Amgen 2009 Howell Mountain leg

[NV Whino]

It is said that photographers are nuts, but I gotta tell ya, these guys are nutser. The first leg of the Amgen 2009 ran through my little town. It was a shitty wet, damned cold day. I have no idea who anyone is. I just juggled the umbrella (or not in the early shots) and punched the shutter release. Some are "arty" (accidentally, of course) and some are documentary (sort of). But here they are. The time ranged from approximately 2:40 PM to 3:30 Pm.

A little "atmosphere" to start out. It wasn't quite as dark as these photos might suggest, and it wasn't snowing, just raining.






I've been told the lead rider here is George Hincapie by a friend in NM who is really into bike racing. I have no idea if that is correct.


I thought this was Lance Armstrong, but it may not be. But it was one of my arty shots.


As was this one.


Mostly the race was a blur.






I think this is the winner of stage one (Manseco), but I can't be sure.


One thing for sure, it was damned wet and cold. And a great experience.

[mth44sc]

1. watched a bit of this on TV today

What an ugly day for a bike ride. You must be made of hearty stock...

[NV Whino]

2. I followed it as much as I could on the Internet tracker

The feed back was really spotty because of the weather, so I ended up spending about an hour in the rain because I couldn't be sure of the location of the riders. It wasn't too bad, I just rolled down the hill to the market parking lot about 5 minutes away and got soaked for an hour. Given better weather, I could probably timed it to the minute.

[Celebration]

3. very cool reflections

off the wet pavement. I wanted to get a red taillights picture for the red competition. This one would have been great.

[NV Whino]

4. Yeah, the non race photos were the best.

I have to play with these a bit and lighten them up among other things. These were straight out of the camera.

[JeffR]

5. Great set here.

The second one is wicked good.