Road Report - The Moab Ho Down Weekend
OK well, the Bender Zion Huckfest didn’t happen. His suspension was blown on his Dare, and I’m not allowed to take pictures of him riding any other bike since he is a sponsored rider. So I decided not to drive all the way across the state to not take pictures of trails that I wouldn’t be able to ride. But that is OK because about the same time I got the Bender news I found out about the weekendlong 
Ho Down Halloween party festivities being put on by the Chili Pepper Bike Shop in Moab. I had been threatening to skip Halloween altogether this year, but I am a costume party diving rod after all.
So the scenery shots took a break for most of the weekend, other than the first shot that I took at sunrise up near the Slickrock trail. I really like the alternating layers. Saturday evening brought the big costume party at the Elks club. I went to the thrift store and put togther a goofy Jester costume. Now you are probably ready to see pictures of said costume and party. Well, I don’t have any. I didn’t bring my mini-cam and I wasn’t about to hawl around my expensive camera. Maybe someone out there can send me pictures? There were organized bike rides in the day from the shop, but I was too busy working on my photos on the computer in the shop to attend. Oh well, I did get this shot of some guys riding a DH trail that drops from Sand Flats down to the shop. Pretty sweet, if I lived in Moab I would have a big DH bike, that’s for sure.
Well it is Sunday night, and I’m about ready to head out of town tomorrow. I’m not sure exactly where I’m going yet, but I’m ready to do some more shooting.
Road Report - Lucky 10,000
I’m back at Mondo in Moab after a couple days in the isolation of Indian Creek and Canyonlands. I noticed while downloading my pictures this afternoon that I shot my 10,000th picture this morning using my Canon 20D. Fitting that it happened here, since I shot picture number one here exactly a year ago. I’ve taken over 2000 shots in the last week, ensuring that I if I get bored this winter I will at least have plenty of photos to edit.
After getting out of here Monday afternoon, I drove down to Indian Creek and met up with Jose and Mick. I shot the top picture of Mick climbing with the Bridger Jacks and North and South Six Shooters in the background. On Tues I successfully climbed my first roped ascent, a crack climb named Rochambeau. It wasn’t pretty, I felt like a cyclist pedalling with my knees out and bobbing my head, but I got up it!
I spent Weds shooting and exploring the Needles district of Canyonlands. Weds afternoon as I prepared to ride my mountain bike out to the confluence of the Colorado and Green rivers, I met this little kangaroo rat begging for food in the parking lot. He likes corn chips a lot, and wasn’t afraid to eat right out of my hand. Yeah, yeah, I know it is bad form, but I figure he is already ruined. At the confluence, I got this really nice shot. See that storm in the background? I spent the next hour racing it back to the car with my huge photo backpack on my back. It won by about 10 minutes then went on to drop 2 feet of snow in Colorado later that night.
This morning I caught the sun rising over North Six Shooter, then headed back on up here to Moab to catch up with emails and and a bit of bike engineering. Next on tap? Looks like I’m going to be heading down to Zion to ride and shoot the dirt jump boys getting agro in Bender’s neighborhood. Stay tuned!
PS: Jose remembered the tequila ;>)
Road Report - Live from Moab
Hey howdy, it is Monday morning and I’m writing from Mondo Cafe in Moab. A quicky trip update so far and a couple teaser pics for ya here. It has been nonstop action so far this trip. I rolled out of Boulder Weds morning bright and early to try to catch my first powder day at Abasin. Well, they groomed all 2 trails, and there were big lift lines so I caught 6 laps or so then took off to Goblin Valley, UT. Over the next 48 hrs I spent about 30 hiking and climbing wth a 40 lb pack and shot about a 1000 pix. 
This place is just too amazing to truly describe, or to explain in a couple web sized images. The place is a shooters paradise. I wandered around and got pretty excited formulating some plans for what I’m going to do with these shots.Next on tap was the annual Ellsworth Owners Retreat in Moab. Mostly the usual gig, except I roomed with the infamous Josh Bender. We hung out and talked trash about hucking, I’m supposed to go to his hood in Virgin, UT and shoot him going huge. Maybe later this week? Oh, the other big news is I rode Amasa Back, Rock Stacker, and Jackson’s Trail on the brand new not out yet Ellsworth Evolve. This is Ellsworth’s 29er full suspension 4 inch travel bike. Very cool. Look for a report on that coming up in the future. Shown is a picture of me taken by Kurt, engaging in activity that will most definitely void your warrenty, don’t try this at home. I pulled this jump out . . . barely.
Saturday night’s dinner was held at Johnny from Moab Cyclery’s house. Bender, Travis, and crew were launching the jumps and ramps in the backyard, thus the air shot. I wisely kept my wheels on the ground and my finger on the trigger for this session, although Tony E. was threatening to go big until he was reminded that he was setting a bad example for the young’uns.
Now I am on my way down to Indian Creek to meet up with Jose and the Boulder climber crowd to check out some big cracks. I’m looking forward to getting back out under the stars and to catch up with my sleep. I’ve been shooting sunrise’s and sunsets, and trying to edit in between which hasn’t left nearly enough time for sleeping. I’m going to have to find a campsite with midday shade so I can sleep. I hope Jose left the tequila at home . . . yeah right. Steve out.
Steve Z Photography Featured Image Of The Day At Acclaim Images Website
Words & Photo: Steve Z
If it is still Monday, check out the Acclaim Images website. Just because I haven’t been blogging doesn’t mean that I have just been sitting around doing nothing. Nor have I just been riding my bike all the time. I’ve been working on getting some of my images up for sale. I uploaded my first batch of photos to my new agency, and much to my surprise, I checked out the website today and my shot is on the front page! Very exiting! Big thanks for Brayden Bean for jumping high and stylee!
Fall riding kicks ass
Words & Photo: Steve Z
Wingnut and I took the 3:10 to Ned today, where we picked up McDavid and headed out for a stellar fall ride. Fall is my favorite time for riding. It’s the end of the season, so my fitness is at its best. The oppressive heat, sunscreen, and branch scratches give way to refreshing cool, glorious falling leaves, and shortened days. Better get as much riding in now while there is still time, before we know it we’ll be carving the pow. But not before we hit Fruita and Moab in the coming weeks. Its time to celebrate the outdoors and wring the last bit of glory out of these woods. I mean just look at the picture, how could you possibly not feel good while riding in such beauty?! Read more
Boulder Racing Cyclocross 9/30/06
The first Boulder Racing cyclocross race of the season was held last Saturday at the CU research park. I really wanted to do this one, since this course has proven to be my best in the past. Unfortunately I didn’t get back home from Vegas until 1am the night before. I’m getting soft in my old age, and after 3 days on my feet I decided not to set the alarm and see if I woke up in time to enter the 11:30 Masters race. Yeah right, rolled out of bed at 11:15. Fortunately I still had plenty of time to get my act together to get down there and shoot some pix of the Mens Open race. Wow, it was a hot, sunny dustbowl! Not exactly cross weather yet, and my lungs were thanking me for not subjecting them to the pain. Alan Obye pretty much ran away from everyone and made it look easy. You can check out results here, if you want to play pin the name on the rider.
Interbike 2006 Tech Report
Words and Photos: Steve Z
Every fall the US bicycle industry trade show comes to Las Vegas. I was there shooting photos of things that caught my eye, and now is your chance to reap the benefits! So here you go, take a tour, but be warned; these pictures might cause you to experience deep, dark, illicit sensations of lust. I have arranged my photos into six different catagories. Go to each photo gallery and click on the pictures, there are photo titles and descriptions contained within.
Gallery 1: Ellsworth
Ok so I am a sometimes employee of Ellsworth Bicycles. Thus this company has its own little section. There are a lot of pictures of Ellsworth’s new bicycle, The Ride. I’m pretty proud of it. Other bikes that I’ve worked on are the new Scandium/carbon hardtails and road bikes.
Gallery 2: MTBThere is such an amazing amount of stuff at the show; it can be overwhelming at times. It is also tough to decide what to take pictures of. So mostly I took pictures of things that are interesting to me. I have a lot of 29ers in here. I haven’t really ridden one myself, but many of my friends do. Intellectually, I am not sold, but as an industry professional, I feel obligated to test them out for myself. So I’m going to try one out next year. Thus, much 29er stuff for you to see. I also like carbon fibers bits, sexy shapes, and really high end stuff. So don’t expect to see too many pictures of price point bikes.
Gallery 3: RoadI really don’t ride too much road these days. There are hundreds of good looking carbon road bikes at the show, and I won’t ever buy any of them. Nor will I ever buy any of the sexy $2000 wheelsets. So I just picked a few things that were really flashy. I did talk to Magnus Bäckstedt at the PowerCranks booth. I was telling him that I too am a Powercranker, but that I don’t ride them much because I mostly ride mountain. He then pretty much told me that I am a wuss! Getting called out by a Paris-Roubaix winner pretty much made my trip. It was all in good fun.
Gallery 4: CyclocrossIt’s ‘cross season, and I’m really wanting a new cross bike. I really want to try a carbon one, but alas, blogging isn’t paying the bills like you might expect. I am threatening to do a race or two this year in the ol’ Masters catagory, since I’m now officially over the hill. We’ll see if it really happens, or if I’ll just keep finding excuses and shooting photos instead.
Gallery 5: CruisersThere really wasn’t a whole lot of excitement in the cruiser catagory this year. It seems that this segment of the market has peaked. Most of the big players had revised paint jobs and themes, but the frames were largely unchanged. Although I’m completely biased, the Ellsworth Ride was by far the best looking new cruiser out there, although its weight, performance, and price really put it into a catagory of its own. It isn’t exactly a ‘cruiser’. I predict the next big push is going to be in the townie/city bike catagory. This catagory has been tarnished with lameness for years, but it appears as though that is turning around a bit. Electra has a new line of Amsterdam cruisers that I didn’t take any pics of because they tend to get jumpy.
Gallery 6: MiscHere is where everything else wild and wacky resides.
Whew! Well I got this first big story online. Its feels good, I feel at least a half a pound lighter. I have more pictures of people, Vegas scenery (buildings), Vegas scenery (booth babes), and bad food, but we’ll see if get them posted. Up next on the blog queue are photos from the Boulder cyclocross race that took place this past Saturday. Stay Tuned!