Top 30

nat_series_bradford_seniors-100, originally uploaded by britishcycling.org.uk photos.

Finally, I scored a top 30 result in a National Trophy cross race - my first point-scoring result of the season so far.
I didn't feel particularly good but I was at least able to ride all the technical bits on the course. That made a big difference and meant I was able to beat Andrew Nichols - a guy I was pretty competitive with this time last year - for the first time this season. That made me happy.
Now for a few weeks of relative calm before Nationals and then the World Masters Chmaps in the USA.

Spectra Show, London Newcastle Gallery

Jen Stark, Counter Cosmo

My mate Ed at the The Future Tense has curated a really fantastic show at the London Newcastle Project Space on Rivington Street in East London. He's brought together a group of artists whose bold use of colour is a perfect antidote to a wet December evening in grimy Shoreditch, and presented their work in a huge, but strangely inviting space, with seriously impacting lighting.
The show runs until 18 December and is highly recommended.

Lee Baker, Refractive Monolith

Chuck Elliott, Radial / One

Derby cyclocross weekend

More shots and a write-up on the vicious velo blog

Sylvain Chavanel, en-route to winning the French Championships, Boulogne 2011

CLICK THE PIC TO SEE IT LARGE ON FLICKR, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

Waaaaaaayyyy back in June I was lucky enough to get a commission from Cycle Sport Magazine to go to Boulogne for the day to shoot the French National Champs. It was a great day with sunshine, brilliant racing on a great, short circuit, and a deserving winner.

And there was sunshine!

There are more shots in the new issue of Cycle Sport magazine, available in the UK and USA right now.

Shot on the left - Canon 30d, 10-22mm lens, and an on camera flash. Shot on the right - Canon 7d, 100mm f2 lens, wide open.

For the magazine, check out cyclesportmag.com

World Masters Cyclocross Champs

I just entered. Louisville, Kentucky, I'm coming over.

I just need to find a bike to ride now, and if I could find some form, that would be pretty good too. Six weeks to go, I'll be fine - I've got a lot of study material to check out.

4hrs of CX riding in the sun in November.

Can't complain about that!

Neil and Becky's wedding on Rock N' Roll Bride

Some of my photos from Neil and Becky's wedding have been featured on the website Rock N' Roll Bride - pretty cool.

Neil and Becky's wedding, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

A quote I liked

"But then we did not think ever of ourselves as poor. We did not accept it. We thought we were superior people and other people that we looked down on and rightly mistrusted were rich. It had never seemed strange to me to wear sweatshirts for underwear to keep warm. It only seemed odd to the rich. We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other."

Ernest Hemingway, from A Moveable Feast.

Back to shooting film with a Bronica

I spent last week shooting and doing interviews at Coed Y Brenin for Privateer. Totally loving shooting film again. These are just a couple of outtakes to use up a role on the drive up to Dafydd Davis's house. Details: Bronica SQ, 150mm lens, Neopan 400CN film, edited a bit in lightroom.

Racing/Working/Blogging/Head-Shaving

andrew waterman, originally uploaded by placid casual.

It's been a bit quiet on the blogging front, mostly because I've been racing a lot and working even more. It's all good fun but it doesn't leave much time for bloggage.
Racing's going ok - fourth at Muddy Hell, 36th at the Trophy yesterday (pic above), and work is going great. Go and have a look at www.privateer.cc where I've been doing a bunch of MTB-related blogging.
In other news, I'm about to shave my head into a mohawk for MoHawkVember. Most of ViCiOUS VELO are doing it. Please sponsor us and make us looking like dicks worthwhile! Here's our sponsorship page: giveincelebration.cancerresearchuk.org/0000864

Vid what I made for the Super Cross series

Mo' details over at rapha.cc/super-cross. And yes, Vicious Velo have got a ride in the invitation race at Ally Pally!

Morris Dancing in Tenterden

Tenterden Morris Dancing, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

A funny thing about Saturday's wedding was that it was in Tenterden, Kent, which was also hosting the Tenterden Folk Festival, so the town was jammed with drunken Morris dancers, even at 1pm.
I was glad of a prominent Police presence when I went to get the car after the reception! Those Morris dancers know how to party.

Clap your hands

October 1, 30deg - I don't know what Neil and Becky did to deserve weather like that, but I wasn't complaining!
I like this outtake from yesterday's wedding, it makes me want to listen to jangly guitar music like this collaboration between Beach Fossils and Wild Nothing.

Thirty five flights of steps

photo by Boom

The ViCiOUS armada rolled into Essex on Sunday for the Eastern League at Springfield, Chelmsford. Kev and I raced there last year and enjoyed it, thus the return visit, this time with Ben, Boom, Matt, Paul and Wayne in tow.
Eastern Leagues tend to get good fields and the front row on Sunday was as hot as the weather. And that excluded the hitters who were un-gridded thanks to it being their first Eastern race. The start was pretty hectic, budging 30mph, flat-out on parched playing fields.
I was up with the leaders, rolling round in third until two thirds of the way round the lap, I rolled a tub. The ground was so hard that I was running a bit more pressure than normal - about 2 bar - but that means that if the tyre catches an edge (such as when you're desperately trying to get a pedal in out of an off-camber corner, and the wheel steps out...) the tub can roll.
And that's what happened.

photo by Boom

I stopped, wrestled it back on and rode round to the pits to get my second bike, from Wayne who was helping out (cheers Wayne!). That put me down to about 20th place, a good 40secs back on the leaders, which included Kev. I worked hard to ride up to Ben over the next three laps or so, but the effort and the heat took its toll and I rapidly got dropped by him again.
I caught him a second and final time after about 40mins of racing, and went straight past this time. By the time we hit the bell, one hour in, I was up into sixth and that's where I stayed to the finish. The course was a killer with three flights of steps on every lap - and we did 12 laps - so that makes 35 run ups (we skipped one on the start loop) in total. By the end of the race my legs were jelly, and so they stayed for longer than normal. This course is really excellent training for National Trophy racing as technique comes into play, but not just that, you have to maintain that technique all the way to the finish. By the end it was as much as I could do to lift my bike up the steps, let alone sprint up them two at a time. That's god practice.
So a decent result given the circumstances. Now it's back to tub gluing ready for next weekend.

Wahey! I took a new photo!

Alexandra Palace, Paul Oldham, Rapha SuperCross, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

Out today with the National CX Champ Paul Oldham, shooting photos and video for the upcoming Rapha Supercross series. First photos in weeks! Been a while...

Something to say?

Yeah, I know I've been pretty quiet huh? It's because I've been busy: if you hadn't heard, I just started a new job at Privateer magazine, the mountain biking sister magazine to Rouelur. I jumped straight in the deep end, bypassing the office on my first day of employment and heading straight to Germany for Eurobike.
Honestly, if you want to get to know your new colleagues, I can't recommend trawling a bike trade show for four days highly enough. By the end of the week we were all pretty "intimate". Essentially, Eurobike is like going on a four day stag weekend in a gigantic Evans Cycles. Sounds weird, is weird.
Since then, you might not have noticed, but cyclcross season started. Two races in and I've scored a third and an eighth. It looks like cross is getting popular, not just with newbies, but more seasoned racers too. I think I'm going to struggle to get a front row start position at the London League this season...
So that's it, working and riding, riding and working and not a lot else!
Hopefully I'll have some moving images to show you next week after I've filmed the promo for the Rapha Supercross series.

London Riots

I've just got home from work. It's a beautiful August day in London, and the streets are buzzing with people. It could be very pleasant, but instead, the people are being drawn out onto the streets to check the damage that has been inflicted on their communities by the vandals who have taken control of the city these last few nights.
I rode home from Croydon, spotting Boris Johnson on the way, giving an interview outside the cordoned-off and still smouldering furniture shop that got torched last night.


I rode on, up to West Croydon where a Tesco seemed only recently to have had its windows smashed in and its contents stolen, and another building remained the centre of four of five fire crews' attention.
A safe lay on the floor, in front of police lines, just in front a looted shop.
Shell-shocked residents of all ages and ehtnicity milled around baffled by the uprising. "How much do you think they got from that safe?" a young African woman rhetorically asked her husband as they walked by, two toddlers in tow.
My own suburb of West Norwood seems to have escaped relatively unscathed, although the Money Shop has had it's windows kicked in and its offices ransacked. No police officers were protecting the site when I passed, just one piece of police tape was keeping the looters from returning.
The saddest thing was that Money Shop still had a job advert in its window. If these riots are about a lack of earning opportunities for the young working class, why not apply for one of the jobs that are actually available in your own community rather than ransacking those businesses and chasing potential employers away?
There is no logic whatsoever, and this violence serves no purpose.
Let's hope the police are able to keep things under control tonight.

More Mongoose Know Your Roots pics

Top one got used as a contents page pic in MBR. That's it though.

DUNGENESS

I last went to Dungeness in 2007, and I haven't really looked at these photos since. I put some on the blog back then, but only a handful, so it was nice to rediscover them this week. I put a load more up on Flickr, have a look by clicking the image.
It's a uniquely weird, creepy and otherworldly place that really doesn't feel like the Kent/Sussex you know from elsewhere.
Go there, take a camera and don't get too freaked out — I'd highly recommend it.

Bike testing

After a very busy few weeks, my diary is clear and I've been able to ride some bikes on trails I know. Like this in Swinley. I'm testing two hardtails from Boardman and Genesis this month — it's not as easy as I thought it would be. I'm riding the Boardman here, Ed from the Future Tense is filming.

Trek Remedy 2012 - testing in Austria

This is what I've been up to this week. I know — I missed Crystal Palace for this, I was gutted (joke).

I did an article about the bike which is on the MBR website. Go have a look.

Wireless

Foals @ Wireless, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

Foals and Pulp stole the show. Saw Metronomy (good) but Missed TV on the Radio and Cut Copy. Next time...

CrossJunkie — Portrait for Cycling Active

CrossJunkie, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman. 

It's not often I get to shoot portraits, so when the opportunity came along to shoot Alan Dorrignton for a Cycling Active Magazine interview, I jumped at the chance. Alan is a huge cyclocross fan/racer/collector/enthusiast, and increasingly well known and respected internationally for his blog crossjunkie.blogspot.com/. To show that, we shot this portrait in his basement, where he stores his huge collection of wheels and tyres. We'd just got back from riding the Ronde Van Oost Lancashire, the Classics inspired ride Alan organised, thus the cycling clothing. It also meant we were pushed for time — Alan's wife was preparing lunch so we only had a couple of minutes to grab the shot.
Here's the end result http://yfrog.com/h2r6nnuj 

French National RR Champs 2011

Chavanel — too fast, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

I had a great weekend. Friday night I went to the theatre to see Gogol's The Government Inspector at the Young Vic, which was absolutely brilliant — HIGHLY reccomended.
On Saturday I raced my bike at Hillingdon, attacking the bunch with three laps to go to take 6th place. Not brilliant, but above expectations given the jetlag I've had since being in California this past week.
Then on Sunday — yesterday — I took a day trip to France to watch the French National RR Championships, a comission for Cycle Sport magazine. Sweet deal eh?!
The race was only in Boulogne, half an hour from the Eurotunnel terminal at Calais.
The race was a spectator's dream, covering 14 laps of a 13km circuit around the town. The sunshine only helped matters (and got me very sunburnt).
Sylvain Chavanel was head and shoulders above the rest, riding super aggressively in the final 50km to catch and pass about four groups on the road, before finally going solo for the last lap for the victory. What a guy, and what teeth! Chapeau!
More pics will be appearing in Cycle Sport in due course — keep your eyes peeled for that (probably in the winter apparently).

Paris for Condor

This was actually the first video I made for Condor, but it's only just gone public now. It shows the making of the Paris frame, together with its intricate bilaminate work around the headtube. These layers of steel look like lugs but aren't.
The frames are made in tiny quantities in Italy, which is where this was shot.

Mongoose Know Your Roots roadtrip, USA

I'm just back from the US, traveling round Colorado, New Mexico and Utah with Mongoose bikes, pro riders Steve Romaniuk and Amir Kabbani and MTB journalists from Australia and South Africa.
There was a lot of travelling involved but we got to do some amazing riding — especially at Angel Fire Resort — and visit some very cool places along the way.

Forest of Dean

Forest of Dean, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

I've not put any photos on here for ages.
I took this at the Forest of Dean last week. Such fun trails down there.

Lincoln Grand Prix — Condor Video

I shot this for Condor at the weekend. I need to buy a proper microphone... Lesson learned.

Fashion Videos: Philip Lim thumbs up

My girlfriend is a stylist so for a while now I've been keeping an eye on fashion videos with a thought at the back of my mind that we could possibly do a test shoot in the future. We've done still test shoots in the past, and while stills are great, video is something I get the impression the fashion world is only just getting to grips with, but the market is likely to grow pretty rapidly.
However, most of the videos I've seen so far are crap: either utterly impenetrable arty bollocks or say-what-you-see yawnfests.
So, I was impressed when I found this Philip Lim video on Selectism.com today. I love the way the director of photography has utilised the light, the architecture and the colour-grading to make it look properly cool and aspirational. What more does it need?

3.1 Phillip Lim "Weavers" Men's FW11 Collection from 3.1PhillipLim on Vimeo.

Vertical Video

I'm a sucker for a novelty, so when I spotted this vertical MTB film, it got me pretty fired up to give one a go myself next time I go out to shoot. I think it looks pretty cool in this situation — I'm looking forward to trying it myself.

SUNNY SIDE UP! from infinite trails on Vimeo.

BMC Trailfox — headcam video

From yesterday, music by Yuck (my — and everybody else it seems — band du jour). Click the vid for more details.

BMC launch, Switzerland

I just had a super busy 40hr trip to Switzerland and back, to visit BMC bikes in Biel for the launch of the new Trailfox TF01.
Press launches are a blessing and a curse in equal measure. There's always the pressure to squeeze as much in as possible which means early starts, late nights and economy airlines. They're nearly always fun, but the payoff is days of exhaustion when you get back home.
I left my house at 4.40am on Bank Holiday Monday, and had a pretty smooth journey to Switzerland with David Arthur from Bikemagic.com, and Albert and Matt from Evans (the UK distributor of BMC). From Zurich airport we hopped on a train to Biel, arriving in time for lunch.

From Biel we took the funicular railway up the mountain to the sports resort of Magglingen, 1000m or so above the main town. Magglingen is the Swiss government's Olympic training facility, so it's jam packed with athletes and athletic facilities; a bit like Crystal Palace, but infinitely better.


After presentations from BMC's marketing and engineering guys, it was back into town for dinner with 20 or so other journalists from all over Europe. The beer flowed — all courtesy of BMC — and so we didn't get back till midnight, verging on comatose.
In this situation, what you want is a lie-in — even being allowed to get up at 9am would be fine. But no, we had things to do, bikes to see and trails to ride, so we were up and in the breakfast room at 7.30am (6.30am UK time).
By 10.30 we were setting up bikes and getting ready to ride. The weather however wasn't playing ball — it was raining, it was cold, and we were up in the clouds. No one was prepared with enough clothes. Fortunately, riding keeps you warm. We finished riding by 3.30pm, and despite the tiredness and the kiss-of-death that was the call to arms for "one last run" on the downhill track (video to follow) we all made it back to the changing rooms safe and sound. That is unusual — tiredness, unfamiliar bikes/trails and journalistic one-up-manship do lead to a lot of press camp crashes.
Back into Biel, we hopped onto the legendarily punctual train back to Zurich where we discovered our legendarily un-punctual Easyjet flight was delayed by an hour.
I eventually got home at midnight — the post-Osama queue at Gatwick passport control added an unnecessary 45mins after the flight — exhausted to point that I couldn't actually sleep. Marvellous.

So, I'm bunking off today — don't tell anyone — and making up for being so productive for the last two days. You can find out more about the BMC Trailfox TF01 next month in MBR and there will be some headcam video online soon.
Right, time for more coffee!