stairs leading up to a window-less door… Scott &Terry live in this one and in the next one there are six units, where John and Joel and a bunch of others live, Charlie and some others live in the next one across the walk, a few more Satellite trucks, giant generator trucks and support of all types…. Oh, n a crane for microwave relay from the airplane that picks up out signals while flying above the Helli….. etc….. In all, this little village has over 200 HD monitors! A couch potato’s dream.
After shooting Lance in the TT, I’m walking thru the compound and the Executive Producer grabs my arm as I walk by –oh boy, what now? – “Were you the one on Lance?” “mmmm, ya” insinuating a “why” in my answer… “Great stuff!” he says. Shot of the show! This is coming from a guy who mostly only comments on what you’re doing wrong – and rightly so, as we are here to do it – The shot was the opening of the Lance segment, so I figured I’d like a bit of drama to open his run. We lined up with the crowd on the first hill and I shot it compressed as we went up the hill only showing the crowd – the director was yelling in my ear to make my move and I was just staying on the crowd and then slowly pulled out to revile Lance. It’s weird to see this whole tour in black n white and then see a show and all the color!
For me, this shoot has been a little bit of a struggle, the config of the motos, the rain and the com's - its been hard
I’m writing this as we travel down Hwy 101 next to the ocean thru Santa Barbara and starting to feel a bit queasy, not wanting to barf on my MacBook, I’ll sign off.
The next 2 days should be super hard on Astana as everyone is going to be putting the pressure on them and Levi-

ToC Crew Day - 7 Stage - 5

If Monday and Tuesday were 0's than yesterday and today were bot 10's! No wind and in the 60's - I've dryed out now and all are very happy with the shots.

I have to say, the fans have been going out of there way to thank and complenent us on the job - It's a bit strange but at the same time feels good to open ones eyes as to why we do it.
You come thru the finish line and everyone has been watching the big screens for the past few hours and then there you are? Knida weird for us, and them, as they've been watching a bike race on TV (albeit a big one) and all of a sudden the whole game ends in your lap?

Today we pulled in to our TV camp and the crew had a giant sushi spread all laid out for us!
These guys and girls are unbeliveable, we pull up and they take the camera and gather the shot disks and get you anything youask for. We cannot lift a finger. They get there 1-hr before us in the morning and when we arrive they have all the cameras laid out and breakfast ready. It makes sooooooo much difference I can't really explain it - thank you guys!

The other front moto guy is a guy who has done 7 Tour de France's - this am the local news crew showed up and I knew they were going to want to do an interview so I slid some distance away knowing they would end up with Greg being forced to do it - he he he, and that gave me an chance o get some pic's of him suffering thru it! - that's Greg in the pic...... the other pic is Al the king of our camera / support crew holding the chart- and Scott Nicol of Ibis Bicycles fame who for whatever works for us each yr as a PA? Great guy-

As I'm writing this Astina (and 100 of their closest friends and 10 cops) are outside my door rebuilding Lance's TT bike for tomorrow in Solvang tomorrow - yes it was found on the streets of Sacramento being sold for the worth of a dime bag- whatever...... Twisted to think dopers would steal from one another? 135mi today and they caught em in the last 4k - that my friends is called team radios......

ToC Crew Day - 6 Stage - 4

Today was sunny! Everything still seems wet.... and then we climb to 3800ft and hit snow. Not a little snow, a lot of snow, seems that everything that has been pounding us for the last few days, fell as snow a bit higher. I live in the snow, and know the conditions after a storm, and yes, that's what we got... let me explain, winter sun track is still low, and even though they plow there still is wet road and shadows. When we get to the top of climbs, if it is a big downhill with tight turns we will shoot ahead or drop back and follow down the hill. Today the pack was so wide we could not fall back so we went ahead down the hill - when we do this we sometimes go fast (yesterday we hit 100 just to see how fast the new motos will go, some stupid guy thing) anyway, on the way down the hill we went into a turn, in the shadows, wet, and frozen. Both wheels were slipping and we pushed way wide - frickin scary!!! and all I could think of was 100+ guys coming behind us.... one did go down. Speaking of which... Lance, Levi, and Floyd have all hit the deck so far.
One down side of this shoot is we are live on Versus, and the World Feed, which means we shoot from the gun to the finish - today i shot moto-2 which is with the 2nd group, so I spent all day twisted to the right shooting behind us - yes my upper back is on fire!

Toc Crew Day- 5 / Stage 3

Well, if you watched the show today you saw it get clipped by the hard start of the NHL game... Welcome to America, had you been in 199 other countries you would have seen the finish. They bumped up the start and killed one of the curcit laps in the end and still did not make the time cutoff. It was super windy and therefore slowed the pace - Thor won, the first win of the new Cervelo team!


The weather was in n out today and we had some com's for part of the day - water makes everything harder! Tomorrow we are supposed to be dry.... fired up!

ToC Crew Day- 4 - Stage 2

Oh...... this is getting old fast. I thought yesterday was the worst day on a moto shoot... Wrong! Today put that one in the books. First off we had 4 hrs sleep for an 8:30 start... I wake up w/ a sore throat and off we go... sitting in our motor home in the dark in a huge rain does not inspire making a day of it. So you just go thru the motions. 17 pieces of clothing to suit up and a camera bag that makes it practically impossible to do anything with the camera, and the new bike with all the mounts in the wrong places keeping you from panning side to side... and then there's the non-working com's.... this alone makes it impossible to do the show. You know nothing of what's going on, you can't talk to the director(s) and you don't know if your on the air... Arrrrrrgh! By hr 3 I lost most of the dexterity in my hands - typing right now (7hrs later) is a bit hard - this comes when the real show hits - in the end of the stage! I shot Levi's attack on the last hill where it rained and hailed so hard it was soooooo hard - Levi is a stud, and he was in his mic yelling "don't chase me!" back to the team.
And then there's Lance getting takin down by his own personal photographer - moto and all in the road. We also had a guy (racer) hit a parked car and went away in an ambulance.....
Tour of Belgum, CA resumes tomorrow........

ToC crew day-3

Oh boy..... the worst day ever on a camera bike..... 100+ miles and it started raining from the gun. It never stopped the whole day and the wind was hard. We had NO com's, never heard the director and could not talk to the director.... that means when you start shootin you never stop cuz you don't know if you're live or not.... so you switch to your cell phone for com until the day cost you $300 for a shorted iphone - god damn it! Now I have no phone......
Lance went down in a crash, Floyd flatted, and the yellow jersey abandoned the tour.... WTF?

Other news was Astana last night.......

Armstrong's time-trial bike stolen in California

By GREG BEACHAM – 6 hours ago

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — Lance Armstrong's time-trial bike was stolen from the Team Astana truck during the night before Stage 1 of the Tour of California.

Armstrong rode the bike to a 10th-place finish Saturday in Sacramento during the Tour prologue. The race is his first competitive appearance in his native country since the seven-time Tour de France winner began his cycling comeback last month.

A few hours after the time trial, someone removed four bikes from the Astana truck outside the team hotel in Sacramento. Armstrong's time-trial bike, which was closest to the door because he was delayed by a post-race trip to doping control, was taken along with race bikes belonging to Astana teammates Steve Morabito, Yaroslav Popovych and Janez Brajkovic.

Astana spokesman Philippe Maertens confirmed the theft to The Associated Press after it was reported by Armstrong himself on his Twitter feed. Armstrong later posted a picture of the bike, which has distinctive yellow-and-black wheels and the logo of his Livestrong foundation.

"There is only one like it in the world therefore hard to pawn it off. Reward being offered," Armstrong wrote before jumping on his race bike for the 107-mile ride from Davis to Santa Rosa through a steady rainstorm.

Team Astana manager Johan Bruyneel also mentioned the thefts on his Twitter feed before he began following his riders. The racers all have backup bikes, and two-time defending Tour champion Levi Leipheimer's bike wasn't stolen.

Armstrong won't need his time-trial bike again until Friday in Solvang, where the race holds its second time trial. That segment is crucial to Astana's hopes of winning the overall team title.

....and more rain forcast for tomorrow. 4am we leave SF, can it get any harder?

Prolouge - Crew day - 3

Hey! no rain!
Don't boast too soon.... Tomorrow is supposed to be 35mph head wind thru the plains of Davis, Napa and over the hills to Santa Rosa. Oh, n pounding rain... Welcome to Belgum, Ca.
The world press is here, France, Australia, Italy etc... Correction from yesterday, we are live to over 200 countries! Crazy. The state of cycling is so bad because of all the drug scandals, that only a small group of just under 1 - million fans showed up in 40 degree temperatures... We shot Floyd in the TT today and the crowd went crazy, as they did for Lance, Basso, and Tyler.... I have to wonder what is was like back in the hay-day?

We are working out the small problems with the new camera bikes and the new RF company is driving a super solid signal back to the world!

Tomorrow we'll see how it all works with sideways rain....... This is gonna be ugly









Shimano feature...
Bob Roll, Poor Bobkie. We did this feature on the new Dura Ace yesterday and he had to do 40 takes to get the info correct as Dustin from Shimano directed the content.... not such a tongue twister but, features that had to be spot on and Bob had been doing these all day already... I did so many deep knee bends during this shoot my legs are still feeling it!

Lance is back....

Yesterday at the press conference....

ToC Log "Prep Day"

As most of you know, I shoot the Pro Cycling events from a moto. This week I'll try to keep a running log of the ups n downs of the race from our seat-

Today we get the new motos that have been getting customized for a few weeks - BMW 800 GS bikes, perhaps not the best choice as the tank is under the seat and becomes very wide w/ sharp edges that dig into your calves when standing..... we used a similar bike in the Tour of PA last yr and I swear I still have tender spots.... the other down side is the Belgum like weather here in Sacramento.... other than that, all is positive - this will be the biggest US tour in the history of cycling in this country- word is, we will be live over 160 channels around the world.....

Yesterday saw Lance slay a UK reporter at the press conference and Floyd hit the deck on a training ride.... he'll start, but no fall is a good one.

So for me, of to do moto RF testing in the rain and then hook up w/ Bob Roll to shoot the Shimano features that will show up in the shows throughout the season on Versus -

Think warmmmmmmmm

Exclusive!

2009 AToC Preliminary start list

AG2R La Mondiale Astana
Christophe Riblon (Fra) José Luis Rubiera Vigil (Spa)
Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita) Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr)
Stéphane Goubert (Fra) Janez Brajkovic (Slo)
Martin Elmiger (Swi) Lance Armstrong (USA)
Tadej Valjavec (Slo) Levi Leipheimer (USA)
Hubert Dupont (Fra) Steve Morabito (Swi)
Cyril Dessel (Fra) Michael Schär (Swi)
John Gadret (Fra) Chris Horner (USA)

Bissell Pro Cycling BMC Racing Team
Andy Jacques-Maynes (USA) Jonathan Garcia (USA)
Ben Jacques-Maynes (USA) Alexandre Moos (Swi)
Burke Swindlehurst (USA) Ian McKissick (USA)
Jeremy Vennell (NZl) Jeff Louder (USA)
Peter Latham (USA) Mathias Frank (Swi)
Kirk O'Bee (USA) Markus Zberg (Swi)
Tom Zirbel (USA) Scott Nydam (USA)
Omer Kem (USA) Thomas Frei (Swi)

Cervélo TestTeam Colavita Sutter Home
Iñigo Cuesta (Spa) Alejandro Alberto Borrajo (Arg)
Dominique Rollin (Can) Anibal Andres Borrajo (Arg)
Brett Lancaster (Aus) Lucas Sebastian Haedo (Arg)
Hayden Roulston (NZl) Davide Frattini (Ita)
Carlos Sastre (Spa) Anthony Colby (USA)
Serge Pauwels (Bel) Aaron Olson (USA)
Thor Hushovd (Nor) Luis Amaran (Cub)
Ted King (USA) Tyler Wren (USA)

Columbia-Highroad Fly V Australia
George Hincapie (USA) Bernard Sulzberger (Aus)
Thomas Lövkvist (Swe) Jonathan Cantwell (Aus)
Mark Cavendish (GBr) Michael Grabinger (USA)
Michael Rogers (Aus) Charles Dionne (Can)
Michael Barry (Can) Phil Zajicek (USA)
Mark Renshaw (Aus) Scott Davis (Aus)
Adam Hansen (Aus) David Kemp (Aus)
Kim Kirchen (Lux) Ben Day (Aus)

Garmin-Slipstream Jelly Belly Cycling Team
Christian Vande Velde (USA) Bernard Van Ulden (USA)
Tom Danielson (USA) Nick Reistad (USA)
David Zabriskie (USA) Phillip Gaimon (USA)
Steven Cozza (USA) Jeremy Powers (USA)
Tyler Farrar (USA) Matthew Crane (USA)
Danny Pate (USA) Brad Huff (USA)
Svein Tuft (Can) Kiel Reijnen (USA)
Trent Lowe (Aus) Will Routley (Can)

Liquigas OUCH p/b Maxxis
Alessandro Vanotti (Ita) Floyd Landis (USA)
Francesco Chicchi (Ita) Patrick McCarty (USA)
Jacopo Guarnieri (Ita) Rory Sutherland (Aus)
Kjell Carlström (Fin) Bradley White (USA)
Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Cameron Evans (Can)
Brian Vandborg (Den) Karl Menzies (Aus)
Gianni Da Ros (Ita) John Murphy (USA)
Ivan Basso (Ita) Tim Johnson (USA)

Quick Step Rabobank
Carlos Barredo (Spa) Mauricio Alberto Ardila Cano (Col)
Jurgen Van De Walle (Bel) Pedro Horrillo Munoz (Spa)
Kevin Seeldraeyers (Bel) Oscar Freire (Spa)
Kevin De Weert (Bel) Grischa Niermann (Ger)
Kevin Hulsmans (Bel) Pieter Weening (Ned)
Addy Engels (Ned) Bauke Mollema (Ned)
Marco Velo (Ita) Robert Gesink (Ned)
Tom Boonen (Bel) Stef Clement (Ned)

Rock Racing Saxo Bank
Victor Hugo Pena Grisales (Col) Gustav Erik Larsson (Swe)
Jose Enrique Gutierrez (Spa) Fabian Cancellara (Swi)
Francisco Mancebo (Spa) Jason McCartney (USA)
Fred Rodriguez (USA) Juan José Haedo (Arg)
Tyler Hamilton (USA) Stuart O'Grady (Aus)
David Vitoria (Swi) Frank Schleck (Lux)
Oscar Sevilla (Spa) Andy Schleck (Lux)
Aaron Kemps (Aus) Jens Voigt (Ger)

Team Type 1
Moises Aldape Chavez (Mex)
Christopher Jones (USA)
Valery Kobzarenko (Ukr)
Phil Southerland (USA)
Ricardo Escuela (Arg)
Fabio Calabria (Aus)
Matthew Wilson (Aus)
Darren Lill (RSA)

I'm Already Dressing Warm.....

By Mark Zalewski, North American Editor

Dave Zabriskie (Garmin-Slipstream) before stage four last year.
Photo ©: Jon Devich

The newly-designed final stage of the Amgen Tour of California has the potential for plenty of drama. If the GC riders are close together on overall time for the 11-mile ascent of Mt. Palomar north of San Diego, coming halfway through the stage, the climbing battle could be fierce. But on top of all that, winter weather has hit the top of the mountain hard, with snow and ice storms over the weekend cutting power to the Palomar Observatory and making the roads impassable.

Scott Kardel, public affairs co-ordinator for the observatory, wrote on the observatory's blog about the conditions. "Yesterday's snow storm was indeed impressive. At times the sleet was coming down with a fury that I have never seen before. The snow and sleet, combined with an intense wind, brought tree limbs and trees down, knocking out the power more than once."

Though southern California is often thought of as a mild climate, weather has always been an issue for the race, being so early in the year. Last year the now-infamous stage down Highway 1 was a torture test that made the freezing rain and sleet on the final stage over Mill Creek Summit pale in comparison.

For that final stage, race organisers were unsure if that pass would even be open as snow was forecasted. But an early morning decision was made to race over the pass and not use an alternative route. "We've gone over an area every year," Chuck Hodge, the race's technical director told Cyclingnews. Mill Creek was pretty bad last year going into Pasadena but it was passable. We sent a crew up there at 4:00am to make a judgment call."

He said that similar procedures are in place for Palomar this year. "We always have a back-up plan. Eric Smith has been working a lot on this stage and we just had an all-agency meeting about it and have great cooperation between everyone. We will asses the weather as it gets closer but it is still a week away, so we are hoping for a LOT of sunshine!"

Hodge said he has seen the conditions the past few days "We've had some pictures from up there. It's too bad Andy Hampsten isn't racing!"

Bloods, Cripts, and Cycling Fanz........

Tour of California:

By Mark Zalewski, North American Editor

Organisers of the Tour of California, the largest cycling event in North America, are asking the thousands of fans that line the roads each year to not paint on the roads as encouragement for their favourite riders. The plea comes after the past three years where residents who live along the roads have complained to the point where the race will not be issued permits in the future if it happens this year.

"Our course director annually has to go to almost 80 government entities each year for permissions, and we have been lucky enough to have some great believers out these among the counties and cities," said Chuck Hodge, technical director.

"The one issue that continues to come up... is fans painting on the road. Although a great tradition in some [parts] of the world it has become a huge issue at our event. We have annually fielded calls from public works departments and it has come to the point on at least two occasions that we have been told we would not be issued a permit the next year unless we address the issue."

Hodge said that alternative methods, such as chalk, would be preferable as long as they are not permanent.