Haunted Hills

[Above] The lonely climb up Juniper Swamp
2009 Tour of Battenkill
Cambridge, New York

I am haunted by hills. Places I used to spend between 20 and 40 hours a week climbing. They always had epic names: Snake Hill, Blue Factory, Deep Kill, Smith Hill, Greylock. Add Juniper Swamp to that list. The Juniper Swamp climb was featured in this years edition of the Tour of Battenkill. 18% of loose dirt and gravel. Great place to watch a professional cycling race.

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Ghost Bike

[Left] Ghost Bike
Memorial to David Ryan
Riverview Road,
Clifton Park, New York

There was a time in my early 20's when the only two satellites that orbited my planet were cycling and punk rock. I was young, lived alone, was unattached, and was singularly focused on all aspects of riding. Over the past 18 years, I have had more scrapes, altercations, and near misses than I care to recount. I have only been hit once and for that I consider myself extremely lucky. There were times I was logging between 250 and 300 miles a week. Broken down in hours, that is a lot of time on the bike. It is also a lot of time on the shoulder of road fighting it out with SUV's and pick-ups for a few inches of real estate. I remember the day David Ryan was killed. I think we shared a few group rides but I not sure. What I do know is that we had the same interests, traveled in the same circles, and were roughly the same age. Any number of times, it could have been my name on a ghost bike on the side of the road. Too many times, actually.

I saw a photo of this memorial in the local paper. Like a lot of local photojournalism, the image was weak and boring. Out of respect for a fellow cyclist, I wanted to shoot a fitting image of the ghost bike before it disappeared.

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