In 2007 I had the privilege of being embedded with the Tour of California. It was the RCV beta and I got to shoot every inch of the 640 miles between the Embarcadero in SF and Ocean Bl. in Long Beach. It was truly a learning experience and I am insanely sad that we have not returned in the two runnings since 07. At the time we were shooting off the front as the Super Shooter Scooter had yet to be designed, so all the RCV footage is nude, or without riders. We had every technical issue you can imagine, camera stabilization, data capture, communications, logistics. Everyone on the crew was sick and the only thing that kept us going was that about once a day (if we were lucky), we would capture some absolutely stunning video.
Here then, is ToC One. It is nine minutes of highlights from the Prologue and the 97 miles of Stage One, Sausalito to Santa Rosa. I am cutting ToC Two today and might have it done by Sunday. Music is "First Breath After Coma" by the Texas monsters Explosions in the Sky, and "Take Me to the Riot" by Stars. Both pieces are available on iTunes for a ridiculous .99 apiece. BTW, that is how I justify using their stuff, a practice 99.9% of indi-rockers approve of and Warner Bros. continues to fight. But that is another story altogether (that I will soon get to).
Enjoy the Ride.
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In 2007 RacerMate Inc of Seattle, Wa. hired me to produce their new software line of products to be called, TA DA, Real Course Videos. So almost overnight I became (cue the theme music) RCVman. This is the story of my work on the road, filming triathlons and searching for true love. Some things never change.
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8 comments:
Nice! Those guys are really mashing up those SF hills with their aero helmets. I'm taping this year's Tour off Versus (runs from about 1pm to 4) and watching it at night. The winner of last two stages, Mark Cavandish, is a sprinter as you likely know and I'm wondering why he's that much faster than the rest at the end. Big quads, light weight and fast reflexes? I'm new to this racing stuff and its fascinating that the break away leaders get caught by the peleton and the group seems to know exactly the point they will catch. Must be radios and course knowledge. Also, can't understand why the break away guys can't gun it for 3-4 miles and win. Very interesting. I've been using Twitter.com to communicate with lawyers around the country and, typically enough, marketing gurus who pitch to lawyers and business-types. But, one person who is also on twitter is Lance Armstrong and I 'follow' him so I get all his 'tweets' or messages about the Tour. Here are the last few as well as a picture of his bike which was stolen and then recovered by police, I think in Sacramento:
http://twitpic.com/1l6wv
"Swapping the "i" and the "e" today for Livestrong. Today's it's "LeviSTRONG"."
"Good morning, twitterati. Waking up here in solvang, ca. Looks like it's going to be a nice one today."
"Getting a massage now. This Genius feature on the ipod is great, eh? Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Band of Horses, Cat Power, The National, Sufjan."
"Had a great meal at Los Olivos Cafe tonight. If you're ever in LO then it's a "must"."
"At the Wellness Center here in Paso Robles meeting survivors and their families. Amazing group of people."
"I'm riding the old "hot" tt bike tomorrow. Had a replacement made too. Only diff was a line that said, "ride it like you stole it". Haha!"
"And by the way, I'm riding the recovered (previously stolen) tt bike tomorrow. It seems to be in fine shape."
"Got a note from South Australia's Premier Mike Rann. He's now on twitter too. @premiermikerann. Ranny, we miss South Australia."
Heck, even the Dalai Lama uses twitter. It seems like your e-mailing with these people, but you can only communicate back to people like Lance if they are also 'following' you.
The idea is to hang with the domestiques in the pack the entire race and then when (and only when) you can maintain a 110% effort at MAX HR, pushing over 500 watts you, A) find a gap, and B) GO LIKE HELL. It is an uncanny skill set. Anybody or any technology that appeals to BOTH Lance and the Dalai Lama is OK in my book!!!
http://twitpic.com/1la3k
Here is a pic of Lance and Levi at lunch sent by twitter. Looks like they eat cereal and an orange.
Pretty amazing seeing Cavendish nip Boonen by a curly hair on the line. I wonder if he exceeds 600 watts in the last 20 meters? He nailed four stages in last year's TDF. It'll be tough for older sprinters like Boonen and McEwen or Zabel to win the Green Jersey this summer.
Boonen can put out over 1500 watts at 110 RPM for sprints. More on that here. http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2005/dec05/dec30newsSome say Cipo could do almost 2000!!!
Fifteen hundred watts? OMG. I know what a gut buster it is to crank out 250 watts on a Concept 2ergometer. It's no excuse even if I get an AARP discount.
They said that they were doing about 40 mph in those sprints at the end.
Awesome to say the least. CompuTrainer maxes out at 1500 watts, so this type of power is very tough to even measure, let alone improve upon. Most humbling indeed.
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