Friday 14 June 2013

Skoda Tour de Luxembourg 2013

Tour de Luxembourg is a professional road bicycle race held yearly in Luxembourg. It is highly ranked race that many riders us as a preparation for the Tour de France. Todays race was the stage 2 out of 4. It started from Schifflange and arrived in Walferdange, 173 km. Winner was Giacomo Nizzolo who rode for the Radioshack-Leopard team. I don't know exactly what that means, I took it from the race website.

DSC_2085
This cyclist was my favourite. It appeared in the Walferdange round about just recently.

Radioshack is an electronics shop in America. What a pity we don't have them here. No Idea why on earth they want to sponsor cycling team in Europe. Leopard..??  The only thing that comes into my mind is a German battle tank, but I don't think it is sponsoring road cycling. Byt the way, the Finnish Army has currently 139 Leopard tanks.

DSC_2093

The race fun to watch, since the riders made three tours around Walferdange and I shot many photos that you may enjoy. I have to admit that this was my first time I pay attention to this race.

DSC_2158

It took around 4 hours 30 minutes for them to ride 173 km. Riders need huge legs since Luxembourg is a hilly country. And they are all legs. I estimate that the speed was around 70 km/hour where I was watching. Roads were blocked in and around Walferdange and of course all the way from Schifflange. Many people were stuck for one hour in their cars until the race was over. Some went to enjoy the race which is better than sit in the car. Bicycle stars are demi-Gods in Luxembourg, although some of their glory has fallen during the last years because of doping scandals.

DSC_2386

Most of the photos I took with Nikon D5200's sports mode are a bit boring since the shutter speed of 1/1000 of a second freezes everything. Therefore I experimented with slower shutter speeds like 1/80 and 1/120 of a second. Best results came with automatic settings and fast shooting BUT with panning. That is, following the racer with the lens.

DSC_2472

My favourite soy milk! No idea what they are doing in this race, tho.

DSC_2197

This is taken with 1/80 shutter speed and panning the camera to the left.

DSC_2490

DSC_2318

DSC_2550

DSC_2166

DSC_2087

DSC_2113

DSC_2132

This is a good example of using slow shutter speed and panning the camera.


CSC_2129

No comments :

Post a Comment