After a couple hours sleep, we met in the hotel lobby for breakfast and content management setup. The 60+ men and individual women began their assault on the 2010 RAAM at noon today from the Strand in Oceanside, CA. A total of six riders today, the remaining individuals leave tomorrow at noon, and the teams leave Saturday.
We got some great shots of the riders out on course, regrouped the three media vans at Lake Henshaw and uploaded photos and video. We choked down a burger at the cafe there and headed back out to get some night shots.
The night shots were challenging because we weren't able to get up alongside the riders on the busy highway and auto-focus wouldn't work shooting from the roadside. We're hoping we'll be able to get alongside the riders on less busy stretches of road so we can bring you some night coverage and play around with some blur.
Actually our biggest challenge is internet connectivity. The portable base stations we brought are slow and we're finding we can't get content uploaded. It looks like we might plan a couple one to two hour stops each day at the nearest free wi-fi hotspot. Looks like lots of McDonald's and Starbuck's are on the menu for this week…
Power is another tough thing to manage. We blew out a fuse at the cafe we adopted as a makeshift base today. Between the seven of us we had every outlet filled. On average, we were charging a MacBook, an iPhone, and some accessory related to photo or video. As we drive, we have an average of three inverters connected to every lighter socket in the car. We are a hoard to power-sucking locusts!
We're really fortunate to have a great crew. My car, Media 2 is a ton of fun. Brenden, my videographer is hilarious and our driver Chuck is a lot of fun, and an extremely valuable asset, having served as an official for the race in years past, and having a son in the race this year.
The three other media vehicles covering the race have great teams as well. We hook up with the other teams occasionally, but we will probably see less and less of each other as the race spreads out.
Tomorrow should be a lot of fun with the greater number of riders starting. We will spend quite a bit of time shooting in an area called the Glass Staircase outside of Borrego Springs. It's a twisty, rocky descent that plunges several thousand feet from the lake down to the desert valley below near sea level. It will offer some spectacular views and I'm going to work the hell out the 300mm lens. More to come tomorrow!
You can see my, and the media team's, photos here. I'll also be appearing in a number of the video blogs. My RAAM Media 2 blog can be found here. Look for me to present a couple segments on bicycle design, aerodynamics, etc. More stunning photos to come tomorrow!
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