Over on the Paris Mountain Park entrance road toward the top of the hill we rolled by this marker in the road. Hincapie: 3min 3sec, 1km up hill.
Over the top of Altamont in style.
I watched this little kid climb the last 150 meters or so of the final climb over Altamont about 5 times before taking her picture. She obviously had nothing better to do except ride.
Dicky flipped the switch
and the Moots went invisible up and over to a sweet rocky line. 
Switch back in the rock laden stream over on Paris Mountain. Sorry I am not in the image with my bike but I was taking the picture.
I learned a thing or 2 about taking pictures at a road race. Usually in public situations I have no trepidations about diving in there with the camera slung and pulled up to me mind's eye. I guess being a fan of something like the individual sport of Pro Cycling messed me up in a way that I was not expecting. The first confusing mental obstacle to get over was witnessing all of the gas burning thermo dynamic entropy that was supporting a hundred or so pro racers riding 110miles. Then there were the select few of the larger official motor-bikes that were ripping through along the sides of the road entirely on something of an ego. Yes, they were motoring at unreasonable speed very close to the crowd. It is no wonder that a 61 year old woman was killed at this years Tour de France by a police moto 'clearing' the way on Stage 14. So, forget the cars and gas now all of a sudden here comes the leader on Lap 1. It is hard to describe but I was sort of frozen or better yet it felt like I slipped into slow motion. Just the presence of this one rider coming up alone slowed down my chakras. I could not look through the glass and hold still enough to see the shot but I took it anyway. Crap, there he goes. Then 2mins later, mentally re-prepared. Here comes the main field and once again I went into a bad dream where everything in real time was at normal speed except my actions. Strange the effect that these individual athletes as a collective group had on me. It was like I wanted to get closer, lower and lean in some more but intuitively my warning lights stopped me from perhaps getting in the way of their forward progress. Maybe I thought about what it would be like for them to be riding by me and how I would look to myself if I accidentally got in my own way. Okay, it is too early to start this ramble so I will leave you with the little 1min clip below. It starts with Diego and his friends having fun then you will see DZ go over the top and then the field following. It is not that great because as I just discussed something in my creative mind's eye failed while being surrounded by such energy.
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