The High Cascades 100 is an Endurance Mountain Bike Race held in Bend, Oregon. I was there this year (July 21st, 2018) photographing the event from 5:00 AM to 9:30 AM and then back in the evening to catch some end of day finishers, podium, awards. It was rewarding to capture the overall emotion and vibe of finishing a 100 miles of biking on a single track, rocky mountain terrain.
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This year, the race boasted a hefty 400 participants with 65 of those athletes being women! I was told this is a very high number of female riders in endurance mountain bike races. At the end of the day, these athletes were more than just men and women polska-ed.com. They were mom’s, dad’s, grandma’s and grandpa’s, husband’s and wives, friends, comrades, teams, new friends, young and aged. I loved that this sport seemed limitless to who was able participate and push their limits. There was even a husband-wife team on a bicycle built for two! I can’t imagine one-hundred miles on rocky mountain terrain…on a dual bike!
I had already planned a road-trip to visit my brother and his family in Redmond, which is about 25-30 minutes outside of Bend, Oregon. The job popped up on my Thumbtack Profile and happened to land in the middle of our trip and wouldn’t really intrude on our planned family lake day. After chatting with Mike, the event coordinator at Mudslinger Events on what was needed photography-wise, I signed on to photograph it.
If you were a racer and wondered why I did not capture any shots of you…. PLEASE REMEMBER, I was not committed to be there all day to capture each and every athlete, however, I did capture quite a few racer’s. Next year [ 2019 ] I am hoping I can be there all-day in order to provide committed athlete photography. With the short notice of planning, I was there as long as I could be. The specifications for the job was based mainly on getting images for web and social media to help showcase the core of what this event is like. Capture emotions, vibe, the up’s and down’s and some of the action! Considering I did get quite a few great shots on the trail and at the finish line, the event opted to share the gallery link to the athletes. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to photograph a large percentage of the participating athletes and I think this led to a little confusion on what I was there for. I hope everyone understands that I couldn’t be there the entire day. I was given the option to charge for the photography — I opted to offer the photography I did, free of charge — which is fairly generous if you’ve ever done that much editing. 😊 🤔
Overall, it was an excellent race to photograph with many awesome athletes of all builds and personalities. The race seems to bring in the nicest of people and the entire vibe is very supportive, exciting and a fun thing to experience even from the spectators point of view. I heard non-stop how well the event was organized, trails were very well marked and the athletes participating were the nicest and most supportive breed of bikers.
While I am giving the photo’s away for FREE, there are a couple small rules — basically you cannot claim the images as your own and you may not sell them. Otherwise, I’m pretty open to downloading, printing, etc. I hope you enjoy!
