A.E.LANDES PHOTOGRAPHY

Well, well… What do we have here? 101 miles of mountain biking through some of the best/rockiest trails PA has to offer? I guess the next best thing to actually riding in the race is photographing it. It was a really damp and humid morning, with plenty of fog and sweaty rocks for the riders to roll over. I got a bit too excited by them coming through a mud puddle (I really needed to set up some off-camera flash to get the shots I wanted), but I think that the back-lit riders coming across the ominous Three Bridges section are some of my favorite mountain biking images yet.

Here is a quick gallery of the Wilderness 101 Mountain Bike Race.

If you want to see a more extensive collection of images or order prints, go here: Wilderness 101 Mountain Bike Race Print Order Site.

PS - Don’t see any pictures of you? Let me know, and I will see if I have any to post.

I felt the need to fight off impending sleep to get these posted for all you cycling-freaks who were at Penn State Cycling Club’s Mountain Bike Race this weekend. If you think cycling is just a bunch of spandex-clad juicers with too much time to just ride bikes, I beg to differ. There is never enough time to just ride. I got hooked this past year with mountain biking, and so it brought me to a new level of appreciation of the sport.

All stereotypes aside, photographing road and mountain bike races have been some of the most intense events, just because of how much mental and physical energy is demanded of the racers, and the level of risk is just so high.

For now, here’s a preview of Sunday’s XC and Downhill events.

And for those of you with a lot of time on your hands or have a healthy mountain bike obsession, here’s the complete gallery.