Powerman Duathlon 2005 Photos

I met the official photographer of Pacesetters Club, Mr. Chan Wing Kai, on 2 Oct at Bukit Aman car park after the Sunday morning training run. I was anxious to know the photos taken by his new Nikon D70 digital SLR during the Powerman race on 25 Sep 2005. He was most kind to give me a CD-ROM containing about 60 photos taken by him.

To view photos taken by Mr. Chan (which have been re-sized by me for viewing only, not for printing at photo shops; resolution quality was set to 'medium' to compress each photo size), please click here.

I would appreciate it if you could inform your friends who appeared in the photos too. Those that I recognized are: Jason Tiang, Thomas Ng, Lay, Lok, Agnes, Carmen.

Identification

According to Mr. Chan, he found it difficult to recognize the Pacesetters Club members when they were riding the racing bicycles at fast speed covered with helmets and sunglasses. I agreed with him. I actually encountered the same problem while I was at Bukit Aman car park cheering and taking photos for the bikers during the Kuala Lumpur Duathlon race in March 2005.

At that time, my requirement of taking photos was slightly different: I was supposed to identify the “leng lui” (pretty girls) bikers from the handsome guy bikers. I faced the same problem too when the bikers put on helmets and sunglasses. It took me numerous attempts to guess them right eventually. It was easier as I could rely on the differences of biological structures. I presume Mr. Chan’s task was much difficult having to identify the Club members from the other racers based on intuition and without any special identification.

Maybe we could devise special hand signals signifying to Mr. Chan so that upon recognizing the special signals, he starts to take photo shots. This method, of course, has its flaws: it could give rise to certain degree of errors where non-Pacesetters racers accidentally raise the same signal. Worst still, a biker is required to secure two hands on the bicycle handle for better control.

Another better suggestion is to mirror the method uses in tour groups where tourists are tagged with different coloured stickers. In this case, each biker from the Club is to have a sticker prominently stick to his or her chest visible from far. In order to have freshness in stickers, it is suggested that different colours for different seasons.

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One possible setback is that the faster the biking speed, there is a possibility that the sticker is being blown off by greater air resistance. Imagine the elite bikers from the Club are happily crossing the finishing line only to realize later that their photos have not taken due to missing tags.

By KC :-))