- I love this shot. It feels perfect right now. No matter how bad things get, at the end of the day, there will always be a struggling racer and fans, young and old, eager to lend a hand to their rolling heroes. I know I will be.
- We hadn’t planned on shooting in the snow on the Stelvio when we devised our project to shoot the Gavia and Stelvio this fall. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans for us…great plans!
- Up until this year, I had spent a grand total of about thirty minutes on the Stelvio. Following the Giro’s finish there and the eventful shoot Ashley and I did on the Stelvio in October, the number is much, much larger. We had missed utter perfection by a day, and instead, got the first major snowstorm of the 2012/2013 winter season. It changed our plans completely, but in the end, I think it made for something a lot more special than it would have been otherwise. At the time, we bemoaned our luck. Now, I’d say we got lucky. Funny how that works.
- Our first ever cyclocross race was in Plzen, Czech Republic. We were there on assignment to shoot the Rapha-Focus team for Focus. Luckily, the riders and everyone associated with Rapha-Focus are all fantastic - Jeremy Powers, in particular, is a favorite. I’m not much for portraits - as I’m sure you can see - but Ashley seems to have a knack for it.
- Cyclocross was a late love for me in my journey through falling in love with every cycling discipline. I remember the first time I saw the advertisement for the Koppenbergcross, and I remember promising myself that I’d see the race someday. At that point, Oudenaarde wasn’t in my vocabulary, but with each passing year, it’s beginning to feel more and more like home. When we arrived back to Oudenaarde just in time for the Koppenbergcross, it felt like a homecoming. It’s an entirely unique occasion for us to have a race right outside our door, right down the way on normal training roads, and situated on a hillside that I stare at every time I ride by. The images that stood out to me? Ashley’s series of shots of the pits. They were beautiful in the stormy sunshine.
- (Left) Ashley has an uncanny ability to get what she wants. The same people that tell me to go to hell, welcome her with warm hugs. It’s a talent, and she uses it for good - like this image from the Giro finish in Assisi. She took this from the balcony of an older couple, while drinking a tea with them. (Right) Joaquim Rodriguez’s emotionally charged victory salute after a rain-soaked, unbelievably difficult Il Lombardia was my favorite race shot of the year. It was also a whole lot of luck. The first part: Rodriguez’s celebration was already well-documented by the time he got to my point about 100m behind the first row of photographers. It was already great, but when he passed them, he completely lost it. It became a celebration of the rawest variety. He let loose with a scream, and the clenching of his fist was not intended for anyone but himself. It was beautiful. So Rodriguez was perfect, now for my part. The light was gone entirely. It was more or less dark, as Lecco was pounded by rain, thunder, and lightning. For some reason, I picked the least dependable lens in our bag for action shots - the 85 f1.8. Getting a shot of a moving subject with the 85 at 1.8 in focus is about as likely as me waking up before 8am. Getting a shot in focus in a driving rain storm in near dark? Impossible. Except it worked. Somehow. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty close to it, and I’ll take it.
- (Left) Hands down, the best day of shooting we pulled off this year was at Il Lombardia. This shot was a huge bonus. We weren’t planning to stop there, but after taking a look around, we couldn’t pass it up. We’ll be spending a fair bit more time in the area in 2013, and I’m pretty excited about that.
- Our trip to Exmoor in December was my favorite trip of 2012. The weather is typically ough, the terrain brutal, the roads gnarled and muddy, but it’s perfect. It’s one of my favorite places to ride in the world. We’ll be back for lots more in 2013.
- The Passo Fedaia isn’t normally my favorite place to shoot, but right around sunrise…it’s magical.
- (Left) Chasing races is always fun, but that fun is based largely on the tight rope run that is chasing a race. In a word, it’s also dependably stressful. I can guarantee that every day we chase, emotions will cover the entire spectrum. The hardest part - making your stops count. At the Classics, the chances to catch the race are much greater than in the Grand Tours (at least in my experience), which generally don’t follow the intestinal routes they do in, say, Belgium. There’s nothing to be done about it save to make your spots count. Having Ashley as co-photographer opens our options greatly, but so does running. Fast. (Right) The Muro di Sormano was a controversial inclusion in the Giro di Lombardia for three years in the 1960’s - 1960, 1961, and 1962. After which, the climb was removed and left to the annals of legend until 2012. 50 years later, race organizers, RCS, re-introduced the famed wall to Il Lombardia. It was every bit as terrible as its legendary status demanded.
- Ashley loves flowers. So when she read about the vast tulip farm in the Netherlands, Keukenhof, it was only a matter of waiting for the pesky things to bloom before we visited. Unfortunately, we jumped the gun - those aren’t tulips, but they are still beautiful. It was a silly adventure, but we had a ton of fun, and we got to meet a long-time internet friend, Ewoud Dronkert. It was a great day, and this is the only full res image that survived the Giro theft. At least we have one to laugh about.
- One of my favorite days of shooting this year was with my father and Ashley at Rocky Mountain National Park in July. We got up at the ungodly early hour of 4 and made it to the upper part of Old Fall River Road just in time for sunrise. It was also the first time I ever shot with a fisheye lens. I think it worked out alright.
- As I mentioned before, Oudenaarde has become one of our homes for the season. We had the chance to spend almost five months in the area this year, and with that came a lot of bike riding. Due to the help of some great riding friends and a bunch of exploring, we discovered some incredible roads just off the heavily trodden cobbled beaten path - the Pays des Collines.
- (Left) I love dirt roads, and I love dirt road races. Each spring, the quiet dirt roads surrounding the border between Louisiana and Mississippi play host to Rouge-Roubaix. I spent 80 miles in the break at Rouge-Roubaix couple of years ago, and then returned this summer for a second look for an article. It’s a special place. (Right) We love Innsbruck. We spent a year living there, and it’s always a huge pleasure to return. We got the chance to make a quick trip back to one of my favorite climbs (Hinterhorn) above the Inn Valley during our first ever shoot with Focus. Focus had liked one of our images we took back in 2010 and wanted to more or less duplicate it. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate. Instead, it made for something entirely different, and way better in my opinion. The morning had left the valley under clouds, but the upper half in bright sunshine, leaving the middle - a beautifully lit heaven. Even better? That’s our friend, Christoph Kluge. He lives in Innsbruck and has showed me/dragged me around the area many times. It’s fitting that it’s him in the picture.
- Here, you see Domenico Pozzovivo on the attack, en route to his first ever stage win at the Giro at Lago Laceno. I love this picture - the umbrella makes it for me. About one minute before that, I was sprinting up the mountain side behind and below the guy holding the umbrella, where I took this shot of the switchback below. It was a special combo. We tried so many times to create solid combo shots this year, but only rarely did they pan out - this was one of those times.
- (Left) I love the Passo Giau. It’s a beautiful pass to ride, drive, look at, shoot…dream about. This one is from the beginning of the descent of the Giau heading toward Cortina d’Ampezzo. The tiny riders of the weary Giro gruppetto are almost done for the day. (Right) It’s the story behind this picture that makes me happy. We spent all day craning our necks in search of a great spot. We didn’t find all that much, but just as we were giving up hope, we arrived in this perfectly green valley with vineyards coating the sides. We parked, then started walking. We walked and walked and walked. I got blisters on the awkward pitch of the valley’s steep angle, but it was fun. We were behind, trying to get to a good spot, running, singing, generally behaving like exhausted idiots. I had forgotten about this shot entirely until Wade mentioned doing this post…
- Giro time! It was our first ever Grand Tour, and it will always be remembered as the time we lost everything on the first day when our car was broken into and all of Ashley’s clothes, both of our computers, and all of our external hard drives were stolen (see Veeral’s unfortunately similar tale). It will also be remembered as the time we traveled around most of Italy in search of pretty pictures, met lots of great people, and made it all the way to Milano. It was hard, and it was a huge learning curve, but we’re proud of what we managed over our first Corsa Rosa.
- This is an awesome shot that Ashley took of Jeremy Hunt struggling up this year’s white road climb of the Passo della Cappella on the way to the day’s finish in Porto Sant’Elpidio.
- The third leg of our winter shoot with Castelli took us to the Ardennes with the Raymond and Michel Kreder and Thomas Dekker. It was already a great day when we arrived to what would be our final location - the Cote de Wanne. At that point, the late afternoon light burst through the clouds, the sun beams shone, and we laughed at how ridiculously beautiful it all was. It’s a shame my pictures can’t do that scene justice. Maybe someday, I’ll be able to better capture a scene like that.
- Can you believe that the last muddy Paris-Roubaix was in 2002? We almost had a muddy edition in 2012 - the skies opened up with quite the deluge only a little while after Tom Boonen raised his arms in triumph. The rains kept up after that - all the way through the Ardennes Classics.
- Paris-Roubaix should have been a disaster for us. We arrived late to the start in Compiegne and missed out on both our press passes and car sticker. It still makes me shudder to think about that awful start to the day. Luckily, we had two huge aces in veteran Belgian soigneur, Bart Brackez, and former Roubaix podium finisher, Roger Hammond. This was Roger’s first year on the other side of the barriers at Roubaix, and while he seemed more or less ok with the situation, there was still a burning racer’s fury in his belly, and that race chase exemplified it perfectly. I’ll write more on this day soon, but for now, I’ll let this image of Tom Boonen winning number 4 do all the talking.
- We had stopped in a green forest for what would have been a nice, forgettable scenic, but then the skies opened up with first rain, then lots of it, then hail. By the time the raging field arrived with the break still trying to get away, we were looking at a near white out from all of the hail. Ashley’s image was perfect…as was the next one she took with the day’s angry clouds swirling menacingly ahead of the climbing peloton just above Houffalize.
- Jered and Ashley’s 2013 Photo Calendar features 12 stunning images from the cycling world to keep you inspired throughout the year. It can be purchased here on Wiggle