We shoot a fair bit of stuff at Cannop in the Forest of Dean. I often bump into Steve Jones from Dirt when I'm down there, it is his home turf after all. And Steve Grindle from Raw too.  But  last week I bumped into a whole bunch of people from the industry, all there coincidentally at the same time.

First up was Steve Mead, just up from Bristol and finishing an early ride - Steve used to run Pyractiv in the Pyrenees, I hadn't seen him for years and it was good to catch up. Next up was Rob "all about the bike" Penn, meeting Keith Jepson from Max Bikes PR for a thrash about on the new Whyte bikes. I was shooting with Rob Weaver and Jake Ireland, and this is Rob talking to Rob. Doddy then turned up with Russ Burton to shoot a technique feature, so the whole MBUK contingent caught up for  a coffee. In dashed Jonesy for a quick caffine fix , in between speed testing 29'ers with Alan Muldoon from MBR . The were both very excited by the head to head test they were doing. 29'ers were winning, no time to stop ... At the end of the day they were both exhausted but exhilarated by the whole thing. Doddy was already a convert, and for the next few days twitter was buzzing with 29'er talk. Check out Seb Kemp's smart summary of the buzz here: http://www.bikemag.com/news/news-of-the-tweet-29-tweets/

I was up in Sheffield last week , shooting Steve Peat and Will Longden riding the Wharncliffe downhill trails for an upcoming feature in MBUK magazine. 

Peaty has been dabbling in the dark art of biltong making , and promised me a tasting session from his new batch , fresh out of the Biltong King biltong maker.

Will and I tucked into some tasty bits , variously marinated with port , worcester sauce and lekker biltong spices from BiltongBox.com. Serious competition for Bizzie B's , though their droewors takes some beating.   Suitably fortified, we completed the shoot with enough daylight left for Steve to collect a big bag of litter and take it home for proper disposal.  This is Sheffield have been running a competition to win a T-shirt, given to the collector of the biggest or most bags of rubbish from Wharncliffe. I reckon Peaty's in with a good chance , but if you want to challenge him have a look for details of where to send your pic on This is Sheffield's facebook page. Great idea, guys.

 This year isn't an epic year for autumn colours round our way, I guess it hasn't been cold enough so far, and the leaves seem to be gradually changing and dropping off as they do. I'm amazed how green it still looks in mid November! Not great if you want autumnal shots...

So when I managed to persuade my son to pose for a few autum cycling pics, I had to bear this in mind. It was nice and sunny, with an autumnal feel and we started out with a few road shots.The sun was reflecting nicely off a nearby quiet hill, and we shot a few there, playing around with silhouettes and different focus points I liked the ones with the little autumn leaf branch in focus and the bike out of focus. The heavy backlighting allowed the leaves to stand out while putting the defocused rider in silhouette, so it doesn't show how green everything else around was. We then grabbed a couple of mountain bike shots. There was less option to hide the green with these, so they look more like very early autumn. My reluctant model got bored before I could find a more colourful background,  but I managed to get a couple that worked well enough. Maybe in a couple of weeks it will look better, but the odds are it will just look like winter!

I met up with Trek's Womens World Cup downhill champ Tracy Moseley yesterday for a photoshoot in the Malvern Hills for MBUK magazine. Of course we picked a day with plenty of mist and rain , and spent a fair bit of time huddling under an umbrella or getting wet waiting for the showers to pass. Tracy is always a pleasure to shoot, she knows the hills well and picked some excellent locations. And of course she's a great rider, which is key to getting good images for the feature which will appear in the magazine that comes out just before xmas. But even the best riders crash every now and then, and Tracy lost it sliding into a bit of singletrack, ending up deep in the bracken.Luckily the landing was soft and she was back on her nice new Trek Lush with no harm done.

I've managed to get the canoe on the water several times this year, and recently paddled a good new (to me) circular route around Windsor. In some ways its like going for a cross country bike ride, but its not that easy to find circular routes on rivers, you usually have to retrace your steps if you want to get back to your starting point and your car. One of my favourites is the one that takes you down St Patrick's Stream from the Thames near Wargrave, and I got to do this with my old surfing buddy Paul last week. Sun, swans, flowing stream... a great afternoon out!

I've often dug out the magic arm attachment for my camera in the past and messed about with different points of attachment and views on a mountain bike. But to make it work properly offroad, you need to have a nice smooth bit of trail;  otherwise the camera moves too much to use a slow shutter speed. With road bikes you have much less of a problem, 'cos roads tend to be smooth enough.  Halfords kindly loaned me a couple of their Carrera range to play with, and it was fun to just be able to use any nice bit of tarmac pretty much without limit.  Of course the downside is having to watch out for cars!

Like a lot of photographers, I have a weak spot for sunsets and silhouettes. Not something I indulge in that often these days, but its still there and with the good weather last week I dragged my son out one evening to a nearby spot where I knew I could get a silhoutte shot.

Its not that easy to find suitable spots when hills are at a premium - you need to get the wheels to show above the horizon to get the right effect.

I found a narrow bit where it all worked, and shot a few with a wide angle, including more of the background trees. I then switched to a longer lens, and with the bike in exactly the same position I grabbed a few more shots. Its interesting to see how different it looks with the different viewpoints, only a few minutes apart in time; two very different looks in the same location.

A few weeks ago I had a call from Paul Hinton. "I'm leading a group of cyclists through your neck of the woods tomorrow morning, come and say hello" or something to that effect.  So I head down at the appointed time, set up a shot and wait.  And wait...  Eventually I decide I'd missed them, so I head off down the road, only to see them appearing as I head towards them.  Sods law..

Paul has been in the UK cycle industry for many years, and we've worked together a lot on photoshoots in the past. It was good to see him, looking fit in his Adventure Cafe team kit.  I wasn't in the position that I'd planned to be , but found a spot quickly as they set off towards Wales and waited for them to come over the bridge.

The first rider over wasn't part of the group, but someone local out on a training ride. He looked good coming over the bridge so I snapped one of him too, which turned out to be a nicer shot than the ones of the group who were going a bit too slowly to make a good pic.

They had a lot further to go though; aiming for Bath that evening and Swansea the following day, not surprising that they weren't sprinting off over the bridge.

The episode reminded me how difficult it can be to shoot events which you have no control over - I'd chosen a spot that would have made a good bike test pic , but then had no control over the riders and when they were going to appear - its a different discipline and one that requires patience and planning, and probably a bit of luck as well.

For a recent MBUK bike test in Bristol, we ended up on the new trail at Ashton Court. I hadn't been to that part of Ashton court for many years; we used to do a lot of the bike test shoots in Ashton Court at one time, and it was nice be back  there again and see the new trail.

There were many people flying past my flashes on a midweek afternoon, providing a handy bunch of test shots for the flash setup. A group of guys came by flat out a few times, and this girl did at least three laps on her own, looking really stylish each time she passed. Another guy came by with this dog running behind the bike, they both looked like they were enjoying themselves. And off to the side of the trail, on an older regular path,  this 3 -up family tandem came past.  We ended up with some good shots for the bike test too, but you'll have to check those out in the next MBUK.

I like the Thames. I live not far away, and canoe in it from time to time, and I've even swum in it.  So when David Walliams did his big swim last month I popped down to Windsor to watch him swim through.

There was a big crowd on the riverbank, all waiting expectantly. You could feel the buzz building as he approached. There he was.. with comedian Rob Brydon paddling along next to him in the inflatable canoe, and a support swimmer. They headed towards the landing dock at Stroks restaurant. They got out,  waved a bit, and had some tea inside ( I presume!) After about 10 minutes, they came out again, joked about a bit, waved some more and got  back into the river. It was getting late with a few mile still to swim before the stopover that night, and they ploughed on.  Very impressive to watch. Its a long way and bloody hard work, but Walliams looked at ease in the water, and glided smoothly off into the distance....