Lots happening in the last week for me.  Took delivery of a new lens…

…and went and shot the final race of 2009 in Central Park on Saturday morning with it.  It was the CRCA Club Team Finale.  Good weather, good racing (though I hear there was an altercation after the race, boo!) and good colors as the leaves have started to change.

I love the grimaces:

Sunday wasn’t as pleasant.  I’d made my way out to Blue Mountain, PA to photo the DH portion of Round 9 of the Gravity East series.  I’ve gone skiing at Blue Mountain countless times, but this was their first time hosting a downhill mountain bike event.  They’d just spent several million dollars on a renovation, and it showed.  Neat course, very ‘east coast’ – muddy, rooty, slick as snot and technical.  Oh, and it rained the entire day.  I’m talking 3-dimensional rain, up, down, left, right.  I couldn’t have gotten more wet if I jumped in a pool with all of my clothes on.

A damp and dark Sunday morning:

But the action was good!

Here’s 16-yr old local boy Neko Mulally winning the men’s pro:

East coast vet, Karen Eagan winning the women’s pro:

Just how wet was it?

Very.

After making my way back to NYC and drying out, I heard back from Cyclingnews.  They ran a few of my photos for their write-up about the event!  You can see them, here.  Click the thumbnails on the right to see.

All in all it was a VERY productive (if wet) weekend.

Round 10 of Gravity East is Oct 3/4 in Vermont at Mount Snow.  Sadly I’ll be in NYC doing a few events.  But I’ll be there for the finale, Round 11 at Plattekill, NY!

As always, NYC race pics can be found on NYVelocity and my site.  The full set from Blue Mountain can be seen, here.

And before we end things here, big shout out to Aleks (and Margaret!) for putting me up, driving me around, helping me out and just being generally awesome.  Thanks!