Tour Of Bright - From racer to photographer

The TOB was finally here and everyone racing was humming and excited about it as it is (in my opinion) the best race in the Victorian calendar particularly for hill climbers and people who love to get away for a weekend and enjoy the ride, the scenery and try to achieve all of their personal goals. I had been excited about it but due to a crash had to withdraw and as I have been doing more photography this year anyway threw my camera in the car along with every ones Zipp Wheels, TT helmets and skinsuits and a slab of post race refreshments.

With some trepidation we arrived in Bright, I love this race and knew I would miss racing, but you know what? I was too busy to miss anything and had a ball. It was great to chat to so many riders that we only see from time to time as we live inn Sale, so to catch up with many Melbourne and interstate Friends, and to share in their achievements, and see their enthusiasm and make some new friends was just fantastic.

The first highlight was the "race numbers" I cant believe how many people twittered and facebooked how excited they were to have theses fancy schmancy new race numbers. I even wished I hadn't withdrawn and just got a DNS (so I could get a number with my name on it...but that is just silly and an expensive way to get a BLINGY number). Registration was a breeze, The Alpine Cycling Club need everyone to sit back and think about the logistics of placing NINE grades of riders on the roads and keep everyone happy.....Everything I heard was only complementing the awesome job that this small club does to keep this race running so smoothly......

The show bags were awesome:-

The show bags received by everyone contained lots of treats and those special numbers, every grade had a unique colour all in Rapha retro colors!

Stage One was the race to the top of Tawonga, Marisa Farrell and I both started out at the Boynton sprint and then moved to 200m from the finish I must admit everyone was looking forward to the end as we yelled out "Only 200m to Go".Marisa and I had a ball and kept a lot of people amused, especially each other as it is a long day in one place. Marisa is seen at the SKCC crits and sometimes CCCC crits with her camera.


Looking forward to that finish line




It was still hurting a bit though, uphill is uphill after all

Stage Two I found a picturesque place to take pics along the TT route. I was looking for a nice background and found someone else had the same idea as me, so I also got to learn some new stuff about photography too.

Time trials don't leave much time to enjoy the scenery

It is just head down, and look straight ahead

Stage Three was a disappointment for me. I had planned a place to sit and take pics from right here:-

It might have finished on a much flatter course, but still looked like hard work

The race finished about 6km short of my planned spot so Marisa and I had to sit in a new spot and with the day being sunny and shadowy, I wasn't happy with my spot, but it was a fun day out on the course and I could see how excited everyone was to finish the Tour. As fart as the early finish, I think there was a resounding sigh of relief from the NON-pure hill climbers, but the pure hill climbers may have been a bit disappointed. I know getting back to that slab of after race refreshments early meant that Sunday was going to be a LOOOONNNGGGGG day for everyone from the Wellington Club, although it was great to be in Bright with great memories, good times and a plan to do it all again next year (and yes I will be behind the camera again .....and LOVING IT!)

What I do know is that at 10:00am on Sunday morning weather zone states that at Mt Hotham Wind Speed was 41kph with gusts at 54kph and temp was -1.3 "feels like" -9.2. Today we passed over Mt Hotham about 10am and it was very windy and freezing and today's numbers were wind speed of 26kph, gusts of 31 and temp of -0.8 feeling like -6.7 and I will vouch that it was Bloody freezing and Bloody windy today, here are the pics I took from inside the warm car:-

This was the view I had planned to photograph

But the clouds and visibility were terrible and it was also rainy

This is a sight that repeating TOB riders would remember was always fantastic to see

FINALLY ALL PICS WILL BE AVAILABLE TO SEE AT ACTIONPACTPIX ON SATURDAY AS i HAVE HEAPS OF PHOTOS. GET THE LATEST INFO BY LIKING ACTIONPACTPIX ON FACEBOOK. Keep posted on the updates for the pics, by following actionpactpix on facebook or following me on twitter (See Toolbar at the bottom of the page to do either!!!!