Just back from the 2009 Amgen Tour of California bike race. It was an amazing 10 days on the road with my brother, Ian and his girlfriend, Jade. This was the biggest cycling event to ever happen in the United States. The field included the return of Lance Armstrong, three time winner Levi Leipheimer, Belgian sprinter Tom Boonan, fastest man on a bike Mark Cavendish and a host of Tour de France winners, Olympic champions, world champions and national champions. Other big name riders included Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton, Ivan Basso, Carlos Sastre, George Hincapie, Christian Vandevelde and Thor Hushovd.

Each day, as we chased the race from one end of California to the other, we filmed, editied and uploaded video diaries of our adventures. They are meant to be funny, dorky and low quality and give some insight into what it is like to be cycling fans on the road with a major multi-day stage race.

I hesitated to post the video series here, because the trip was really just a fun non-photography excursion for me. While most of my interest and professional focus is on cameras and photography, I’d have to say that as a hobby, bikes and bike racing are a close second. I hope my poor skills with video don’t reflect badly on my landscape photography. In the end I decided that I enjoyed making the videos so much that I just had to share them. Who knows? Perhaps some of you are fans of both photography and cycling like me.