Copper Harbor Fat Tire Festival – 2010
UPDATE: Images are DONE being uploaded to my online gallery. Thanks for your patience… we hope you enjoy the images. Let us know what you think in the comments below.
In the gallery you will be able to download the low-res digital version for sharing… or you will be able to purchase high-res digital copies and prints if you so choose. We are hoping to have everything uploaded by sometime tomorrow… if you don’t see an image of yourself just keep checking.
Also, while on the course I ran into another gentleman taking photos. Here is the link to his website… the more the merrier right.
Aladino Mandoli Super D Gallery
Aladino Mandoli’s Fat Tire XC Gallery
So, yesterday was the nth annual Copper Harbor Fat Tire Festival. Usually this race seems to serve as many people’s last hurrah for the season. It’s a great race with a low-key attitude. The race start isn’t until 2pm and afterwards there’s BBQ, beer, music… pretty much the whole town of Copper Harbor comes out to party. It’s the type of event you end up not wanting to miss even if you’re not a racer.
Now don’t get me wrong… the low-key attitude doesn’t mean that this race is a walk in the park. On the contrary, it’s my opinion that this is one of the toughest and most technically challenging races in the midwest. It would be interesting to see what other people think, but the Fat Tire course is pretty unrelenting and the downhills are challenging enough that there really isn’t ever an opportunity to rest.
Anyway, if you like to ride and haven’t ever attended… you should. And if you are a long-time participant feel free to share your perspective in the comments section.
Below are some sample images from the race. Over the next day or so we will be uploading the rest of the images for your viewing pleasure. A big thanks to Ryan Holt for helping cover the race.
Enjoy!
One of the younger participants looking to destroy the competition…
It super cool to see the next generation competing in the kids race…
Usually, I try and move around a lot on the race course in order to get a variety of compositions. And this year I was planning to do the same. I hiked in and set up on the Red Trail at this relatively steep roll down into a double bridge. I figured the faster competitors would probably ride this section and planned to pack up and move once I started getting a lot of walkers. However, more people rode this section than I thought. I think it was because it sort of sneaks up on you and you don’t really have time to think about it before you’re committed. In the end I just stayed here and waited for the sweeps to come through.
When I first setup the position of the sun was such that I could hide it behind a branch to help reduce the amount of lens flare. Problem is… the sun moves. In the image at the top of this post there is very little flare with the sun behind a branch. In the image 4th from the top the sun is in an open part of the sky and I was getting a lot of flare. Not much to do but try and keep it from totally ruining the image. In the image above the sun is back behind the trees and again the flare is gone. What are you going to do…
Will making his way down the roll down…
Trash getting all crazy with the champagne…
Image below courtesy of Ryan Holt…
