Steve-Z.com

.: Nikon D700, Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 @ 200mm, 1/1000, f/3.5, 400 ISO :.

The Bolder Boulder has been a Memorial Day tradition in Boulder for 30 years.  This year 50,000 people came to run a 10K race through town.  The start is close enough to my house that I can hear the starter from inside, but I’ve never managed to get out of bed in time to see it. It IS held on a holiday after all! Well this year was the first time, and yes, I was paid to be there! I was hired by local marketing company to shoot photos for their client who was a major sponsor of the event.  OK, now I have to go take a nap, 6am doesn’t suit me well.

Greetings sports fans! While some of you might not follow all of the happenings over on Steve Z’s Light Side, here is a post that you don’t want to miss! Sport The Dress™ session up at Arapahoe Basin. Check out the full post HERE.

.: Nikon D700, Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 @ 200mm, 1/800, f/2.8, 200 ISO :.

Last year I decided to switch from Canon to Nikon. Switching and upgrading the level of my cameras and lenses was quite expensive, so I made a few decisions to try and cut costs. One of those decisions was to try and shoot a prime lens instead of a zoom in the telephoto range. So instead of replacing my Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS with a Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VR or a Nikon 80-200 f/2.8, I bought a Nikon 135mm f/2.0. I was hoping that I would be happier on a wedding day by having a lighter lens which can also shoot more wide open and achieve a creamy blur at f/2.  That was the intent, but in practice that isn’t quite how things have turned out, so I bought a Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 lens to try out.  I compared this new lens to my Nikon 135, to try and find out if I was really gaining any performance by shooting a prime. Read about it after the page break…

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. . . then this guy would be locked up for life!!! Seriously, who let him out of the house looking like this? Think about the child!

Another popular riding spot in Durango is the Hermosa Creek area. We headed up there for our 3rd ride in Durango. The trail is 21 miles, and is usually ridden via a shuttle. Well, we didn’t have a shuttle, so we decided to try and ride the whole thing out and back. As it turns out, the creeks and rivers were flowing above maximum capacity, so parts of the trail were flooded out. So we made it roughly 16 miles in. It was a loooooong ride, as the terrain is not flat either way, even though it mostly follows the creek drainage. The trail is pretty wide singletrack, and pretty fun, but not necessarily the most fun ever. But it was great to have a big mountain challenge early in the season.

.: Nikon D700, Nikon 35mm f/2.0D @ 1/500, f/4.0, 500ISO :.

So after this point in the trip, I didn’t take any more pictures of the trails. Yeah, whatever, photographers need vacations too! For our last ride we rode the Horse Gulch area of trails that is right at the edge of town near the Ft. Lewis College side to the east. What an awesome trail network to have right in town! The trails are buff, twisty, desert type trails that were clearly made for bicycles. The kind of trails that make you realize how much riding we don’t have here in Boulder. Oh well, we have way more cute girls here, take that Durango!

.: Nikon D700, Nikon 45mm PC-E @ 1/80, f/9.0, 500ISO :.

Perched on the foothills above Durango’s west side, there is a very noticable ribbon of singletrack. It appears to be very extreme and steep. We had to do it. It is at the top of Durango’s Test Tracks area, which is a super cool, twisty, fun trail network right in town. The trail is called the Hogback. We couldn’t find any way to get up it other than to hike straight up it. It was like Fruita, except way more extreme. Check out the super gnarly line straight down the gully in the above picture!

.: Nikon D700, Nikon 45mm PC-E @ 1/80, f/9.0, 500ISO :.

.: Nikon D700, Nikon 35mm f/2.0D @ 1/400, f/13.0, 320ISO :.

We set out for our first Durango ride of the weekend to the Junction Creek Trailhead. The first thing we noticed was multiple truckloads of kids shuttling from the parking area. There must have been some sort of DH trail right in the area that isn’t on the riding maps. We set out to do it the old skool way of earning our turns. Junction Creek is at one end of the Colorado Trail which goes from Denver to Durango. The trail starts off flat and hardpack, eventually turning upward with multiple switchbacks to climb a 1000 feet or so to Gudy’s Rest. Here is Ryan doing his best impression of how Gudy rested. Durango is in the valley straight ahead.
After that we did a short loop of really cool singletrack. Quite moderate, buff, and non-technical, excellent single speed terrain, not that we were riding them.

.: Nikon D700, Nikon 35mm f/2.0D @ 1/400, f/13.0, 320ISO :.

After that loop we rode up the Colorado Trail some more, but it started to climb without much flow, so we turned around to save our legs for future rides with greater fun factor. Ryan missed the turn for the Colorado Trail. I took a picture of a tree while I waited for him. I scratched my legs up walking around in the thickets. Good times, good times.

.: Nikon D700, Nikon 35mm f/2.0D @ 1/400, f/13.0, 320ISO :.

.: Nikon D700, Nikon 35mm f/2.0D @ 1/8000, f/5.0, 400ISO :.

Last weekend Ryan and I headed out on a mountain biking road trip. It had been WAY too long since my last one, I think it was the 2006 Colorado Springs trip. We decided to check out Durango, since neither of us really knows anyone who has ridden in the area. Durango was at one time the epicenter of the new sport of mountain biking, and we were sure to find some great riding there. The other attraction is that the lower climate should allow us some riding in the early season when there is still snow in the hills of the high country.

I could have taken tons of pictures. But I didn’t. I needed some decompression time ahead of the busy summer season ahead. So I took some picutres, but not too many. For the most part we ate, slept, and rode. We did 5 rides in 4 days with 2 full days of driving.

Our first ride was actually in the Denver area on the way out of town. We rode Lair of the Bear which is between Morrison and Evergreen. It was a really buff singletrack, somewhat similar to Betasso. Its only about a 10 mile out and back ride if you ride it by itself like we did. Apparently it’s easy to link up with Mt. Falcon, which we rode on the way back from the CO Springs Trip. Funny how that works. The best part of the Bear was the top section which was FAST FAST FAST with some good waterbar jumps.

.: Nikon D700, Nikon 35mm f/2.0D @ 1/320, f/14, 500ISO :.

So after a quick ride we were off to Durango via the scenic route down 285. We almost made it to Durango before dark, when we came across a nice empty campground about 40 miles east of Durango in the hills. So we set up camp and parked it for the night. Check back tomorrow for Ride 1 in Durango!

.: Nikon D700, Nikon 45mm f/2.8 PC-E @ 1/4000, f/5.0, 500ISO :.

We were eating lunch in between photo sessions down in Denver when I saw some kids riding urban assault bikes in the local shopping center.   So I had one of them bunnyhop me for your viewing pleasure.

.: Nikon D700, Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 @ 1/2000, f/5.6, 800ISO :.

My dad used to always complain that my grandparents’ big American cars drove like boats.  This gives a new meaning to driving a boat!