Women’s cycling through my lens

We have the same photographers at most races. While there is a rivalry, we do look after each other. At the Giro this year, I was riding along on the motorbike during one of the stages and I suddenly had this pain in my arm.

Bee-sting! By the time we got to the finish, my arm was twice the size. One of the photographers from Tornanti, Eloise, speaks Italian and took me to the local pharmacy. She managed to convince them I didn’t need to go to the hospital, I just needed some medication that brought the size of my arm down as the peloton was approaching.

I guess these are some of the stories that are untold in the making of the many photos you see from races.

I’ve been shooting women’s cycling for six years now. Teams used to arrive at the start in a little van then riders would get ready in public so they were available to take pictures of.

As women’s cycling has grown, a lot more teams have started to get busses, so you don’t see the riders as much as you used to. Those conditions are obviously great for the riders, not so great for the photographers.

As time goes on you get used to which teams will come out and play and which ones will hide away. At the start my favourite riders to shoot are the ones who are the most animated before the race starts.

There are riders in certain teams who bring people together and get some emotion and reaction going. The start shoots are repetitive, especially in a 10-day stage race. The format is the same, you’re just in a different car park each day so getting human interaction and candid moments between the riders and staff is what we try to capture.

At Trek-Segafredo it’s fun to shoot Ruth Winder and Tayler Wiles’ friendship. As the season has gone by they’ve turned into a little comedy double-act with their pre-race antics. Obviously Cecillie Uttrup Ludwig at Bigla is another one. It’s not always the biggest name riders but it’s the ones who give you the most before the start that I enjoy shooting.

As far as once the race is underway, our focus changes. While we are there to document what is happening, you also want to portray the sport in a good light. We look looking for nice locations as well the actual action of the race. Not much tends to happen in the first hour of racing so I’ll go find the nice locations I’ve scouted before. As the race goes on, my focus will be on capturing the action in the peloton.

Getting around is easy when you’re on a motorbike because you’re inside the race bubble. But this year we did have a little bit of confusion at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. The women’s race caught the men’s race. We were on the moto and took a picture at our first spot then decided to take a short cut, but when we tried to get back on the course, the marshals said no no no, you can’t get on, this road is for the race. We said, yeah, we’re in the race. And they were like, no, the men’s race is only passing now. Then all of a sudden the men’s race appeared with Nicole Hanselmann 30 seconds behind them and they had to stop the women’s race.

We took a short cut of 1 or 2 kilometres that day because that’s easier than trying to pass the peloton. Passing the peloton on the moto is one of my least favourite parts of the job. If I can avoid doing it, I don’t do it at all. You don’t want to interfere with the race in any way so you wait for good spots to pass but you can’t always be sure that the peloton won’t sweep from one side of the road to the other all of a sudden.

A few years ago, we were weaving along the side of the river in one race. We were halfway through passing the peloton when there was an announcement on the radio. “Road narrows!” Not even 100 metres later one of the lanes just stopped and we had nowhere to go. The narrowing of the lanes caused a crash. Luckily no one was seriously hurt but witnessing a crash that close up was something I really did not enjoy.

Photographing riders crashing is something I struggle with. I’m not comfortable. I’ve been lucky to not see any truly terrible crashes. Some have been nasty but a lot of the times I don’t shoot it.

Maybe I’ll shoot the rider getting back up on their bikes once they are fine. If they are up and scraped or “only” broken a collarbone, that’s ok to shoot. There have been times before where I have documented a crash, but I’ll wait to find out how the rider is before publishing the photo into our database.

Rider tears and disappointments on the finish line are easier to shoot than crashes. That’s less of a concern. You generally know why someone is upset and it’s ok to shoot that. I don’t tend to hang around too long. When you have the shot that tells the story, move on to somebody else.

Most of the riders know who we are now and are used us being around. They give us a little more leeway than people they don’t know. You move around and get shots of the celebrations and disappointments and not dwell on one particular subject.

Before I get to the best part of the job, I’ll start with the low point. Travelling is the worst part of the job. This year I’ll be away from home for over 200 days. It’s a long time away.  You can start feeling like your life is just going from one hotel to the next.

You wake up and wonder, where am I? You literally don’t know where in the world you are for a few seconds. You don’t even know what day of the month it is. There are no weekends or Mondays, Tuesdays Wednesday. Your week is divided up into race day, travel day, rest day.

But, the best part of the job is also the travelling. Some of the locations aren’t so glamorous but you do get moments where you’re in the Basque country or a climb in the Giro and you’ve gone ahead of the peloton on the motorbike. Everything is quiet. You look around and the scenery is breath-taking. That’s when I think to myself, this is a cool job. This beats sitting at a desk like in my previous life.

When a rider you get on well with wins is also very rewarding. Or a rider who doesn’t win very often finally gets that victory. Those moments are always nice to witness. Lizzie Banks winning at the Giro this year is one of those days. I didn’t know much about her before this year to be honest but I saw her trying so hard in the Spring. She was always working for her teammates. Seeing that release when she got her big win, is a nice thing to remember. Those are the days that will stay with me forever.

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