Covered My First Bicycle Race of the Year

The Homage to Ice is a MTB event held at Mansfield, ON and it kickstarts the season. There was a road race as well, and the one race I really would have preferred to be at (the Ronde van Vlaanderen -- Tour of Flanders). I haven't seen the results, I am hoping to get to see some video coverage before seeing the finish so don't tell me what happens!

As for the race I was at, I hadn't even turned off the engine in Babe when I had a big smile on my face. Team Van Go was there, three lovely Westies sitting there with their tops popped. All of them early 70s bay buses, and two of them had been converted to diesel! Johnny is a VW mechanic and he did the conversions, having finished his 1.6TDI conversion over the winter. Very sweet.

I only used my new 7D with the 24-105 F4, another exercise in limiting my options. I can definitely say I'm happy with my choice of camera body... the 7D is fast, has a much better focusing system and feels great in the hand. It will take a little while for me to get used to the location of some of the controls as they have changed from both my other bodies. Here's a photo to give you an idea of the conditions. Much of the course was like this (yes, we still have a little snow up here).

There were two races, one lap (approx 20KM) @ 10am & two laps @ noon. The day was sunny, and warming up so by noon it was nice and mushy... hard work. And speaking of "work", time for me to get back to sorting photos. The gallery is at KraikerPhoto.com.