A little while ago here in Minnesota, Nature Valley puts on a 5 day bike race around Minnesota. B and I volunteered to house a couple of racers because, A.) we had the room, as they really only wanted floor space, or a bed/couch if you had it, and B.) we like bikes, bike racing, and C.) we thought it would be fun. Well it turned out great, both of the racers we had were super nice so things at our house went great. While we couldn’t get to all the races B and I managed to get to a couple of really good ones. The Uptown Criterium as well as the Stillwater Criterium. Both proved to be great races.

For the images that I took I used mainly my Sigma 70-200mm or my Sigma 17-35mm with my Canon 40D. With the 17mm you feel up close and personal with the riders as they go by and at some points I even moved back a little bit as they kept inching their bodies over the curb as they leaned in to make their turns and I didn’t want to be the person that took anybody down during the race because that would have been bad. All in all it was a great time and I’m pretty sure we’ll volunteer again next year to be hosts if we can and if one of our friends doesn’t decide to head out for the race and need a place to sleep.