I Can See My Desk

I've wanted to expand my desk for a while and have had a piece of wood lined up to do it with. I finally got around to cleaning up all my paperwork (my business year-end prompted that!) and I took that opportunity to reconfigure my desk. I certainly like it! And hopefully I'll keep it clean for a while...

Back Online

Sorry for being offline folks... the company I've been using to host my photography site at KraikerPhoto.com has been having a string of problems. It resulted in my losing my site and the 6 years of accumulated photographs I had on it.

It also took out all of my main email accounts and the name server configuration that pointed to this blog.

I have worked around almost all of the configuration screw-ups that resulted from their original failure (they say it was a hard drive that failed). I took a shortcut to get this blog working though so for the time being my nextchapter.kraikerphoto.com host points to the original blogspot name.

I decided to take this route as I will be migrating the blog to a new name in the near future in the same way that I've already started to migrate my photography site from KraikerPhoto.com to Kraiker.Photography. I'm glad I started building that site up over the summer, it means I'm not completely dead in the water. I hadn't planned on moving all the archival content over to the new site but now that the old one is dead I'll have to move some of it over. Royal PITA though!

To top off everything else, my service provider is now being affected by some malicious hackers so they're too busy to help fix my site... that makes my decision to pull the plug on them easy.

Stay tuned for more news soon.

The weekend in video

I mentioned that I used 2 different camera on the weekend in yesterday's post. I did in fact use another one... the GoPro Hero3 that I've started carrying around. So I have 2 videos which line up with the two galleries.

The first one from the Hardwood Singletrack Challenge is set to the music of Kim Churchill and is just a series of riders going by shot in a couple of different locations. This was published to 

my YouTube stream:

The second one is from the Fireman's Park CX and is an interview with the elite men's winner (Aaron Schooler) which was recorded on my iPhone. Which technically makes it 4 cameras...

I snipped the interview video and replaced the bulk of it with some action recorded on the GoPro while keeping the full audio track intact. This one was publish to the Pedal Magazine YouTube stream:

MTB and CX all in the same weekend

Two days, two different races. And I used two different cameras to test all my gear out ahead of the upcoming Canadian Cyclocross National Championships in Winnipeg.

For the first race, a mountain bike event called the Singletrack Challenge held at Hardwood Hills north of Toronto, I only used my 7D and primarily with the 70-200 F2.8 lens. It was overcast with a little rain and lots of golden leaves still on the trees. Here are a few photos:

STC

STC

The second event was in Niagara Falls, south and west of TO. The day started out cold and overcast but by the time the afternoon race was on it was a beautiful sunny day. For this cyclocross race I only used my 5D mkiii. And I stuck with my go-to lens (the 70-200). The fact that the 5D is a full frame makes it a very different lens on that body so I had to remind myself to get closer than usual. I really like the way it behaves though... very fast to focus and incredibly crisp images. Have a look:

And of course I have galleries up on my website... the Singletrack Challenge is the last one I'll be putting up on my KraikerPhoto.com website. All the new galleries are going to the new Kraiker.Photography home.

http://kraikerphoto.com/2014_Single_Track_Challenge_g357.html
and
http://www.kraiker.photography/Bicycle-Races/2014/2014-Firemans-Park-CX/

Magnolia Fruit

I had no idea that magnolia trees bore fruit as I'd never seen one before. But sure enough they do!

Here's a description from the U.S. National Arboretum:
Although it may look like a cone, it is actually an aggregate fruit that is woody. This flowering structure has changed little over millions of years. Magnolias are some of the most primitive of all flowering plants, but the seeds are enclosed in the fruit during their development, and therefore they must be classified as angiosperms, not as gymnosperms-the group to which conifers belong. As the fruit matures, scale-like areas on it split apart and the seeds, covered in a red fleshy aril, are exposed as they are in gymnosperms. 

Apparently migrating songbirds love them as they are high in fat so I'll leave them there and see what comes of them. It is tempting to try to grow a tree from seed though!

Anyhow, here are a couple of photos...

Camping, Riding and Autumn Colours (Vermont Part 2)

I'll start by saying this trip was one of the wetter editions of our Autumn In Vermont expeditions. We've had cold before. We've had some rain too. Never this much of both though.

The initial rain we had at Millstone cleared up and delivered some delightful sun and colours for our two days of riding there. These trails are very different from the Kingdom trails we've ridden before and it was both a delight and a challenge to ride them. This entire area is defined by the massive granite rock that makes up the hill. The quarries that were and the ones that still are (have a look at Rock of Ages to get an idea of the current activity) have sculpted the landscape in a very unusual way. Pierre (who is the person behind the Millstone Trail Association) described it as one of the largest industrial wastelands in the US and there certainly are a lot of things left behind from the heyday of quarries.

Cars pushed off the edge of a quarry

MTA trail

The challenge in riding wasn't because of that though... it was the combination of these being a relative secret so there aren't a ton of people riding them and the autumn leaves that hide the trails. In a place like Kingdom trails they get ridden over enough that you can see the trail easily. Without lots of riders the Millstone trails blend in with their surroundings so we spent some time hunting them down. The trails are well marked and the map provides lots of detail, it's just that they were hiding in  parts of the woods. Other than getting lost a few times, we had a great time riding though! I expect to be doing a magazine article on the trails, stay tuned for that to get more info on them.

There's a trail in there somewhere...

We could have easily spent another day riding there but we had reservations in the Burke Mountain campground (now called Q Burke). It was only an hour drive from Barre to East Burke but we made a few detours (shopping) along the way. The beautiful sunshine had also gone into hiding so we weren't in a rush. We got settled into our campsite and made a nice fire for the evening, hoping that we'd have good weather to ride the following day.

It took a bit to get Babe level

Unfortunately that wasn't to be... we tried going out for a ride early but only succeeded in getting very wet. So we cut that ride short and made another campfire!

A soggy ride on Shire

The weather continued to be cold and windy but the rain let up some so we were able to get a few nice rides in. Not much in the way of photographic expeditions for me; the colours were past their prime and the lighting wasn't really good. The shots I took at Millstone are really the only ones I liked.

An old quarry

Our last day to ride was Friday and it was the best of all of the days we had on these trails this year.  The trails were beginning to dry up so there weren't as many big puddles to plow through and the sun was beautiful and warming. We had decided the day before that we'd hit the road on Friday afternoon rather than doing all the driving on Saturday so we took our time heading west with stops for some things we can't get up in Canada. And another stop in at Queen City Brewery in Vermont to get a little more of their delicious beer.

Kingdom Trails

Trailhead

And then it was over... the 2014 camping season has come to an end. I expect I'll take Babe to a few cyclocross races before putting her in storage for the winter but no more overnight camping trips :(

October In Vermont. Again!

I'm told we're creatures of habit and I'm ok with that. Going to Vermont to enjoy the Autumn colours and some mountain biking for Canadian Thanksgiving is a habit I like and will happily be that creature for years to come. Andrea and I have been doing this longer than I've been keeping this blog.

If you look back through my blog you can see some of the previous adventures here. I think the three entries from October 2013 are a good overview and will give you a taste of what it's like.

Decisions, decisions

As we have done before the trip starts with a journey to Massena NY which is about 6 hours from home. With a late afternoon start this has become our habit, down to the point that we stay at the same motel because we know it will be a place to relax after a rushed start.

And our next scheduled stop has become an evening and overnight at Guy & Joan's place in Underhill VT. We could get there is a few hours but love spending a day getting there. Usually it involves an adventure or two along the way, have to break up the mundane aspects of habits right?

Colour me pumpkin

We wanted to stop in at Boyers apple orchard so we picked a route through the Adirondacks as we made our way to the Green Mountains. It was a beautiful day, bright and sunny. And we very much enjoyed our travels. Boyers was a great stop and we'll enjoy the apples we got there for the rest of this trip. The apple cider donuts won't last that long though, they are delicious!

Next up was looking into getting a US based phone & data service for when I'm traveling. I intentionally got a fully unlocked phone so I'd be able to use any SIM card as I travel. Seems very few providers have a service designed for this... I expected AT&T to have something on the "GoPhone" plans but they only seem to be interested in monthly customers even with no contract offerings. That was really the only frustrating part of the day. I feel like I wasted a bunch of time (in reality it was only a bit of time and it wasn't wasted, just felt that way). But then it was time to head off to visit and enjoy some home cooked food.

I'm not sure how to describe the pleasure Andrea and I get from the time we share with Guy & Joan. I'll try by saying that we both feel really honoured on a bunch of different levels. We connect in a lot of ways, have gotten to know each other reasonably well over the past few years, still have lots to learn. This was a nice visit :)

And Guy has some new "hobbies"! Imagine that! I'm looking forward to seeing how that evolves between now and next October. One thing we did on our way to Underhill was to drop in at Queen City Brewery and there will be a couple of growlers arriving in Toronto. This is a place Guy has been getting some of his yeast from for his beers and he has a good relationship with the brewmaster there. Impressive place and I'm glad we made a point of dropping by.

A delightful evening of good food, good company and good beverages came to an end and we all expected there to be some rain the next day (Saturday, today as I write this). Before I move on though I have to include a photo of Andrea, Joan and Sampson... their furry friends are very much a part of their family.

It was a purple sky over Mt Mansfield in the morning but it wasn't raining yet. Guy had a friend coming over early to help mill some wood and the weather was a concern so they got down to business early. About the time it started to lightly rain.

We got an early start too. A tasty breakfast and everyone got down to business. For us that meant more driving but when we saw a Red Hen bakery we had to stop. And it was "the" Red Hen so we have awesome bread to go along with great beer now!

Red Hen Bakery

The rain did affect the way today went. We spent a little time in Montpelier wandering and shopping and enjoying the atmosphere. We tripped thru Barre (and we continue to trip over pronouncing it correctly (Bear-E, not Bar) and headed up to the spot we'd reserved to camp near the Millstone trailhead. It was still raining; steady but not heavy. And the camping was down a steep hill from the lodge. I walked part way down, drove that far. Then I walked further and decided it wasn't going to happen. Even getting back up from where I'd been confident I could get out from was hard so I know I made the right choice. I'll keep the slick conditions in mind when we go riding tomorrow.
And on that note I'll wrap this up. It's still raining but the forecast is for dry conditions tomorrow. We'll see what the riding is like here!

2014 Buses at Bon Echo

What a fabulous weekend! The weather was perfect, the colours are almost at their best and the turnout was good.

Previous years have been cold or windy or both (you can read my 2011 entry for a little look into that!) but this year made up for all the past weekends. There was no real organization as an "event"; it's more of a come-as-you-are thing. In fact it almost didn't happen this year until Nancy picked a date and said "let's go". I would guess there were about 30 buses in total but I didn't actually count them... I do know that all the best campsites were full.

Vanalong - a stretch Westy

I loaded up the camper during the day & we got on the road around 3pm hoping to be ahead of rush hour traffic. It wasn't too bad; one significant slowdown that added close to an hour to the trip though. So we arrived in the dark which is often the case. Fortunately the site we had was really flat so getting set up wasn't as difficult as it often is. We spent the evening with Robin and Jouko (and their pup Bruno of course), sitting around a campfire as the gang all rolled in. Unfortunately we didn't take the opportunity to eat as soon as we arrived so it was close to 10 before we went back to the camper to make dinner. More visiting and then it was past midnight and everyone decided it was time to call it a night. A beautiful starry night.

The night was mild so no heater was needed. And the morning was another bright, sunny and warm one. We had a leisurely start to the day; walking around with a morning coffee saying hi to all or VW friends can take an hour or more. Then it was time to get ready for a ride. We had thought about going to some trails that John and Catrina have told us about and I think if they were going we would have enjoyed going there too. But John wasn't feeling well (turns out his appendix was acting up so he went in for surgery before the weekend was over!) so it was just the two of us. As it would have been around 12-15km just to get to the trails, we opted to explore some local things. The High Pines trail was a blast and just technical enough. Not long enough though so we went off in search of more. In all the years I've been there I've never gone into the western part of the park. It's actually much bigger than the eastern side and has some long trails as well as hike-in and canoe-in camping. The gravel road is about 6km to the end at Joeperry Lake. 

The trail we tried to ride was too technical so we gave up and just enjoyed the gravel riding and the scenery. Beautiful blue sky, autumn colours, reflections in smooth lakes. Yup.

Andrea at Joeperry Lake

Joeperry Lake

Joeperry Lake

Just another little lake

Ian

 Then it was time for a little more socializing, with beer in hand rather than coffee. In previous years the Saturday highlight was a crockpot potluck but we hadn't heard about anything being organized so the gang of cyclists elected to make up our own potluck. There was an afternoon of beer ahead first though! Afternoon snacks were laid out over at Doug and Linda's site so I wandered over and spent some time chatting. And taking photos... btw, all the photos here are from my iPhone (a new 6). Not too bad! I had fun taking this gallery I call Hats which was inspired by Jim's straw hat hanging on his bike.

Jim

Gord

Frank

 The one exception to my iPhone photos was the time-lapse I did on the GoPro. I am disappointed with the battery life on it, this is the second time it's run out of juice too early. In the first cases it was a sunset that didn't make it all the way. This time I was hoping to capture the transition from sunset to starry night. What I did get are some awesome photobombs though!

Here's the setup of the camera...

And here's the video...

A camouflaged Babe

All too soon it was Sunday and time to get ready to head home. It was another beautiful day (the sunrise in the video is from Sunday morning) and no-one really wanted to go. There were a handful of people who were going to stay another night or two, something we learned as we wandered around in the morning saying our good-byes. This is generally the last VW campout for most of the group so it's slightly emotional. And definitely important to take the time for hugs and farewells. I'm already looking forward to the next camping season!

A camouflaged Babe with sunlight and campfire smoke

It's Not All About The Bike

Today was a "rest day" for me... no photography required, no driving, and no deadlines. So here's how it went:

I checked out of the Chateau Laurier which was a comfortable hotel for the few days I was there. Nothing exceptional but comfortable. Lugging my stuff the few blocks down to the team hotel where I dropped off one bag at the cargo van and then hopped on a bus to the train station. Most of the teams were on the train but the media had a separate car and I was happy to let them enjoy a day without me in their face.

My temporary mobile office on the train

 It was a few relaxing hours on the train, time I spent reading and thinking and just enjoying being free of responsibility. The train arrived a little after noon just as the rain was beginning to come down and we all hopped onto another bus to the Montreal Delta hotel. Somehow my reservation wasn't in the system so it took a little time to sort out and once that was taken care of I had a few hours to kill until my room was ready. It was still raining but I went for a walk around to see what was in the the area. Nothing really caught my attention so I spent time reading in the lobby while waiting.

When my room was finally ready they let me know they had upgraded me to a bigger room... have a look and see if you think it was worth the wait. I would have loved to have this for the 3 days in Quebec rather than the one night here but I'm happy to have it at all.

HDMI hookup for my computer

Now that's a shower!

And before I forget, this is still a UCI World Tour bike event so I guess it is a little about the bike... I spent some time chatting with a friend from Belgium who Andrea and I first met in 2010 and very much enjoyed his company on and off the bike. I've seen Eric a few times here at the GPCQM races but today I brought along my iPad and fired up FaceTime so Andrea could say hi too. There's a bike story in there, one that includes a volcano :)

I'll leave this entry off with a parting shot and save the rest of the bike shots for tomorrow. So it's a little about the bike after all.

Creative carving

Gerrans Repeats in Quebec

Today was an amazing day of racing here in Quebec... it was a great temperature for racing and the light was bright and vibrant for photography. It's also a very scenic place to take photos :)

Rather than talk about the day, here are a few photos I like... enjoy. Look for more on PedalMag.com tomorrow.

Now I need to go pack and get ready to head to Montreal tomorrow for the next race on Sunday.

Matteo Trentin was in a late break

The first World Champion to race the GPCQM

A fine line

Gerrans powered through the sprint

Frank Schleck in action

Ryan Anderson and champagne

GPCQM Day 1 - The Sprint Challenge

Just a quick update... it's late, I've just finished dinner after processing photos and videos and I have a long day ahead tomorrow.

Look for more coverage on PedalMag.com soon but meanwhile here are a few photos of the day. It was a great Canadian start to these Canadian World Tour events with Cody Canning taking the win. Not the first Canadian to claim a victory in the Sprint, I wonder what it will take to have a Canadian win one of these two World Tour events though.

Preparing

Finishing

Appreciating

It was great to catch up with a few people including Steve Bauer and Eric Van Lancker (check this video interview I did with them 2 years ago!) and it was great to see the start of the competition.

Tomorrow will be the first road race and I'll try to get a few photos online!

Settled In For The GPCQM

I got a real chuckle when I arrive at my hotel in Quebec (the media are all in the Chateau Laurier while the teams are a block away in the Delta Quebec). For the first time I came to this event without my trusty camper... I decided to fly as I was pressed for time. So what do I see in front of the hotel? See for yourself.

No, that's not Babe... just looks wonderfully similar! Maybe she's trying to tell me something. Aanyhow, it brought a big smile to my face and started my time here nicely.

Next up was the room... I'm at the very far end of the hotel with a view out to the inner courtyard (which at this time of the evening is wonderfully lit and pretty). One bed for all my gear, one bed for me, and a bath robe hanging in wait for lounging. It's going to a rough trip. 

Then it was off to a media session with four riders. It wasn't a really big deal and I actually though the questions were pretty lame. But I didn't ask any so I can't point any fingers! I'm sure these top riders were happy when it was done and they could get back to their preparations, massages, or meals.

Tomorrow will be the first race, one that I think is unique to the GPCQM event. It's an elimination sprint with each team entering one rider and two of the 4 riders in each heat move on to the next one. This is more like a track event than a road race but it's very spectator friendly and has always drawn big crowds in the past.

The forecast for tomorrow suggests there could be rain and that may have some affect on the day. In any case, the race doesn't start until 4pm so I'll get to enjoy a good part of the day wandering around in this lovely city. There was one disappointment today though... there's a lovely little crepe restaurant that I've gone to and was looking forward to going to for dinner today. It's gone :(