Just after lunch time Louise and her AP&ES team moved straight into launching the Road Race. A lot of the competitors from the Time Trial removed their TT bars and stayed for the extra 60km race, which encompassed the route in the time trial.
The course started in the same southern car park at Serpentine Dam, but instead of first heading south as in the time trial, competitors went north across the dam and straight up their first hill towards the town of Jarrahdale.
At the end of Kingsbury Drive, turning left onto Jarrahdale road I managed to plot myself on the far side of the junction to capture the cyclists coming towards me head and then taking a sharp left turn. It gave me a chance to try some panning as the cyclists joined the much smoother road surface, made much easier as the groups started spreading out.
Each time the front 60% of the cyclists passed me I quickly jumped into the car and moved to the next spot. In this case it was the bridge that passed over Gooralong Brook in Jarrahdale, which gave me a great view in both directions, where I found that the first bunch of cyclists had already reached the turnaround spot and were already on their way back. I’d found my first spot with cyclists travelling in both directions.
Remembering the course for the time trial, I jumped in the car to one stop on the south side I enjoyed which was alongside Karnet Prison Farm. A long straight road, with some undulations but excellent sight lines.
Having a fair idea of how long it would take them to reach the finish line I raced as best I could, back to the finish line with several minutes to spare and took photos of most competitors crossing the line.
The tactic I used during the TT of standing in the middle of the road ended up not panning out so well in the road race where I had a wall of cyclists hurtling towards me, so after some time I realised that it was best to take photos from the side lines.
A bunch of good photos after a long day at Serpentine Dam. Good experience, would do again, though I found I was doing the job of 5 photographers, so that was pretty tiring at the end.
