Death Ride

_DAM0463, originally uploaded by blazinhispazian.

Yesterday was HOT. Played some Tennis on Jason's XBox360 and then tried to go to bed. The apartment next door was having a party and had a bunch of people outside so I couldn't fall asleep until around 4am. Wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to wake up at 4:30am to head out by 5. Madison, Kan. is about 2 hours away so had to head out early. Plus, I couldn't go my usual 60 mph to save gas.

When I arrived, the sun was still pretty low and the light was great. Only problem, I was only taking metering shots of my hand but the background of the shots were looking pretty good.

I had no idea where to go at first but saw a pickup truck with bikes in the back so I just followed it down and found the community center everyone was meeting at.

After talking to someone there, I found there was no lead back to be with but that's probably good becasue it would have limited me a lot.

Going to the event, The Death Ride, I was assuming there'd be a bunch of crazy jumps and steep hills but it was mostly country roads. I guess the Death part of it comes from the 80 or so miles of biking with a 5000 ft. vertical climb. Total, I think there were about 150 bikers.

I followed a yellow truck to the first station. Thought about waiting around but heard there were some good areas to shoot so I headed out there. Country roads make me nervous. Being unpaved and all, can't go too fast.

I got to one spot but it was unmaintained road so my car couldn't go on it or I wasn't going to risk it anyways. If I was first out there, might have worked but the lead riders had already gone by.

The race itself was from 730am till the lead riders started comming in after 1. People were still out there past 3 when I left.

I drove around for a while out there and got lost and drove back to the first stop. Country roads are a pretty easy grid to follow for the most part Just road A, B,C, and so on and 100, 200, 300, etc. There's some little roads in between and dead ends.

Saw a few people get flats and I got some pics of that. Only saw one person fall. It was more of a topple over though. I was at this last rough spot for an hour or two thinking they'd be through by noon but it wasn't until an hour later when the leaders rode through. On a side note, I hate this keyboard.

Anywhoo, the bikers were very friendly and easy to work with and I'm happy I went. I'm working cap shift today (1pm to 9:30pm)