Moun­tain bik­ing is a very unique sport for many reas­ons, but you know why I like it so much? It’s one of few sports you are almost in reach­ing dis­tance of the ath­letes. In foot­ball, you shoot from the side­lines, in ten­nis you shoot from well out­side the court, in For­mula 1 you’re lucky to even be shoot­ing from the same post­code as the track. It truly is a spec­tator sport, and it’s made incred­ibly obvi­ous at the Fort Wil­liam course, where the Down­hill MTB World Cup has been held since 2002.

This isn’t without it’s down­sides though. For starters moun­tain bik­ing is fun­nily enough often staged on moun­tains, so pack­ing the right gear is crit­ical — and I don’t just mean in terms of cam­era gear. While jeans-and-a-T-shirt is more than adequate for gig pho­to­graphy, you will want to take at least -

• A Water­proof Jacket — a thin shell should be okay as long as you also have plenty of…
• … Lay­ers. It gets colder as you increase in alti­tude, espe­cially when you factor in wind chill. The top of the course in Fort Wil­liam is very open, and with this lack of shel­ter the wind can pick considerably.
• Hik­ing Boots. Prefer­ably with decent ankle sup­port, because noth­ing could be worse than spend­ing your week­end in hos­pital with a twis­ted ankle.
• Plenty of food and water.

Basic­ally, take enough gear with you that will see you through from the top of the course to the bot­tom safely. While it’s a very well organ­ised event, I’ve seen enough people get caught out and have to be helped by the event staff, ambu­lance crews and other spec­tat­ors — it’s embar­rass­ing and eas­ily preventable.

In terms of cam­era gear, your lens choices are going to be very dif­fer­ent to other sports. The tra­di­tional sports out­fit involves very long (and nor­mally very expens­ive) tele­photo lenses in order to get close to the action — in moun­tain bik­ing, it’s very easy to get too close! Pack your stand­ard zooms — even the basic kit lens you got with your SLR will nor­mally per­form well enough — and a wide angle lens if you have one.

That’s not to say tele­pho­tos don’t have their place. With a little prac­tice and a lot of luck, you can get some very tightly framed shots of the riders as they’re pin­ning it down the course. They’re also ideal for the podium present­a­tion, and often in the 4X events too.

A flash is also very handy, with con­sid­er­a­tions. There are often sec­tions of the course which are much more shaded than the rest (the Fort Wil­liam track, for example, has a forest sec­tion around the halfway mark) and it’s here they come into their own, and they can also be used for some more spe­cial effects like rear-sync flash, which was men­tioned pre­vi­ously in my Gig Pho­to­graphy 101 art­icle. Unlike gigs, you should have no issues using it, but be respect­ful if the mar­shals ask you not to — it’s for your safety and the riders’ safety. I also make a point of not using it on a rider’s timed qual­i­fier or on their main run — hav­ing asked some riders about it they do find it dis­tract­ing, and I don’t fancy being fam­ous for being ‘that arse­hole pho­to­grapher that cost that moun­tain biker a World Cup victory’.

You’ll also need plenty of (or very big) memory cards to store all the shots. There’s no three-song rule here, so shoot any­thing and everything. A few spare sets of bat­ter­ies wouldn’t be a bad idea either, and if you’re really pro take a laptop with you to dump the day’s shots when you get back to the press lounge or the place you’re stay­ing (don’t carry it with you, of course — unless you like chronic back ache).

So, you have your gear, now what? Let me run you through a typ­ical World Cup round at Fort William…

Things start on the Fri­day. There’s no events on today, so it’s nor­mally pretty quiet, with the riders put­ting in a bit of last minute prac­tice and the trade stands get­ting set up prop­erly. I tend to use Fri­day in much-and-such the same way as the riders — prac­tice and scout­ing. Get a timetable and work out what you really have to see and when it is. I often take the gon­dola to the top of the course and walk a little ways down, look­ing out for spots that would make for good pic­tures and work out a rough plan of attack for rest of the weekend.

When choos­ing a spot, there’s a few things to take into con­sid­er­a­tion. Ideally, you need to be fairly close to the course tape so that nobody else can get in the way. On occa­sion, you may find areas taped off spe­cific­ally for those with press access — don’t count on being able to shoot past the press pho­to­graph­ers so make sure they won’t be in the way. Also, look for areas which have clean lines of sight, where you can see the riders com­ing in plenty of time — this will allow you to auto­fo­cus on them and keep track­ing them through­out. Lastly, you also need to con­sider safety — keep away from the out­sides of corners as much as pos­sible and remem­ber with wide angle lenses things will be a lot closer than you think.

Get­ting a bit bored with the usual spots? Look around a bit to see what you can get away with — I’ve been sat on top of the wall­ride sec­tion, as well as on the top of large boulders to get a slightly dif­fer­ent view­point (and to try and get around the lanky git that insisted on stand­ing next to me at the time). There’s also other, more drastic view­points if you’re ten-years-old…

Sat­urday means it’s time for the qual­i­fy­ing for the down­hill, and it’s usu­ally when other events are on — I often take the time to watch some of the tri­als and have a look around the trade expo stands. The even­ing is more inter­est­ing with the 4X — four riders racing head-to-head, with the first two going through to the next round. It’s always excit­ing, so pick a spot, stick to it and defend it as if your life depended on it (believe me, you will not be able to move around for this event!). I’d say the scout­ing on Fri­day is more import­ant for the 4X than the DH event, simply due to how much busier it gets!

Talk­ing of busy, get­ting out is an abso­lute night­mare after the 4X. Get parked at the main car park (by the auc­tion mart) and walk rather than wait­ing for the buses. Get up early on Sat­urday to nab your place, as it fills up extraordin­ar­ily quickly! If, for whatever reason, you need to go into Fort Wil­liam itself then get one of the shuttle buses to the town centre and back — they come pretty reg­u­larly. The same goes for the Sunday, though I’m nor­mally knackered by then and am hap­pier to wait for a lift from one of the buses.

Sunday is the DH itself. I nor­mally take the gon­dola up to the top and basic­ally work my way down, stop­ping at the vari­ous spots I recon­noitred on Fri­day. You tend to find that most other people have the same idea, but most folk try and time it so they’re at the bot­tom (and in the queue for buses) as the last rider comes down. I hold back a little more — yes, you queue longer but hey, it’s Sunday, why the rush? The only down­side is you don’t tend to get that close to the podium cel­eb­ra­tions, which can make for some good shots as well (espe­cially if it’s Steve Peat on the top step!).

And that, as they say, is that. Look out for my shots from the 2010 event com­ing very soon to the blog and my Flickr stream. If you’ve any ques­tions at all, feel free to get in touch by email or by the comments!