Cycling in Colombia: The Roots of Colombia's New Wave of Cyclists

In early 2008, after finishing my Ribbon Of Road cycling tour through the Americas I landed in Bogota, Colombia to photograph a travel piece for the now defunct National Geographic Adventure Magazine. Along the way, I stumbled into Ignacio Velez, also know as @ElCoach. He talked to me about his dream to organize a Colombian cycling squad with a carefully monitored training plan, strong anti-doping position, and an end goal of cultivating a new generation of cyclists to join the ranks of the pros in Europe. The team was called Colombia es Pasión. Over the following 10 months, I pitched the story to every cycling publication I could find, but the idea was rejected by all of them except VeloNews, who commissioned the piece on spec.

The following year I packed my bags and hopped a bird to Bogota to embed with Velez's team.  For the next two months I joined their training rides over the Andes, chilled out in their homes, and traveled with them as they fought through what I consider to be the toughest stage race in the world: La Vuelta Colombia. It was an experience that somehow led to a 7 year fascination with Colombia, new base camp in Bogota, and my Visual Storytelling and Film Agency start-up based in Bogota, WhereNext?.

When I returned to the States to check-in with VeloNews, I was crushed to learn that they decided to kill the article. I begged and pleaded to get it published. In the end they told me to put together a 250 word photo essay, but I found it impossible to condense my experience into a single paragraph. I stayed up for 24 hours straight and wrote 4,000 words. VeloNews decided to run the piece nearly in its entirety and it became my first ever published long-form feature.  The bummer was that in the rush to get it to the printer, my editor changed the title and made a glaring typo along the way: running the story as El Pasión instead of La Pasión. He also misspelled Colombia (Columbia) on several occasions--which is probably one most insulting things you can do to a Colombian. During the following month I received several phone calls and a flurry of emails from the Spanish speaking world ridiculing me for the typos.  I was so embarrassed that I buried the clip deep in my digital archive.  

Over the past few years it's been such a pleasure to watch this group of cyclists--Duarte, Quintana and many more--grow from the singular dream and hard work of Ignacio Velez to their current state of success at the Giro d'Italia.  I think the story of the inception of the team and my time on the ground with the country's "escarabajos" might be of interest to cycling fans keen on understanding where and how this phenomenon we're witnessing at the Giro d'Italia came about.

With that said, I've dug it the piece out from the depths of my backup drive--you can download the link to the original article here:

Download the Original Article

Androni at the Giro d'Italia for Paved Magazine

Client: Paved Magazine

Writing and Photography: Androni Giocattoli-Venezuela, consistently the poorest team at the Giro d'Italia.

Pirates of the Rainforest - Sierra Magazine & UTNE Reader

Client: The Sierra Club - Magazine and Online
Reprinted: May 2013 UTNE Reader - Magazine and Online

Researched, photographed and written over a period of four months in the backyard of my youth, Pirates of the Rainforest investigates the explosion of specialized forest product poaching on Washington State's Olympic Penninsula. "Pirates" is the first major non-cycling feature I've produced with both words and photos.  I love cycling, but for me it has always been about travel and adventure--not racing, or gear--so in 2013, I've decided not to chase big races around the globe, but to re-focus my storytelling around my core passions: environmental issues and creative adventure travel, exploration, and people.  With that said, I was honored when UTNE Reader selected Pirates for re-print in their issue compiling essential environmental issues writing.  My fingers are crossed that this is the first of many environmental issues projects to come.

Follow The Good - Short Story and 13 page photo essay: PAVED MAGAZINE

Paved Magazine's winter edition features my 13-page photo essay about India's common man cyclists.  Paved is now available as an iPad / iPhone app for anyone interested in checking out the images + short story about an epiphany brought on by a severe drug overdose, devil monkey twins, and a few words of wisdom from a sari wearing stranger while making 20,000 portraits of Indians on two wheels.

PAVED Magazine Cover - South Australia Aerial Series

Some fresh work from this year's Tour Down Under has hit the newsstands.

Paved Cover

First up, the cover shot and 10-page feature picture story/short essay for Paved Magazine (a new magazine from the makers of Bike, Powder, and Surfer) from my 2012 aerial series.

I've had many inquiries about how this this image was made--here's the lowdown.

This project was inspired after sitting next to National Geographic's aerial specialist George Steinmetz at the The International Photojournalism Festival of Perpignan in 2010.  Ever since, I've been looking for a cycling venue where I could secure a helicopter credential to execute aerial photography over a peloton.  In January of this year, the the opportunity presented itself at the UCI World Tour Event, The Tour Down Under.

Peloton and wheat fields, South Australia

I had just a few minutes per stage directly above the peloton to make the pictures for this assignment.  Each morning, the heli-pilot and I would meet in a ball field across the street from my hotel to review topo-maps of the route.  We picked target locations for the shoot and cross-referenced our take-off duration, flight speed, and the actual start time/average speed of the peloton in attempt to intercept the cyclists over these locations for quick bursts of image making.  The timing needed to be perfect--and a bit lucky.  Air traffic control granted us two to three turns (hovers) over the bunch (1,500 feet) at each intercept point before we had to turn the airspace back over to the TV choppers.  Because each stage was scheduled at mid-day--I needed to work with what I had--harsh sun and the beautifully patterned landscapes of South Australia.

Though I always think that there is room for improvement, in just a few days since publication, these images have become some of the most requested prints and editorial use licenses of any cycling-related photos in my archive.  I think more aerials are in my future.

G

Shooting bursts out of the Bell Ranger

ExOfficio Winter 2012 Storytelling Campaign

Since last Fall, I've been working with adventure travel clothing manufacturer ExOfficio to help build an archive of storytelling content for catalogs, look books, in-store merchandising, and advertisements.  The campaign is scripted around authentic travelers and stories rather than manufactured moments.  To gather images, I've scouted the globe for fellow travelers who fit the ExO mold--then I simply hang out and photograph them in real travel scenarios.  Cambodia, Vietnam, South Korea, Southern Mexico, India, the Amazon/Orinoco, and Argentina have all served as backdrops for the project.

Next week I'm dropping-in to Colombia with a team of storytellers to document a tale of self-discovery and renaissance--for both the country and its travelers.  It's a fresh commercial concept with a compelling editorial thread.  Real travelers, real destination, real stories.  Still imagery, video, music, words.  All coming this Spring/Summer to an ExOfficio touch-point near you!

Here's a few images and videos from the winter campaign:

La Maglia Rosa - Feature Picture Story for September's VELO/VeloNews

September's VELO Magazine (formerly VeloNews) is featuring a picture story I produced about the history of the Giro d'Italia's modern-day pink leader's jersey.  Researching the article took me into the heart and soul of the race with the sport's biggest champions, directors, and business owners--and of course, plenty o' gelato. What a fun gig indeed.

Ditch Logic - A Podcast from the Dirtbag Diaries

 

Listen to the Podcast on Patagonia's Cleanest Line

I had a great time working on this podcast about how my two year "out in the world" bicycle trip changed my life.  I think that Fitz and Becca did a great job of keeping my thoughts in line--heck, they even got my big bro to speak without mumbling!  This, more than anything I could write in a portfolio bio section, explains my path to photojournalism.

G

Tour de India -- Road Magazine Photo-Essay

Made In Italy - Feature Story for AC Magazine

This month, Adventure Cyclist Magazine is running my semi long-form feature on the Price family bicycle touring company, ExPlus.  Most of my work for Adventure Cyclist to-date has been focused on my personal travels. Since 2010 my photographic projects have grown to include feature writing and I've found that first person format limiting (and overdone quite frankly--I bore myself sometimes).  Initially this piece was slated to run as a fairly standard travel narrative about cycling across Sardinia but I change my mind after meeting the company founder, Rick Price.  I found Rick's story of ditching a small town on the Oregon coast to pursue true love and a life of travel in Italy fascinating and decided to trash my first proposal to focus on his journey instead of my own.  Fortunately, the editors of AC were cool with this (at least as far as I know).  When I first dropped this "change of subject" think on Rick he responded, "that sounds like a bad idea...I'm not very interesting."

I disagree:)

Cover Shot and 45-Page Feature Story - What I Did Last Summer

Last May, my 11-day assignment to Sardinia accidentally turned into a dreamy four months of scouting Europe for the best routes, trip operators, hotels, and people in-the-know for VeloNews' 2011 Ultimate Ride Guide.  The issue hit the newsstands this week.

For my part, I produced articles on Italy, Switzerland, France, and Spain--45 magazine pages of reviews, short stories, and interviews in total.  I also created a photographic package and podcast for the feature(s).  I'm entirely grateful to the editors of VeloNews, who gave me tons of creative freedom and the authority to stay away from the top-10 list format (usually researched by a cubicle googler who's never done any of the stuff they are recommending) that has become so common in today's toddler attention span, search engine results driven publishing world.  In short, they let me keep it real.

Life's a boomerang.  My former career in software started at the University of Oregon where I founded a digital publishing company called WhereNext.com with a group of college buddies.  We focused on, of all things--travel guides to Europe.  I remember starting that company with dreams of stomping the streets of Europe ala Rick Steves--tracking down fresh new destinations and activities for young, independent travelers.  However, WhereNext quickly scaled to include a full staff of talented writers and as the President,  I assumed the role of working the upper floors of towering office buildings in Seattle, Angel investor meetings in Portland, and unassuming cafes in Silicon Valley to raise multiple rounds of VC funding to finance our growth.  So it was odd, though entirely fulfilling, to find myself doing what I originally set out to do after college--but with a 13 year detour.

A few pages from the article:

Mountain Bike Magazine Feature - Colombia's Coal Miner Cyclist

I was bummed to hear that Rodale's Mountain Bike Magazine was shuttered last month. In a media age where top ten product lists (that suck in search engine eyes) dominate so much editorial content, it can be tough to get actual "out in the world" stories approved. So, I was really excited when the editors of Mountain Bike greenlighted a powerful story that I proposed--about real people in tough circumstances doing extraordinary things.

The story, featured in the September issue (written by Grace Bastidas) was about Colombia's coal mine cyclists. These guys are the most inspirational people I've ever worked with. Recently, 70 of their friends and peers lost their lives in an explosion in a neighboring mine, a tough blow to the resilient community of Amaga on the outskirts of Medellin, Colombia.

I've attached the article, video about what it's like to descend into some of the world's gnarliest mines, and a few more photos. I hope to get back to Amaga to cover this story in more depth at some point next year.

Coal Miner Blog Gallery - Images by Gregg Bleakney

India - VeloNews Feature - The Bombay Project

The UCI's new race in Bombay, India is featured via an article I wrote in VeloNews Magazine's May issue.
In Bombay, I photographed the piece with some nice digs to retreat to @ the end of the day but nearly broke my worst hotel record a week later when I pulled an all-nighter to write the article in a rat infested, sewage seeping on the bathroom floor, ceiling fan dangling from exposed wires, crumbling walls, $3 per night room next to the New Delhi train station.
This assignment kicked off an amazing journey through India for which I've mused about in more detail as a guest on National Geographic's Adventure Blog and the back cover shot for Outside Magazine.
VeloNews also ran a double page photo-feature from the article I wrote on the Vuelta Colombia in last year's volume.

Here's a few clips: