Photographer Ken Conley is down in Georgia covering the 2008 Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, he’ll be checking in daily with a journal of each stage, as well as a photo gallery.

Today’s journal will be short and sweet as I’ve got to get ready to get home and can’t wait until the galleries are up to write a post. You can look for more photos to appear in my stage 7 gallery later in the day.

The Tour de Georgia was a blast — especially the team time trial and Brasstown Bald. I never would have thought after the Tour of California to see an American Tour so heavily dominated by High Road. Pretty much all that was missing for them was a stage win by George Hincapie, which nearly happened in Dahlonega. Hincapie was an absolute workhorse today; he seemed to be at the front of the peloton every time they passed me by.

Today’s stage was a hard circuit. I rode moto for the first two laps and got to see the break develop, first with Rhys Pollock almost immediately jumping off the front, to the riders that bridged up. That was pretty much the entire race, up until the peloton finally decided to reel the break in. In between, I got to see a lot of riders off the back, and a lot of teams sending riders back to help bridge back, including Rock Racing and BMC. The peloton looked a lot smaller by day’s end. The road was rough enough to throw my feel off the foot pegs on the motorcycle, so I can only imagine what it feels like on a bike.

It’s pretty difficult to shoot from a moto on an urban circuit as you’re constantly turning and accelerating and bumping around — another photographer used a 300mm lens to get enough distance as the tighter roads force you to stay further away. I made the mistake of stopping to shoot the peloton roll by; we never got back in front. I ended up shooting most of the stage on foot.

Photo by Ken Conley

Greg Henderson took the stage and managed to produce an interesting victory salute, especially when paired with JJ Haedo’s tongue wag. The podium ceremony was a High Road affair, even if Astana got to have their own champagne party on stage. Levi Leipheimer really is eager to grab the champagne bottles and soak everyone in sight, even if he always seems to end up bleary eyed. Thankfully they didn’t give out as many champagne bottles as they did at the Tour of California.

Photographer Ken Conley is down in Georgia covering the 2008 Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, he’ll be checking in daily with a journal of each stage, as well as a photo gallery.

Brasstown Bald is the most fun stage of the Tour de Georgia… for the fans. The intimidating climbs lead to joking amongst the sprinters, like Ivan Dominguez’s “Push Me Up the Hill Please” sign that he taped on his bike, then JJ Haedo’s chest. His teammate Ivan Stevic noted that he taped it on the wrong side: Haedo was going to get pushed downhill. Dominguez loved the attention: “Everyone loves my sign…. They think I’m joking… I won’t be on the podium today but I will be in everyone’s photos.” He was even handed a “tow” rope, which was strung between him and Stevic (it was noted that attaching two sprinters together is the wrong idea). Stevic pulled his own prank by attacking Dominguez with 100m to go — for 99th place.

Also entertaining was my favorite ham, Justin England. England paper-boy-ed across the upper slopes of Brasstown Bald but still found the energy to raise his hand to get the fans to cheer. He gave me a good tongue stick out before heading to the finish.

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Photographer Ken Conley is down in Georgia covering the 2008 Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, he’ll be checking in daily with a journal of each stage, as well as a photo gallery.

A long day for the riders, a short day for me. One stop alongside a lake, shots at the finish, and the day is over. Skilled drivers, aka the Versus camera crew, can make 4-5 stops on a day like today, finding every side road and driving with just the right amount of aggression to stay ahead. I was more interested in finding a scenic shot that I’d be really, really happy with, so Mario and I skipped the start once more to begin our voyage along the course that moved slowly up in elevation towards the warmup climbs for tomorrow’s course. There was an unfortunate accident during the opening circuits with one of the photo motos: a fan ran out onto the course as the caravan was moving through and collided with a photo moto — four were injured. Another accident, thankfully without injuries, occurred when the Health Net car ran into the back of the BMC car. The BMC crew ripped off their busted bumper while the Health Net team managed to tape their air bags down.

While all this chaos was happening, we were busy driving along the course to look for the spot that screamed “shoot me.” Barns, fences, trees, cows and a small goat offered themselves to our lenses, but we declined. Just before the start of the KOM climb we found what we were looking for: a lake, with a mountain overlooking it. Given that this was the first real mountain stage in the Tour de Georgia, it was the combination of scenery and story that we were looking for. A four-man break came through almost ten minutes ahead of the peloton, giving me the opportunity to warm up my telephoto lens while I waited for the bigger pack. It was quite a successful break, seeing as Edward King (Bissell) took the KOM jersey and Tim Johnson (Health Net) got himself Most Aggressive.

We went straight to the Dahlonega finish from there. Dahlonega had really good crowds, perhaps the best so far. I liked the town a lot, even though I experienced very little of it. It had the same sort of town-square-centric blueprint that every other small town in Georgia seems to have, but it felt more charming. I’ve been joking with people here that town-square courthouses are to Georgia what cathedrals are to Europe. You love the first few, but soon you’re saying, “not another courthouse!” Dahlonega managed to overcome my rising aversion.

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Photographer Ken Conley is down in Georgia covering the 2008 Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, he’ll be checking in daily with a journal of each stage, as well as a photo gallery.

Today was probably the best day of my cycling photography career. First off, I got to ride the moto. Second, I got to ride the moto. Third, it was a fantastically designed stage. Not only was it a team time trial, but it was held on a racetrack so that spectators and photographers got many opportunities to see the riders. And fourth, I got to meet some people I only knew online (James of Bicycle Design and Frank of TdfBlog).

I started off the day shooting the Slipstream bikes once more, though I had a good reasons this time. I knew they were going to win and there was a good story element: the mechanic was attaching “Just Go Harder” labels to the back of the seatposts as a tribute to Timmy Duggan, who’s recovering in the hospital. I felt silly taking that many takes of the label, but there wasn’t much else going on, and I really felt that I would need a great take of it. James of Bicycle Design was there as well, busy shooting the Zipp 1080s.

I also stopped by the Rock Racing merchandise tent so that I could grab a shot of the aforementioned Beast that I helped load last night. I did my best imitation of the Rock-Racing-style-like processing that I learned about last night, but am having trouble translating from Lightroom to Adobe Bridge.

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Photographer Ken Conley is down in Georgia covering the 2008 Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, he’ll be checking in daily with a journal of each stage, as well as a photo gallery.

I had shot a lot of pre-race photos by today, so I wasn’t too interested in taking lots of shots in the morning. I clicked off some for the Justin England fan club and also tried umpteen takes of the Slipstream bikes reflected on their bus, to no avail. Mario suggested heading up course to try and find a scenic spot, so I we high-tailed it out of town early.

Driving ahead of the caravan is a bit of a thrill. You have course marshals flagging you through the course, you’re speeding, and there’s Georgia State Police everywhere. You’re constantly having to decide “friend or foe” for each cop car you pass. I had read about Slipstream’s run-in with the po-po, so I was more than a bit paranoid.

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Photographer Ken Conley is down in Georgia covering the 2008 Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, he’ll be checking in daily with a journal of each stage, as well as a photo gallery.

Today started off a bit early as I was desperate to get out of my less-than-stellar, Hotwire-booked hotel room. This gave me plenty of time to admire the downtown architecture of Statesboro, which is so quaint that it lies at the intersection of not one, but two Main Streets. I caught the rider rollout through this intersection as well as a friendy Nydam/Leipheimer greeting and some Zabriskie mustache twirling. The highlight of the morning was Freedom, the young bald eagle. Freedom is so cool that he has his own Bald Eagle mascot.

The rest of the day Rocked, as in, I teamed up with the staff of Rock Racing. Mario, a Rock fashion photographer converted over to cycling hitched a ride with me along the stage. I’m glad I don’t do fashion, as he told me how other photographers will screw with your gear if you let it out of your sight. We were reminded later that US cycling photography is much more friendly.

Despite overshooting our destination twice, we managed to catch the riders at Millen and the finish. I was caught a bit off guard in Millen as we were told that the Marco Polo rider was 2 minutes ahead. Instead, we were greeted to the sight of the Marco Polo rider being enveloped by a Tyler-Farrar-led sprint. I squeezed off a panning shot of Farrar taking the sprint and a series of slow-shutter shots of the riders zooming past Millen’s stately building, hoping to get something usable. Intermediate sprints often don’t have as much race story in them, so you’re much more free to screw around as a photographer.

After an accidental detour into South Carolina, we made it to Augusta. Mario noticed that there was a balcony overlooking the finish and came up with the idea of handing off our second cameras to the PR folks. He gave his to Sean Weide and I gave mine to Katrina Florence, who did a stellar job. Mario and I caught some shots of riders hopping the RR tracks and he was probably happy to get some shots of Sevilla jumping off the front with one lap to go.

I did the normal finish line shot from the photographer scrum. It was fairly easy to pick out JJ Haedo screaming up the middle, though I missed the victory salute because I flubbed my focus onto Farrar. I didn’t realize until I checked my camera that the sprint was really, really close — Henderson’s wheel was maybe a quarter wheel behind Haedo’s.

Katrina Florence’s photos:

The podium presentation was interesting. They had grabbed Tyler Farrar for the Best Young Rider jersey, but after later realized that the tie-breaking rules actually kept the jersey with Sanderson. They brought Dominguez on stage instead to give him the sprint jersey, but the Lt. Governor accidentally grabbed the blue jersey with the Slipstream logo on it. Dominguez jokingly pushed it away, saying that he would get fired if he put that on.

Sanderson was fetched from his hotel, but the Best Young Rider had a Slipstream logo on it. In the first of three attempts, they brought Sanderson on stage and gave him flowers, but no jersey. Off stage they then stuck Sanderson in a green jersey and attempted to peel the Jelly Belly logo off of it. With the announcer already bringing the festivities to a close, they snuck Sanderson on stage with the green jersey. They still needed to show off the blue jersey, so finally brought all the jersey holders on stage and somehow managed to get Dominguez a blue jersey with a Toyota-United logo on it. Make sense?

I pretend not to understand these things — for example, I have no idea why Sanderson was awarded the green jersey at yesterday’s podium ceremony, when it was actually Dominguez who won it. I am also puzzled as to why Justin England didn’t get the Most Aggressive Award today. Actually, not puzzled — it’s probably because Dominguez had yellow and green — but I like Justin England and wish I got to shoot him on the podium, instead of in front of the broom wagon, tired from his hard work.

Follow along as photographer Ken Conley checks in from the Tour de Georgia everyday!

Photographer Ken Conley is down in Georgia covering the 2008 Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, he’ll be checking in daily with a journal of each stage, as well as a photo gallery.

The day started off beautifully at Tybee Island. I stalked Ivan Dominguez and his luggage at the team hotel, figuring that he might produce a win today. I also shot some bike porn, pre-race car washing, and ogled the Jittery Joes BMW team car:

Team Type 1 has interesting bidons:

Then there was a quick stop at the lighthouse before I joined the race caravan leaving the island. The power lines are a bit of a bummer. I could have shot less powerlines if I had gone to ground level, but given the presence of three other photographers at the ideal spot down there, I stuck to my guns with the high shot. I could always photoshop out the powerlines (in fact, I did remove one already)

I failed to catch up with the peloton on the other side of Savannah. I made a wrong turn and by the time I corrected they had blazed past. With such a short stage it was a long shot to try and catch them so quickly.

For the sprint finish I attempted to shoot with two cameras: my 70-200 f/2.8 IS in my right hand and my 16-35 in my left. The result of the experiment was a bit of a failure as the wide shot isn’t worth it and I couldn’t adjust the zoom on my 70-200 — it’s a bit too wide. Next time I coming with Pocket Wizard remotes! (if I have the $$$)

After the finish I took some shots up Dominguez’s nostrils and did the podium thing. It was nice to see Scott Nydam reprise his role from the Tour of California. It was also amusing to see Robert Forster with lipstick on his cheek, which unfortunately doesn’t photograph well.