I just figured out that by the time I leave Frankfurt tomorrow I’ll have been in Germany less than 80 hours. Pretty quick trip.

The racing today was excellent, the above is a picture of Belgian Sven Nys winning the elite men’s race. It snowed on and off all day, though not too much during the actual racing. The Euro cyclo-cross scene is something to behold. It’s all about the beer and frites for the fans, though their allegiances to the respctive riders seems genuine and deep. But remove the beer tents, greasy food, and party atmosphere and I’m not sure how many people would come out. Most of the fans were very cool, but as today progressed some of the Belgians got drunker and drunker and their manners and good sense took a holiday. I was pleased with my shots. getting around the course was no picnic because of the huge crowds, but I got some good stuff and even took a couple chances. Images are up at www.velonews.com and www.cyclocrossworld.com. I’ll have something later this week at www.bikemag.com, and it’ll be totally different.

I tried to set up a remote camera at the finish, the PocketWizard set was all wired and ready to roll. It would have been pulled back with the 16-35 and shown a really different angle on the finish, but some a-hole kicked the camera over and I ended up with nothing. At least I made the effort, it’ll work at some point. I slept hardly at all last night. For some reason the second night on Euro time gives me the business and I just lay there in bed unable to get to sleep. So now I’m pretty wasted. Back home tomorrow then off to Cuba on Thursday.

The trip over here to St Wendel, Germany went well enough. I hooked up with Adam Hodges Myerson to get a ride down here from Frankfurt, a total lifesaver. Unlike world rowing champs, I went to six of those, the CX worlds are not in a big city and the infrastructure and organization is way different. You’re basically on your own as far as getting a place to stay and getting to and from the race. Not so hard, but it takes some organization and luck.

As for the racing, the course is muddy, the snow having melted and formed a snot slick veneer over a lot of the descents. The fans here are nuts. Huge Belgian contingent that’s out of the heads with beer by noon. I was accosted by a quintet of hammered Belgian guys who insisted I take their picture. They were so drunk they didn’t notice me delete it as soon as I turned away. Navigating the course takes some doing as there are so many spectators and it’s only a 2.8km course, so they kind of fill up that space easily. I got all the shots I wanted, but it was good that the big races are tommorow as today’s shooting proved good practice.

The sun came out today, making the shooting good, though the sun is at a low angle all day, giving even the morning shots the look of afternoon.

I had some wicked schnitzel last night with a great local pilsner. The Germans seem to have mastered good food that’s not good for you.

This is the bike I shot yesterday, an incredible singlespeed Seven Sola 29er. I’m no ace in the studio, but I’m pleased with how this came out.

So it snowed pretty much all day, this beautiful, cold, fluffy powder. It didn’t amount to much, maybe three or four inches. I dropped my car off at the local garage to get an oil change and decided to ski home. These are the same trails I was mountain biking on last week, but we’ve had a bunch of snow since so I figured the skiing would be pretty good. Wrong. The first XC ski of the year is always a nightmare, never fails, and this one was especially grim. I was scraping my skis on all kinds of solid trail debris: sticks, rocks, dirt, ice, you name it. I went down one hill and looked back once I was at the bottom and half the hill where’d I’d been snowplowing was down to the dirt. Yikes. It would take another foot, at least, to make the trails decent for skiing.

I processed a bunch of images today and sent out five FedExes to clients, mopping things up before I hit the airport circuit. The weather report for CX worlds keep getting better, 28 degrees and snow. Awesome. There’s a whole crew of American CX nuts heading over, especially the Cross Crusade posse from Portland. If their performance at nationals is any indication, it’ll be all I can do to get out of Germany without an enlarged liver. I’ll post race reports on velonews.com and look for something cool on bikemag.com later next week.

This is a shot from yesterday’s XC ski shoot, ostensibly for a big outdoor clothing company. They don’t use digital files, but I took a couple digis anyway. Got the slides back this afternoon and they came out well. Not bad for only 90 minutes of shooting, there were some time restrictions going on there.

So then today, a had three shoots. One involved shooting a bike in the studio, but first I had to build the bike. So that took up a good chunk of time, but it came out reasonably well. Then back to the office to process and send those images. Made a early-afternoon shoot at a local gallery, totally simple. Then a portrait for another mag. I was thinking of lighting it, but the late-afternoon sun was so nice I just figured out a good place to shoot it where the sun worked best. Those shots are solid.

So now I realize I haven’t trained since last Thursday, WTF. With all the travel and tight workdays, I have to get in the habit grabbing trainins sessions where I can. A ton of mop-up stuff to do Wed in prep for CX worlds, for which I grow more excited every day. It’s supposed to snow in St Wendel over the weekend, the shooting will be great if it does.

While New England points south of us got pummeled with snow on Sat night, we only got 6 inches. It made things look nice, this was taken today in Norwich with Jamie playing the part of model, but there’s still not too much on the ground. Down in Rhode Island, however, where I was supposed to go do a shoot, they got over two feet. That put the brakes on the shoot.

I leave for Germany on Thursday, overnight to Frankfurt (arrive at 5AM), then grab a train to St Wendel and go straight to the race course. The forecast for this weekend is very grim (35/rain), but predictable. I’m trying to cram all sorts of work in before I leave because once I get back I’m only home for two days before I leave for Cuba. My broadband service went out all weekend, which totally sucked and made me appreciate its existence in the first place. Out here in the woods we rely on a wireless broadband service and it’s still a small outfit. The owners were gone for the weekend and I image when they got back their answering machine and e-mail in boxes were jammed with messages like mine. “Hi, it’s Chris. The network’s down, what’s up? Call me back.” Back on line this morning and all was right with the network.

This ad’ll be in the next issue of VN. Mine is the main image of Wells, taken at Highland Park in November. Pretty nice looking ad.

So the work season’s on. It always seems that once you’ve booked travel the work starts pouring in and you get scheduled to within an inch of your life. I leave next Thursday afternoon for ‘cross worlds and have four (maybe five) shoots between now and then. Monday’s is the only time-consuming one, but it all adds up. So then I jet to St. Wendel, get there Friday early in the morning, do the race coverage bit and fly back home on Monday morning. I have two days at home then it’s off to Cuba. That trip has really stretched out as the logistics of travelling to and in Cuba are a nightmare. I’m not really looking forward to almost three weeks away from the girls, but it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so I have to seize it. March and April are already starting to fill up as well. I’m hoping to hit it so that I travel only once a month and make that work well enough that I can do local stuff the rest of the time.

Used the new printer today, i9900, and it is incredible. A nice tool to have. Got the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm DVD today, really, really funny.

What has winter come to? When I heard it was going to snow last night I was chagrined that it would ruin the mountain biking. That’s messed up. Luckily (?) it didn’t snow that much and Ben and I hit it again this afternoon. It was cold, but not too cold, and the trails were perfect. The Siberia Express is supposed to wail on us starting tomorrow (without snow of course), so this may be it for a few days. Three days of sweet riding this week, not bad for January.

Got the house wired with Airport Express today. Really nice to have that set up. I also got a wireless card for the PowerBook, welcome to the 21st century. The new desktop is almost ready. My new i9900 printer is installed, sort of, so by the end of the week I should have the whole shootin match on line. The work is really starting to pile up, some bigger projects are popping up, which is great, but it’s sometimes hard to get back in the swing after a month of relative calm. This weekend will mark 6 straight Saturday and Sundays at home, almost unheard of. That all ends next weekend: ‘Cross Worlds. Then, Cuba, then, ski racing, then, Norway, then, my head hurts.

The mercury tells the story, but not the whole story (it’s also windy, so with windchill who knows). No riding today I guess.

I’m mid-transfer trying to get my new desktop up and running. Still waiting to get a couple apps, and I was almost all set with the monitor caibration when I realized I was missing this tiny piece for the calibrator. I have no idea where it is, so now I have to wait to get a new piece from Pantone. Great. I have a new printer (Canon i9900) on the way, supposed to be great for imaging. I’m planning on sending out promo post-cards this year, to let my clients, and potential clients, see what I’ve been doing. The i9900 seems the perfect solution, plus, it’s only $450.

Got a note from Don up at FirstTrax in N. VT yesterday. I met him when I was covering the Jay Challenge adventure race last summer. FirstTrax is his bike/ski shop right near Jay Peak. He’s a very cool person, an excellent mountain biker, and had promised to show me the local backcountry stash up near Jay, but so far there’s not nearly enough snow to make it worth the trip up there. Still, it’s good to have a set of eyes up there for me, knowing what I’m looking for, that way when it eventually snows I’ll be ready to hit it. On a sad note, my beloved Lomo (www.lomography.com) may have taken its final frame. It got knocked of the mantle last night and landed hard on the bricks. It was held together with gaffer’s tape, but the images out of it always looked cool. I’m going to run a roll through it to see if it has any life left, but I’m not too optimistic. Three years of great images from a $200 camera is a good deal, but I’d still be bummed if I had to pony up for a new one.

So, I shot this image up at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center in September, but they just let me know they want to use it for their marketing material for the running camps they run. Looks like I also will be shooting their Nordic skiing stuff this winter, but, man, do we need a lot more snow before those images will look great. Craftsbury is a true experience, I went there for the first time when I was 17 with my dad, a long time ago, for the sculling camp. This summer will be 20 years of going way up there and I’ve done almost everything there: camper, coach, and now, what.

The riding this weekend was epic. A expected, the trails were perfect for the studded tires. I was out for two hours on Sat, in ideal conditions (mid-20s). Climbed to the top of Pinnacle Hill in Lyme, a great 20 minute grinder, but the icey trails were so good I cleaned all the stuff that’s tricky when it’s muddy. I called Ben and Jamie to rave about the riding and they came with today. Same ride, same fun. The funny part was, they rode their old bikes with V-brakes, which are totally useless once the rims get wet. So they were hating it on some of the descents. I’m not sure why someone would ride a “2nd” bike on winter trails rides because there is a lot less opportunity for the bike to get trashed with mud, etc. Anyway, as long as we’re going to be without skiing, I can live with this kind of riding condition.

It’s getting busy, this week had a bunch of writing and three shoots in store. And I still need to get hooked up with a place to stay in Germany, which is beginning to worry me.

Like a clip from Frosty the Snowman, here’s what happens when it’s 50 degrees and raining in January: snowman dismemberment. The image tells the story, the January thaw hit us like a ton of rain.

Just finished up two days of shooting interiors for a local architect/designer who does great work on furniture and installations. It was a lot different from what I normally do, but I enjoyed it and the work came out well. It’s a good thing I had a relaxing beginning of the year because things are starting to ramp up. A bunch of indoor shoots to fills the gaps until the snow falls, but once we get snow it’s game on in a huge way.

Got a great road ride yesterday, 2 hours, and only came away with a filthy bike and wet feet. Once the mercury drops tonight the ice mountain biking is going to be incredible. That purchase of the studded tires is looking like the buy of the winter. I got a new pair of skate skis from Karhu yesterday, to go with my new tele skis, who knows when I’ll be able to use either.