Behind the Scenes - Diamondback in Utah
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 Diamondback's 2011 Team consists of riders Billy Lewis, Kyle Thomas, Eric Porter, and Kelly McGarry, and this year after Sea Otter I joined them at their team camp in south western Utah. Also at the camp were team manager Jon Kennedy, videographer Kevin Philbin, and photographer Justin Olsen. The camp was based out of Hurricane, just outside of Saint George, and Porter had arranged for a sweet house for the team. Not having to live out of a hotel room was amazing, even though I did end up sleeping on my thermarest on the floor. |
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| Photographer Justin Olsen, look for his photos from the trip in upcoming Diamondback catalog and advertising materials. |
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| Kelly McGarry pinning it into the entrance to the Grafton trail. If you've ridden this trail you'll know that close to Kelly's right is a pretty big drop down into a boulder field... |
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| The Grafton trail is built on an old pioneer wagon road that wound its way up onto the mesa. Large sections of it were built by hand stacking hundreds if not thousands of large boulders against the cliff back in the 1800's. Here Kyle Thomas hits what's left of it at full DH race speed... |
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| Video guy Kevin Philbin documented the whole trip. At any one time Kevmo (nicknamed slow-mo by the crew) probably had 3 or 4 cameras running. From his Canon 7d to a handful of GoPro's and a few others, Kevin collected what amounted to hours of footage. I'm stoked I don't have to go through and edit it all... |
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| Billy Lewis corners for one of Kev's many cameras. Billy was just recovering from shoulder surgery so he wasn't up for anything too crazy, but he still had a lot of fun riding with the rest of the team. |
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| Kyle Strait first made this gap famous more than a few years ago, here Kelly McGarry throws some fresh Kiwi style into it. |
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| After our morning session on Grafton with the big bikes we took a short break and headed out to the Jem trail to shoot some All Mountain/XC style riding in the evening light. Billy Lewis and Kyle Thomas check out Porter's trail riding setup. |
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| Dramatic light is one of the things that photographers dream about, and Jem delivered. |
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| Unfortunately dramatic light is often created by storm clouds. Kelly McGarry pins it into the dwindling light before the oncoming storm envelopes us. |
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| A small celebration at the end of the first day of shooting |
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| Day two brought us back to Grafton to finish up some of the shots that we missed when the epic morning light faded on day one. Kyle Thomas works it for the cameras... |
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| Kyle Thomas in the early morning light on Grafton. Photoshoots like this one take a lot out of you. Wake up call is early enough to be at the first location when the sun comes over the horizon, and bedtime is usually only a few hours before that. Shoot until sunset, then pack up, dinner, showers, get ready for the next day's shoot. For the photographers add in the steps of downloading images, cleaning cameras, and charging batteries. 4 hours sleep a night is not unusual for a photographer on a multi-day catalog shoot. |
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| Eric Porter tears a hole in a corner on the Grafton Mesa Trail. |
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| The logistics of managing 4 riders plus photographers and gear becomes a lot easier if you can shuttle to and from locations. Thankfully Justin Olsen brought his Polaris Ranger to make the job just a little bit easier. It's all part of the package... |
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| The Ranger also made it a lot easier to bring water to the desert. Billy Lewis shapes a lip for Kelly and Eric with a little help from 15 gallons of H2O. |
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| On the third day we were joined by the Freehub Magazine crew as they made their way across the country on an epic road trip. Brandon plays with the video camera while Kelly prepares to drop in... |
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| Kelly McGarry, just simply stoked to be in Utah! |
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| Kyle found a dirty spot in the desert and decided to clean it up a bit. Justin documented it up close and personal. |
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| Same scrub, different angle. Kyle Thomas scrubbing these bushes clean... |
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| Kyle Thomas, this guy has some serious bike skills, he's primarily a DH racer and he had no problems at all in Utah. |
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| Eric Porter has been around for a while, and I've shot a lot of great photos of him over the years. Still at it, taking a break before the evening shoot... |
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| The guys found this natural spine to spine double that only needed a bit of work. Actually it needed more time than we thought we had, but with the help of the Freehub crew we managed to get it up and running in time for the evening light. Kelly McGarry, second time at it. |
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| Kelly with a flip table over the desert double, flying into the sunset... |
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| Porter with a sick sunset shoulder buzz, God rays beaming right through him. Welcome to the promised land! |
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| Back in 2006, Porter and I along with Mike Kinrade and Steve Romaniuk built a step up near Hurricane to film for Kranked. It measures about 45 feet lip to landing, and the run in is straight down the side of the ridge. In 2006 Porter did a tuck no hander over it, and now 5 years later he wanted to do something more. Kelly practices levitating at the base of the lip to get ready... |
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| Kelly McGarry, table in the sky in the first rays of morning light... Kelly also did a few no handers and a flip table over the step up, but I think this is my favorite shot. Classic! |
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| Eric Porter hit the jump a bunch of times perfectly, always about 30 mph according to the data from his Contour Camera. Then he decided it was time and busted out this sick tailwhip. 31 mph this time, 50 feet on a 45 foot step up, chucked the bike and landed like a pancake, didn't even bounce. It wasn't pretty to see, and the sounds a person makes when the wind is completely taken out of them are not easy on the ears. Happily he was mostly alright, shook up and a little concussed, but nothing serious. Sometimes all it takes is that extra 1 mph to put you over the edge... |
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| Kelly at the end of the trip, stoked! |
Justin Olsen's work can be found on his website and also his Pinkbike profile.
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Awesome pics / write up and cant wait for Slo-mo's vid