Old guys on Hot Bikes with Phase One! Part 1 by Andrew Paquette & Michiel Faro

Old guys on Hot Bikes with Phase One! Part 1

By Andrew Paquette with Michiel Faro

Hello Steve and Brandon,

Some time ago, I made a post on your site that featured a fancy camera or lens of some kind. As happens on these occasions, a comment was posted that maybe it would have been easier to use different gear. While true, my goal—as I have written more than once here—is not to pick gear based on which is easiest to use. My goal is to get the best image quality even if the equipment is quite difficult to use. This made me think of an analogy to illustrate the point. Here in the Netherlands, I often see cyclists sixty years old and older (some look like they could be ninety) who ride some of the coolest racing bikes I’ve ever seen. These guys can be found on almost any weekend riding together in a peloton, wearing racing colours, riding bicycles that might have travelled quite a bit faster if piloted by younger athletes. However, the performance advantage these cyclists derive from these bikes, and perhaps the fun of riding them as well, makes up for their cost.

In reply, one of your readers, Michiel Faro, identified himself as one of these “old guys on hot bikes”. He later made a photo essay posted on this site about how he acquired one of the last custom Roberts frames before the custom frame-maker retired. This comment of Michiel’s stuck in my mind for quite a while, and then I realized it would make a good portrait series. I sent Michiel an email to see if he’d be willing to participate, and that is how he became the first in my “old guys on hot bikes” series. So far I’ve only done the one shoot with Michiel and his cycling buddies Herman and Gerard, but I have another planned in a couple of weeks and will keep on shooting these for a little while. This post is just an introduction to the subject written on the day before I have to return to my office after my summer vacation. Michiel also took pictures at the shoot, so this will be a combination article, with my pictures and comments first, then Michiel’s.

My kit: Phase One IQ250, Phase One DF+, 28mm Schneider-Kreuznach LS, 80mm Schneider-Kreuznach LS, Schneider-Kreuznach 150mm LS, 2x ProFoto B1 flash units, ProFoto softdish and octabox.

The shoot: I travelled to Rotterdam by train, where Michiel meet me and my wife, Kitty, who was assisting. His little red car was too small for the camera gear, his Roberts racing bike, myself, and Kitty, so Kitty took a cab to the club where the shoot took place. The farther we drove, the more worried I became that Kitty didn’t have enough money for the cab because the club was much further from the train station than I had expected. After what seemed like thirty minutes, we came in sight of the Rotterdam municipal airport and then the cycling club. On the way in, Michiel pointed to a canal by the side of the road and told me how his bicycle went straight into it on one occasion, while he flew in the opposite direction and landed on the road after an accident with his bike. The water was as green and murky as anything you can imagine—I wouldn’t have wanted to fish out that bike. Still, it was in the past and an interesting thing to imagine while driving into the club. When we got into the parking lot, we saw Kitty had made it there ahead of us (with one euro to spare).

Inside, I was introduced to Herman, the founder of the club, and Gerard, who seemed to be the star athlete over 60 years of age. They were both wearing their racing kit, but I wanted to shoot Michiel in a suit first. It was raining outside, but luckily there was a covered spectators gallery near the track, so we set our lights up in there and got the first portrait of the day: of Michiel with his Roberts-frame bike (figure 1).

Michiel, f/4.5, 1/200s, ISO 400 SK LS 28mm

After getting the portrait of Michiel, he got into his kit and I switched from the 28mm SK lens used for his portrait to a 150mm SK to shoot the three riders as they raced around the track. It was raining, so the lights stayed under cover in the spectator area, but I pointed them out at the riders. This had the effect of freezing the raindrops near the riders. I was shooting at 1/1600th of a second though, so streaks of rain aren’t visible. Instead, they are hundreds of tiny highlights. If I had to do it over again, I would have tried to get streaks, but I’m not sure how, without testing, to shoot slow enough to get rain streaks but fast enough to get the cyclists moving past the camera. As it was, I had some focus problems because of the speed of the bikes and the focus tracking of the SK 150mm lens (not the fastest at this kind of duty). For that reason, I used manual focus to pre-focus on a spot of the track and fired the shutter release when the riders crossed it.

Gerard, f/10, 1/1600s, ISO 1600 SK LS 150mm (wish I’d shot this at 1/125s, but I wasn’t expecting him to stop and left my settings as they were)

Herman, f/8, 1/1000s, ISO 1600 SK LS 150mm

Gerard overtakes Michiel, f/5.6, 1/1250s, ISO 800 SK LS 150mm

Michiel in the lead, f/8, 1/1000s, ISO 1600 SK LS 150mm

Gerard changes a flat, f/5, 1/400s, ISO 400 SK LS 150mm (daylight only)

Before leaving for the day, I got some shots of all three riders together, and then some head shots. I like some of the shots, but equally important, it was a fun day out in the rain and great to hear some stories about past races (like when Michiel dropped out of a race to use the facilities, re-entered the race, and won—or the many times Gerard clobbered everyone in various races).

Gerard, f/3.5, 1/200s, ISO 400 SK LS 80mm

Herman, f/3.5, 1/200s, ISO 400 SK LS 80mm

Michiel, f/3.5, 1/200s, ISO 400 SK LS 80mm

Now for Michiel’s take on the shoot:

Dear Steve and Brandon, thank you for submitting this article and thank you Andrew for letting me participate in your project. I actually found it to be quite a challenge, being the subject and not the guy behind the lens. But the opportunity to ride once again on the track of the club that I’ve been a member of since 1981 was too good to pass down, and of course the theme of the shoot  appealed to me as well.

As a whole the afternoon was – for me – a great success. I moved out of Rotterdam (first to Amsterdam, and now living just north of The Hague) twelve years ago. That move (and the diagnosis of CLL some four years thereafter; all’s good now, but no more time for racing) de facto put an end to my racing, which I’d been doing with quite some intensity since joining that club, RWC Ahoy. I must have raced there an average of sixty times a year for over twenty years…

Anyway, I’d rustled up some old friends I hadn’t seen in all those years (Herman on his modern cf Bianchi and Gerard with his steel Masi Prestige and period outfit), and that added a lot to the whole experience. Competitive racing actually consists mostly of storytelling.

The rain and wind (it wasn’t cold) completed the déja vu feeling; when we were younger) and fit(ter), rain didn’t matter. Riding against that wind and rain towards Andrew and Kitty on a racing gear (53×15, for those in the know) was (for me) faintly amusing; the two other guys still race and rack up weekly mileages I can only dream of.

I have the utmost admiration for how professionally and focused Andrew and Kitty handled the whole afternoon; it can’t have been easy, what with the rain and manual focusing. Then again, were Hasselblads and Rolleiflexex never used for sports photography?

As I love photographing photographers , I brought some gear as well: D810, 58/1.4G, 85/1.4G, mainly because I wanted, for the few pics I was going to take, concentrate on portraits. In retrospect, I would maybe have left the 58 at home and brought either the 35/1.4G (that’s a really versatile lens) or even the 24/1.4G. So as a result of that choice the pics that are included here may have a “cramped” look to them, and don’t show as much of the action as would have been possible with a different approach.

So, thanks for looking at (all of) these and let’s hope for some interesting comments!”

See my website HERE

Gerard by MF, f/3.5, 1/400s, ISO 64, 85mm

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Herman and Gerard, by MF, f/2, 1/200s, ISO 450, 85mm

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Herman by MF, f/2.8, 1/250s, ISO 900, 58mm

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Gerard by MF, f/2.8, 1/250s, ISO 400, 58mm

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AP by MF, f/2.8, 1/125s, ISO 1000, 58mm

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AP by MF, f/2, 1/200s, ISO 1100, 85mm

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KP by MF, f/2, 1/200s, ISO 800, 85mm