Well, Danni and I have completed our move to Dorset. We are settling in okay, I have started my new job, which I am enjoying.
I have added some images to the BDS Round 4 gallery, and I will hopefully updat the sports section with images from the National Champs in the next few days.

I may have a new project coming up concerning greyhound racing at the Poole Stadium, so keep your eyes open for more info on that one, I shall keep you updated here on my blog. I should also be attending a few Poole Pirate matches before the end of the season, which I am really looking forward to, it's been a few years since I've been able to watch my local speedway team.

I hope you all like the new website banner, this design will feature as my new sig on all of my upcoming photography work. I was aiming for something simple, but recognisable, Which I have hopefully achieved with the aperture symbol.

Round 4 of the 2011 HALO BDS saw a field of over 300 competitors descending on Llangollen in North Wales. 

Saturday was a grey and dreary day, with the track thick in wet, clingy mud. The uplift service was a slow process due to the narrow country lanes that the trailers had to negotiate to reach the summit, but most riders still managed a decent amount of practice runs.

Sunday, and what a difference. Sunshine and heat! The hottest day of the year so far and the track was drying out fast.
Seeding saw on-form Danny Hart take the top spot, just less than two tenths of a second ahead of Brendan Fairclough. Fairclough was trying to make this 4 wins from 4 visits to Llangollen, but could he match the pace of the blistering Danny Hart, and just how much would the recent knee operation affect his ambitions of retaining the title of 'King of Llangollen'?

A good showing for CRC saw Joe Smith and Matti Lehikoinen in 3rd and 4th spots respectively, with local hero Al Bond rounding up the top 5 for the Elite Men's seeding.
Saracen Madison's Manon Carpenter took the bragging rights for the Elite Women's seeding, with 4.5 seconds in hand over Transition's Emily Horridge. Can anybody stop this young woman from Wales?

Manon went on to win the Elite Women section, posting a time just shy of 4 seconds faster than second placed Emily Horridge. Katy Curd of Rose Bikes took third, with Jess Stone and Emma Wareham rounding off the podium.

Elite Men's race runs came round and Steve Peat was looking fast, posting a first split time of over a second faster than anybody previously down the hill. That was all undone with an off in the very final section however, leaving the fan favourite with 17th place overall.
Next up was Sam Dale, who put in a very respectable time to take the Hot Seat. He didn't keep it for long though as Josh 'Ratboy' Bryceland, the next guy down, bettered the time set by the Sunn rider by 1.2 seconds, 2.5 seconds faster than Hart's seeding run! What, if anything, had Hart kept in reserve?
Al Bond, Matti Lehikoinen and Joe Smith were the next three down, and none could get within 1.5 seconds of Bryceland's time, would this be his first senior win?

Brendog next, and the young Monster/Specialized rider was really looking to upset the party and claim his fourth win at this venue. However, he couldn't match Bryceland's run, and was over a second down by the first split. By the finishing line he had dropped a further 2 seconds on the Hot Seat time, and ended up finishing 7th for the day, not the weekend Brendan was hoping for.
That left it to Danny Hart, the on-form rider, and the favourite to take the win. The first split time came in, half a second in hand on Bryceland! Surely if he completed his run error free the win would be his. Hart certainly looked fast down the bottom part of the hill, and everybody waited eagerly for the time to flash up as he passed the finish...... just over 1.5 seconds down on Josh Bryceland! That second split time of Bryceland was just superb and gave him the overall win, the first of his senior career.

Fastest through the speed trap was also Bryceland, and so he joins the small group of riders to win the £1000 Tag Heuer watch on offer for the fastest speed trap of each race this season.

What a weekend! The spectators turned up in force for race day, the weather was great, and the racing was just unbelievable. The win for Josh Bryceland leaves him top of the overall standings at this point in the season, with just Fort William to go.
National Champs are back at Llangollen at the end of July, which promises the fiercest racing of the season as the top guns battle it out for the title of National Champion.

Elite Men

Josh Bryceland - Santa Cruz Syndicate
Sam Dale - Team Sunn Montgenevre
Danny Hart - Giant
Joe Smith - Chainreactioncycles.com
Matti Lehikoinen - Chainreactioncycles.com

Elite Women

Manon Carpenter - Madison Saracen
Emily Horridge - Transition Bikes
Katy Curd - Rose Bikes
Jess Stone - Gravity Girls Team/Trek
Emma Wareham - Leisure Lakes

For the full list of results see Roots and Rain at this link.

To see a selection of my favourite images from the weekend choose a link below.
Saturday practice - http://www.jonathancarre.org.uk/250611-llangollen.html
Sunday race - http://www.jonathancarre.org.uk/260611-llangollen.html

To view all of my images from the weekend visit my Roots and Rain account.

I was down at Llangollen today for round 4 of the HALO British Downhill Series. It was a rather dreary, overcast day, with the riders having to contend with thick, clingy mud on track.
The sun came out at the end of the day and the forecast promises sunshine for tomorrow, so fingers crossed for some nice shots from race runs tomorrow.
I have posted a handful of images to the album for today, more will go up over the next week when I have had chance to edit them.
Click on the link to visit the album.
http://www.jonathancarre.org.uk/250611-llangollen.html

The images from this weekend's HALO British Downhill Series round 2 are now up in the gallery.
A great weekend for photographing and spectating, the sun was out and it was even hot. Gee Atherton took the win in the men's Elite, half a second ahead of Steve Peat. The pair were two seconds ahead of the rest of the field, with Brendan Fairclough taking third, the Chain Reaction Cycles duo of Matti Lehikoinen and Joe Smith taking fourth and fifth respectively. Round one winner Marc Beaumont took sixth this time out.
Dan Atherton took ninth place, a positive sign for the man who fractured his C1 vertebra just one year ago.
The women's elite race saw French rider Emmeline Ragot take the top spot with over four seconds in hand from second placed Fionn Griffiths. Jess Stone took the last podium spot, with round one winner Manon Carpenter less than 0.1sec behind her for fourth.

Click HERE to see the selection of images that made it to the gallery.

Quite a bit going on the next few weekends. Here's my schedule.

Sunday April 3rd - I will be off to Coed-Y-Brenin for the third round of the Welsh XC Series 2011.

Saturday April 9th and Sunday April 10th - I will be at Moelfre to photograph round 2 of the HALO BDS 2011.

Pictures should appear the first few days of the week following each event.

I was contacted by Philip Ingham from British Cycling a couple of days back about my images from round 1 of the 2011 HALO BDS.
I am pleased to say that I have sold 50 web sized images to BC for use with their race report. It is great to be recognised and have my images associated with the sport's UK governing body.
To see the report click HERE.

The images are now up for Round 1 of the 2011 HALO British Downhill Series. Go check the sports section for the gallery, or click HERE to go straight to there. There is a link in the gallery description for my Roots and Rain account, where my MTB event images are available at a discounted price.

Not that I'm complaining, it means I have work to do and stuff to keep me occupied.

Kitesurf article - I had a shoot with Johara yesterday, and we have one penciled in for tomorrow too, fingers crossed for the weather. We are currently co-writing an article for Kitesurf magazine next month, I won't post any of the images up until the issue has been published, but I will say that I am quite excited about tomorrow's shoot, it is something we have had planned for a while (I just hope it turns out close to what I have in my head).

2011 HALO BDS - I have just received confirmation of my media pass for the 2011 HALO British Downhill Series. Round 1 is this weekend at Nant Gwrtheyrn, so I shall be spending Saturday and Sunday with some of the world's elite DH racers. Expect the images to appear towards the middle of next week.

Grey Seals - I spent half an hour or so this morning with our local Grey Seal colony. The forecast was for sunshine so I was hoping for some nice early morning light, unfortunately what I got was a grey overcast morning. Nevertheless I got some images out of the session and you can view them in the Grey Seals gallery (link below).
I would love a quiet word with the two people on a jet ski who came right into the bay with a video camera though, they freaked the resting colony out and half of them made a break for the water in near panic. Actions like this jeopardise the future of a breeding colony and I would hate for the seals to find a different breeding location in the future because of the irresponsible actions of a few individuals.

Grey Seal gallery