Three days to shoot. Nine days to feed. And a dream I'd had for years.
The Tour de France Femmes is the race every cycling fan dreams of standing beside — and it's every bit as good as you imagine. Being that close to the stars of the sport, making content around their bikes, is exactly the thing you dream about as a fan and as a creator.
It was also the biggest planning challenge of my year. We had three days to produce content for all nine race days — a minimum of two posts a day across the whole race, which is eighteen core pieces before you add everything on top. We made as much as we possibly could.
Three days to shoot. Nine days to feed. Half the night to edit.
The days started brutally early and ended brutally late; I spent half of every night at the laptop, cutting as fast as the racing came at us. And the Tour is trickier than the mountain bike World Cups when it comes to image rights and the technical side of things — but I'd say we made the very best of it.
The numbers backed it up: on the Shimano channel we grew on last year's performance by nearly 200% in views and engagement. For me, that's a full-on success.
It was also the first race I shot on my new camera, the Sony FX30 — and I genuinely prefer everything that came off it to what I was making before. So, quietly: the gear does matter, whatever anyone tells you.
