I went to bed on Friday night planning to ride my bicycle on Saturday morning as I often do. As I was browsing Facebook I noticed the annual Norman Conquest bike ride was happening on Saturday morning. So I woke up at 5 am and loaded not only my bicycle, but also my Toyo View VX-125 camera kit as well as my Pentax 67. I thought this would be a good opportunity to photograph people, which is my favorite subject.
I started the morning photographing a few people on my Pentax 67 as they were preparing for the ride. I didn’t have time to get my Toyo out and ready before the ride started. After a roll of 120 Kodak TMAX-100 film, I put my camera away and jumped on my Trek Checkpoint bicycle and headed out with about 500 other riders for the hilly route. I normally ride alone since my heart condition makes it really difficult to keep up with others. It wasn’t long until my heart rate was pegging out at 170 bpm going up those steep hills east of Norman. I decided to take it a bit easier and only completed the 23-mile route, and came back to set up my Toyo to take portraits of people as they arrived from their ride.
