I was just trying to think of the main reason as to why i photograph cycle sport. Of course there are many. The scenery, the colours, the personalities and their shiny multi-coloured bikes. But no. I’ve got to be truthful here. The main attraction of photographing cycle sport is the crashes. The biggest buzz you can get (or at least I can get) is to anticipate a crash and stand there camera ready to capture it.

Dont get me wrong I am not a ghoul and i hate to see anybody hurt. In recent years we have lost Wouter Weylandts, Fabio Casartelli and Andrei Kivilev. Those kind of accidents are something altogether different and not something I would want to shoot.

Take a look at the following “right place, right time” shots. The biggest injury was a broken finger to Jens Voigt.

I am quite proud of these as I deliberately picked this spot just outside Moffat on the Tour of Britain this year. It was raining, there was a downhill left hand bend onto a bridge. It just had to happen. Steve Cummings went first taking out several others including poor old Jens who’s tour was over. My only regret is I left my camera with the wide-angle lens in the car so these are at 70mm.

The ones below were at Chester in 2010. This was the last lap sprint and chaos ensued. I’m pleased to say that the press missed this one. They were all at the finish line ha ha!

So you see as I am always saying there is no finer sport for capturing on film (or memory card) and the finest pictures of the finest sport are often the ones where the riders and their bikes are no longer an item