An appropriate theme for a music photographer at this years MTB World Cup — for some reason they themed everything as if it were some kind of music tour, and apparently they had live bands and whatnot going on at the bottom of the course to keep the lazy gits in the grandstand entertained while there was nothing happening on the big screen.

Not that I noticed, and not that it really matters. It’s the riding that counts, and what a downhill final in the mens event! Event favourite Steve Peat just wasn’t on form at all; with a time of 4:44.27, he’d have done very well any other year, but the competition this year was very fierce, especially from some of the rookie riders. The Brits’s were on form in the women’s downhill though, with Atherton and Mosely taking 2nd and 4th respectively. 4X wasn’t quite as exciting this year, with Jared Graves and Jana Horakova taking the victories.

Results

Men’s Downhill

1. Gee Atherton (GBR) — 4:35.70

2. Cam Cole (NZL) — 4:36.18

3. Greg Minaar (RSA) — 4:36.91

Woman’s Downhill

1. Sabrina Jonnier (FRA) — 5:11.37

2. Rachel Atherton (GBR) — 5:12.68

3. Floriane Pugin (FRA) — 5:16.44

Men’s 4X

1. Jared Graves (AUS)

2. Joost Wichman (NED)

3. Michal Prokop (CZE)

4. Romain Saladini (FRA)

Woman’s 4X

1. Jana Horakova (CZE)

2. Anita Molcik (AUT)

3. Romana Labounkova (CZE)

4. Anneke Beerten (NED)

That’s it for another year then. Thanks again to all the marshals (especially the one that gave us a lift right back down to the arena to save us walking) and to Singletrack Magazine, who live-tweeted all the downhill results keeping me (and a few others) bang up-to-date with what was happening.

Remember, there’s always more shots on my Flickr photostream as well!

Don’t worry, fans — I haven’t died or anything. Just not had any gigs since the Editors came to town. However, very soon I’ll be jetting off to the always very sunny (ahem) Fort William for the Mountain Bike World Cup — it’s always an absolute blast and I’m looking forward to it.

The event takes place on the weekend of the 5th of June, so I should have a bit of coverage on the Monday when I return to civilisation (and therefore an internet connection). I’ll also keep you up to date via Twitter, so follow me @thomasbisset for your fix!

(If you’re curious, the image above is of David Fletcher, who was a medallist in the World Championships in 2007 in the junior XC. Its an image I’m very proud of as it was featured in Singletrack magazine issue 38!)

Edit: The eagle-eyed among you may have spotted a small advert up near the top of the page and wondered what that’s about. Well, I’m now officially represented by MusicPictures.com, so all my music shots should be available to license through them. Awesomeness!

I’ve been struck down with one, yet again. I must have been last in line when God was handing out white blood cells to everyone. Every year, I get one at around Standard Grade exam time (although I believe that technically, it’s called Hay Fever, but I’d never joined the dots until recently) and another one as soon as Autumn starts again. I’m absolutely shattered and I have work tomorrow, so I’m going to go to bed after I’ve written this lot out.

Yesterday makes up for the inactivity though. I managed to repair the hard drive that died on me a few weeks ago — the one with all the pictures I’d taken since getting my first digital camera. Thankfully, it was just the caddy that broke, so I removed the drive from the enclosure and swapped it into a new one. All my pictures have now been backed up onto a new 1TB drive, and I’ll probably get another one soon enough to act as the backup’s backup.

I also managed to write a little Bash script to automate putting watermarks on my images. I’ve pretty heavily based it on someone elses script that I cannot find right now, but if anyone wants to try it for themselves, just get in touch. I love Linux and how it makes this kind of thing so easy to do!

Still waiting to hear back from some people about getting pit passes for some gigs coming up; might jar the relevant people again to see if things kick start.

I’ve also re-edited one of my favourite images from the 2008 MTB World Cup. I think it sums up what 4X is all about, and why it’s my absolute favourite discipline to watch. Congrat’s to Steve Peat too, for at long last becoming World Champion — for those not in the know he’s probably the most down-to-earth guys on the circuit, and has been so close to it before he’ll have smelled the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (jersey).

And that’s about it for today. Off to bed now to carry on coughing, trying to breath and generally not get any sleep. The joys…