Juskuz Photography

Pete Karinen destroying all of the other 16mi competitors…

Well, you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been posting much on here lately. Things are still pretty busy and I just haven’t been shooting all that much. Anyway, this last weekend was the annual Chain Drive MTB race. The numbers were a little down this year, but it seems like all of the events are a little down. Maybe it’s due to the gas prices, maybe not… Either way we still had a great showing and this year Mari decided that she wanted to join in on the action.

I just wanted to congratulate all of the participants and everyone that helped out with the event. Everything seems to run super smoothly and it wouldn’t be possible without all of the volunteers. Congratulations everyone… maybe we will see you next year.

Caleb riding strong…

Mr. Mancini on the home stretch after riding the 32 mile course on a rigid single speed 29′er…

Mari finishing the 16mi course with a smile on her face…

Well, another successful Ride The Keweenaw weekend is coming to an end. For those of you that don’t know, Ride The Keweenaw (RTK) is a yearly event held here on the Keweenaw Peninsula. It’s a non-competitive event with the goal of building awareness, both locally and regionally, of the plethora of mountain biking trails available in the Keweenaw. Things kick off on Saturday with guided no-drop group rides at the Michigan Tech Trails, the Maasto Hiito/Churning Rapids Trails, and the Swedetown Trails. On Sunday people are invited to come up to Copper Harbor to take advantage of the bike shuttle available at a reduced rate, and to participate in another group ride that follows a particular sequence of trails that were recently designated as an International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA) EPIC. It’s a great weekend as each trail system is it’s own unique beast. We’re lucky up here. Not only do we have a large number of trails to ride, we have a large variety of trails to choose from as well.

Yesterday, Mari and I were busy with errands, helping friends with wedding stuff, and other things like my weekly long run. So, I can’t say we did much with the RTK yesterday. But, we weren’t going to miss Sunday because shuttling the trails in Copper Harbor is one of the most fun things this side of the Mississippi and it was going to be half price. My plan when we arrived in CH was to head up Brockway to shoot some of the new trails and bridges that were built towards the end of last season. Today I assumed there would be a lot of riders out and that the shuttle would be running almost constantly providing a stream of riders to serve as subjects. Well, I drove up Brockway, grabbed my gear and headed down the trail. I knew the bugs were going to be out, but I didn’t know just how bad they were going to be. I waited around for a little over 20 minutes and just decided to call it as I was getting eaten alive! I did manage to grab a couple of quick snaps right before heading back down to ride… so it wasn’t a total loss.

I also had grand intentions of shooting a series of portraits of the participants at the event, but again the bugs made things difficult as everyone was walking around waving their hands and swatting at their legs. Things just weren’t conducive to sitting still even for a minute or two. Thankfully, once you were on your bike you’d never know the bugs were even around. Just don’t stop.

I did manage to get Spandrew to sit still for a second. Maybe I’ll try this again at the upcoming Chain Drive MTB Race and try and capture portraits of the finishers. Anyway, below are a couple of snapshots I grabbed while dodging bugs and the portrait of Spandrew.

Later.

Here’s a section of the trail “On the Edge” as is carves its way down the south side of Brockway Mountain before hooking up with Woopidy Woo…

Here’s another view of “On The Edge”. This is a pretty fun little trail…

Say hello to Spandrew…

The December issue of Digital SLR Photography the UK’s Fastest Growing Photo Magazine is just now hitting the stands… and guess what? They decided to use one of my images on page 71 to illustrate the use of rear-curtain sync strobe to maintain subject sharpness while letting the background blur to help create a sense of motion. It never gets old seeing your photos in print.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sorry for all the video posts… this is just too sweet not to share!

Holy Crap!  I need to see this movie. Who would have thought we would ever see the day when bike movies looked as good as the stuff you see in the theaters.

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.

View Complete Gallery

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…

This weekend Michigan Tech hosted one of the early collegiate mountain bike events. Yesterday, the downhill and cross country events took place in Copper Harbor, and today there were short track XC and dual slalom races at the Tech Trails. I think it would have been cool to go watch the downhill event yesterday, but work was in the forecast and it wasn’t meant to be. Today I made the effort to head up for the DS race. It’s too bad that not too many of the schools came up as they are missing out on some great trails and good courses. The C4 crew did a great job with the organization and with preparation. There was a lot of digging that needed to happen to insure that there was a finished DS course to race on… and they got it done and it’s a great little track.

Anyway, I just thought I would share some of the images I shot today. I used a couple of speedlights to highlight the riders, and I like the way the images turned out. I did have problems focusing. The foreground was pretty dark without the flash, and with a background as contrasty as this my camera kept wanting to focus on the leaves in the background. It seems like a little thing, but an out of focus subject is pretty sucky.

Until next time…

So, today I went through my images from the Twilight Criterium down in Marquette and decided to pic a handful to play around with. The rain with the dark skies and reflective road surface made me think that many of these images would look pretty good as relatively high contrast black and white images. So, after some creative cropping and adjusting here is what I came up with.

Hope you like.  (click on images to see larger)

Later.

cat 5/citizen race…

Zack during the pro/1/2 race…

Zack coming up Front Street with road spray everywhere…

Zack in formation…

Black and white version of the lead in image…

Making the final turn into the home stretch…

Zack given’r right to the finish…

Caleb racing in the citizen/cat 5 race…

Yesterday was the first day of Marquette’s Superior Bike Fest (SBF). In the road world my little brother Zach has spent this season competing as a category 2 racer after upgrading from category 3 at the end of last season… and he was in Marquette this weekend to compete at SBF. So, yesterday afternoon Mari and I jumped in the car and headed for Marquette. I wanted to be there a little early because the Citizen/Category 5 race was to be held just before the Pro/1/2 race which my brother was in and my friend Caleb from The Bike Shop was competing.

Citizen/Cat 5 race…

Caleb coming in hot!

I suppose this is what it might feel/look like after/during a difficult race…

Zach waiting at the start line…

So, the real reason we came down to Marquette was to give Zach the car I borrowed for my trip out to Utah… since he was racing we decided to stick around for a bit. Zach tried to set our expectations pretty low saying that he would do his best not to fall off the back of the pack. Personally, I just like watching him compete. I wish I lived closer so that I could watch a little more often. Anyway, the race started off pretty well with one super fast group taking the early lead while Zach settled into the first group of chasers.

The start line for the Pro/Cat 1/Cat 2 race…

Zach taking his turn at the front…

Coming around turn 3 on the course…

Rain, rain go away…

As nice as the race started out, it wasn’t meant to be. The Pro/1/2 race is 60 minutes long + 1 lap. That’s a lot of time for things to change and the person in charge of the weather wasn’t going to miss out on the opportunity. It was maybe a little past the halfway mark in the race when it started to come down, and for a few seconds the rain was so think that it was difficult to see what was going on. Fortunately these guys are pros and semi-pros and the rain didn’t seem to slow them down in the slightest.

Then it poured…

Riding up front street after the rain let up…

Looks like fun doesn’t it…

It’s good to be the guy out in front…

Eventually, the rain let up and the sun actually peaked out a little bit. I can’t say that I really know what was going on in the race as most of the field had been lapped at least once. That combined with the fact that I don’t really know or follow road racing meant that I was really just there to make photos and shout encouragement to Zach as he road past. However, it seems to have gone well. No one crashed or got hurt and Zach ended up holding on for a 10th place finish. Afterwards Mari and I grabbed dinner at the Thai House and then met up with Zach and his friends at Applebees to make the car transfer and chat a bit. Today Zach has a 100 mile road race, and tomorrow there is a circuit race on Presque Isle. With any luck he will continue to do well.

Coming round turn four on the second to last lap…

The sprint to the finish…

Zach in good spirits after taking 10th place…

Here are some more images from the races. You can see how wet and gross it was for the Pro/1/2 race. I can’t say that I would have wanted to be out there. Hopefully the rest of The Bike Shop crew does well at the Downhill and XC mountain bike races today and tomorrow.

Later.

Today was the something… something annual Chain Drive Mountain Bike Race here in Houghton, Michigan. Each year the community comes together to host this great event during BridgeFest and each year it seems to get better and better. I can’t say that I know how many people participated this year… however it was seemed there was every bit of 325-350 racers. I just want congratulate all of the participants on their efforts and thank the race organizers for taking on all of the additional responsibilities associated with putting on an event like this. Everything seemed to run very smoothly, and I can’t wait to see what they do to top this next year.

Anna Thompson before the race… not a worry in the world…

Chris Marr anxious to get moving and in good spirits…

The ever professional Danimal from Down Wind Sports was on hand to help provide last minute tweaks to everyone’s racing steeds…

Christine Young… T-minus 1 minute till race time… “please let everything go well…”

Matt Spruit of team PBR crossing the finish line fourth in the single speed category…

John Mancini making a few key passes right before the finish line… another single speeder just killing it out there…

Mr. Mario Molin… yeah… not too much to say here…