Access gives many sports pho­tog­ra­phers an edge. Court­side in bas­ket­ball, on the side­line for foot­ball or where ever that cov­et­ed sweet spot is will give you the best chance of get­ting a great shot. So I think the Tour of Cal­i­for­nia bike race is dif­fer­ent. It comes to me, right through my home town — right down my street. There are no fences to block my shot and no press pass is need­ed. It’s not quite that easy.

The first thing to think about is if you want a par­tic­u­lar angle on the rid­ers or a cer­tain back­ground, get­ting both is dif­fi­cult. You scout your area days in advance and you run into oth­er pho­tog­ra­phers doing the same.

Then you must con­sid­er road clo­sures. The police and the pele­ton are most unpre­dictable. The best bet is to get there ear­ly and bring some food and a chair.

Research the race and rid­ers. Know their col­ors. It helps if you can fol­low the race on your smart phone as they approach. Is there a break-away group? Is there a sprint or feed­ing sta­tion near­by. All these fac­tors may affect if you want a fierce rac­ing shot or one of every­one sit­ting up, eat­ing and throw­ing half emp­ty water bot­tles at you. Then again, they may not.

Unless you pho­to­graph bik­ers every week­end, there is no time to prac­tice. If you are smart, you prac­tice by shoot­ing all the sup­port vehi­cles, press motor­cy­cles and police that go by before the rid­ers. That is not a bad idea because, no soon­er that you see the rid­ers approach­ing, they are on top of you and then they are gone.

Keep both eyes open so as not to miss any­thing, trip over some­one else, get in the way or be hit by a vehi­cle.

Scout­ing the route, I decid­ed to show some­thing of Half Moon Bay and also try for a shot on the Tuni­tas Creek hill climb. I tried to get the rid­ers with the green hills and the his­toric John­ston house in the back­ground and was suc­cess­ful. Are they in focus? Not very. A faster cam­era would help.

I then jumped in my car and drove up to Wood­side where Tuni­tas Creek cross­es Sky­line dri­ve hop­ing to park, walk down the hill and get a shot of each rid­er’s faces show­ing the pain of the climb.

I was lucky to get a non-mud­dy park­ing spot about a half mile from the inter­sec­tion. The top of this moun­tain was in the clouds. Water dripped from the trees and down my back as I pro­tect­ed my cam­era under my coat. A thou­sand peo­ple crowd­ed the inter­sec­tion, many shiv­er­ing in bik­ing attire. Bicy­cles cov­ered every bit of ground that was­n’t occu­pied by spec­ta­tors. As I approach, the Amgen van dri­ves through say­ing the rid­ers are one mile away. Holy Moly, I want­ed to hike down the road a mile or 2 to get my shots.

I squeezed through to the mid­dle of the street and high­tailed it down hill, dodg­ing police on motor­cyles and speed­ing sup­port cars loaded with spare bikes. I found a break in the red­wood trees that let in a lit­tle bit of light through the fog and took my place along side a dozen oth­er pho­tog­ra­phers look­ing for the same shot, and just in time. Bal­anc­ing on a small mound, a steep slide of mud on one side and the road on the oth­er, I squeezed off a few blur­ry shots between the oth­er pho­tog­ra­phers as the pele­ton roared by.

That Tuni­tas Creek climb was noth­ing for these stel­lar atheletes. Here, I’m think­ing about the Pyre­nees in France and how it tests the Tour de France rid­ers. They should be spread out, strug­gling up the hill, mov­ing rel­a­tive­ly slow with pained con­cen­tra­tion on their face. Think again.

I scored a few pic­tures and learned a few lessons. All is good. Maybe, the climb out of San Jose to Modesto will give me those shots I want. Or stak­ing out a cor­ner at a time tri­al would pro­vide some great oppor­tu­ni­ties. Those van­tage points were more of a com­mit­ment than I had time for this year.