Quite a few people saw me out taking pictures at Hit The North this weekend, and more than a few were asking where they could find the pics online. To be honest I think some people expected me to have them online last night but the beer was a bit more tempting…

Anyway, they're up now, and as there are quite a lot I've put them on fotopic as I can't fit them on my flickr account!

http://eventphotos.fotopic.net/c1873234.html

I used 5 different locations through the day, you may not have passed me at all of them and even if you did, I may not have got your picture. Sorry if I missed you entirely, but my camera is a bit slow and when I rush, I get it wrong so not all of the pictures were worth publishing. Have a read through this and try to work out where I would have been when you were out on course to see where your pics may appear…

*note* I've just realised that the time the picture was taken is displayed so you should be able to work it out from that anyway!

When the event started, I was on the first descent down to the stream. I was there for about an hour.

http://eventphotos.fotopic.net/c1873234.html

I then moved to the second descent (up and back down) for about half an hour.

http://eventphotos.fotopic.net/c1873234_73.html – 7421 onwards

I then crossed the motorway, to the piece of singletrack just before the stream crossing, but only for about 15 minutes.

http://eventphotos.fotopic.net/c1873234_97.html – 7481 onwards

I then spent about 45 minutes to an hour at the stream crossing. I know it was at last 40 minutes as twinklydave passed me twice while I was there.

http://eventphotos.fotopic.net/c1873234_121.html – 7514 onwards

Then, having torn the valve out of the innertube on the front wheel, I pushed my bike back to the campsite to get some food! I reckon I left that spot around 1.45

The final spot was the last drop through the stream, where I spent almost 2 hours from just after 5 till the final hooter went at 7.

http://eventphotos.fotopic.net/c1873234_169.html – 7590 onwards

and of course I grabbed a few photos around the beer tent and prze giving at the end

http://eventphotos.fotopic.net/c1873234_265.html

For those who are interested, I took 473 photos, totalling almost 3gb and of those about 283 are reasonable quality. I've resized the images to fit in a 640 * 480 screen, perfect for facebook and so on: feel free to save a copy locally and add it to your facebook account, use it as a profile pic etc.

If you really like the picture, I'll be able to send out full resolution images (2048*3072, should print fine at A4 size) but will ask you to make a donation to Petesgaff : http://www.singletrackworld.com/2010/06/mark-fradgleys-bullheart-jogle/

I'm not going to ask for receipts or anything, just going to leave it to your conscience to donate what you feel the pics (and the participation in the event) are worth, especially given the fact that Mark's efforts are worthy of sponsorship in any case!

Well done to all who rode and those who put a lot of effort into making things happen smoothly. Even though I didn't ride, I had a great day out and it was only made better by the fact that Mrs NBT actually won her category! Will add more stuff about the crashes I saw later, when I've had chance to get some beer and let my eyes recover: they've gone square from looking at photos all day!

that's my evening sorted. Good man!
Link up on't site soon

Fantastic. Finally captured on camera riding a bike (CRW_7451). Speaking of crashes I do believe I went head first into the undergrowth several seconds after this was taken. Cheers nbt. I will be donating and requesting a larger version.

great pics, thanks for taking the time out to do this on the day. #41

BTW I did ride the rocks down to the stream on my lap 5, but you'd gone by then! It was my final lap and did every bit that i'd chickened out of on the first 4 laps..

Me shortly before almost crashing into a stream: http://eventphotos.fotopic.net/p66019086.html

Me deciding whether to pass out or puke: http://eventphotos.fotopic.net/p66019185.html

I'm not going to be so anal as to start a new personalised HtN photos thread so here are mine on my Flickr account.

I've also reduced them down to screen res. Send me an email if you really really want higher res of any of them.

edward DOT rollason AT hotmail DOT co DOT uk

cheers

Ed
(aka the bloke with the Ute)

Quite how I spent the entire weekend with nbt and he only took two photos of me, I'm not sure 🙂

He took loads Mike but didn't want to frighten the public 🙂

Nice one nbt – I've found 2 of me, which is more than have been taken in any other race/event I've done this year..! 😀

I'll mail for copies/make a donation to Mark's fund.

PS Great to meet you and bunnyhop at last! 😀

Hello everybody *waves*

very nice to meet you all. Now I've been through the pics I've managed to put *some* names to faces, for instance I now recognise BigDummy – but not everyone, can you post a link to your pics like mike has done

Mike, I do have more, but some are blurry and some make you look like a mutant as they're taken at 10mm and your head is a funny shape. I assume it's the lens anyway as you didn't look like that most of the time

PS that nice man (laurie?) in the beer tent let me take home all the beer he was going to throw away. I think there might be some left in the garage but not as much as there was earlier 😀

can you post a link to your pics like mike has done

Down to the rocks to the stream: http://eventphotos.fotopic.net/p66019090.html

The drop to the pallet bridge: http://eventphotos.fotopic.net/p66019127.html

Thanks for taking the pictures nbt, will drop you a line re copies.

A sound 48th (out of 59) for Team Spanner in the solo's – many thanks to everyone who offered encouragement over the eight hours, it was very much appreciated.

Rusty – Hows your leg? Did you manage some more laps after your off?

It's just occurred to me, fotopic had further resized (shrunk) the images on the main image page even though they weren't huge to begin with – they were only just bigger than the thumbnail images for previous and next!

Although the facebook sized images were available through the "full size" button, I've found a way to show them on the regular page now. Have another shufty through and you might find it easier to recognise yourself!

Bugger. Although I have with me the memory cards with the RAW images, I've apparently forgotten the memory stick that has the processed files on it 😳 . Have already received a couple of requests for pics, will deal with them (and any others that come in today) when I get home tonight

Rusty – Hows your leg? Did you manage some more laps after your off?

It was much more painful than serious, luckily.

Managed to wedge the knee between the brake lever and the bar (no, I've no idea how either). 😀
Luckily those levers can bend a bit the other way, and the inside edges aren't too sharp.

Feel proper stupid now, but it was very painful at the time – hence the noise!

NBT you can change the parameter in the URL to get the original sized picture…

Thanks nbt and Handsomedog.

On my way to winning the over 95kg category. 😛

http://eventphotos.fotopic.net/p66019057.html
http://eventphotos.fotopic.net/p66019145.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ed_rollason/4806455350/sizes/l/in/set-72157624406065621/

nbt, was it you I spoke to just after crashing on the first muddy descent on my second lap at about 11:50am ?
I saw someone take a picture of me as I went down and asked them to post it on STW. He asked me if I was the Chunky Challenge guy.
Was that you ?

Whoops.

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This event is too damned popular if we've gone though 500mb of images that are about 128k each! Ah yes:

Gallery Photo Hits
Today 2933 hits

Bandwidth Consumption
Today 546.77MBytes

Will sort out a replacement gallery later as I don't have the images with me at the moment

nbt, was it you I spoke to just after crashing on the first muddy descent on my second lap at about 11:50am ?
I saw someone take a picture of me as I went down and asked them to post it on STW. He asked me if I was the Chunky Challenge guy.
Was that you ?

Yes, that was me – connecting STW forum personae to people you meet on site and then to the same people in cycling gear when they look completely different is quite challenging 🙂

I may have unpublished pics of you crashing, will check later – I haven't deliberately posted pics of people crashing or mincing 🙂

There *may* even be video footage, again will check later when I get chance

Really sorry for people who haven;t had chance to check their photos, will sort it tonight!

ok, pics reposted here

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/2559837210/albums/hit-the-north-2-0

Have a shufty, same deal as before if you want full size stuff. dpereview doesn't seem to do the times though sadly. Fotopic might be active again tomorrow

MidlandTrailquestsGraham, (notice you're not militant any more!) I have just been through the video footage taken by my able assistant Will and although I haven't got the photo of you crashing that I appear to have taken (I either wiped it or it's one of the 5 corrupt images I suffered when my machine crashed) as you may have guessed, I have video footage of you spectacularly failing to stay upright. Shall I post it? Or shall I keep it 🙂

Muddypuddle, will post it tomorrow at which point I'll mail the pics you requested, off to bed now (only just been allowed on the computer!)

Fotopic site is back up today so two locations to choose from.

http://eventphotos.fotopic.net/c1873234.html

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/2559837210/albums/hit-the-north-2-0

Couple of short videos to follow later

how do you request pics after donating? couple of pics I'd like.

drop an email to the mail in my profile (click "member" next to my name) with the references to the pic you'd like – crw_???? or a link to the page showing them online

Julian, we may ask nicely for one for the website at some point in the near future…

When will the video be out?

terrahawk – Member

Julian, we may ask nicely for one for the website at some point in the near future…

you have my email address, just let me know which ones you want and how big you want them

Few short videos uploaded – camera work isn't the best, but bear in mind that my "assistant" was ten years old and had been given the camere a couple of minutes *after* the race leaders passed us for the first time! All these videos are from the first descent on the first lap, judging by the times.

It's a shame no-one took up the Chunky challenge, he couldn't even ride!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxb1Q2WQwvs

Marin_maketh_the_man (in white) shows how it's done whipping past Bunnyhop (winner, mixed trio) and another "rider"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmpm4H9bsyc

I *think* this is OurManInTheNorth in action, if not apologies, please let me know who it is!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPfhYqsUzUI

And finally, having money to spend on expensive bikes doesn't mean you are any better at riding them

Very good work for a 10 year old.

*bump* for t'morning crowd 😀

It's been suggested that I pull together a collection of published and previously unpublished images showing extreme mincing and inability to stay on the bike: given the circumstances and greasiness of the course, this type of behaviour is completely understandable, but still worth laughing at, so I'll do that later 😀 Suggestions (links) below please!

I *think* this is OurManInTheNorth in action, if not apologies, please let me know who it is!

It isn't. It's my and dot's mate Kevin (not a STWer). He was sitting next to me at the table when we were chatting. I'll mail him the link.

I'm the other "rider"! I was so suprised at actually bumping into someone I knew – almost literally when she stopped, that I ground to a halt.
I think it was you putting me off, I rode that bit the other six times, like the rocky bit before the stream crossing later on, only fluffed when you were taking me piccy!
That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

A notable number of people seemed to panic when faced with a photographer and grabbed great big handfuls of brake resulting in endos, over the bar moments or front wheels skidding out 😀

The 'official' video should be finished very soon. I will post a link up as soon as miladdo has got it on line.

That first video is funniest, with 2 riders crashing at the same time.
Sorry Ben_mw, I must learn to stay on the bike.
As usual that bit of the course looks fairly flat on camera, which of course in real life was a tad on the steep side and slippery as a kipper.

That downhill mud slide was was like an ice rink straight after that downpoor. That's why I came off on that lap, I rode it like a god every other lap 😉

Mr sparkles video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr2sOhlwOo4

Cheers NBT! I didnt realise you had a helper.

Luckily I gave Bunnyhop about a metre more clearance than I did John Mack on a later lap – accidentally helping him take a slide 😕

Terra's dad's pics are up now:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/99007709@N00/archives/date-posted/2010/08/12/

(sorry if you were planning a big announcement later, Terra!)