The Story Behind the Photo: Tyler Medaglia | Gopher Dunes Spring 2015

The Story Behind the Photo: Tyler Medaglia | Gopher Dunes Spring 2015

By Billy Rainford

Sometimes, as a photographer, you do more than take a photo. Sometimes, you capture a moment. You usually don’t know it’s happening until much later. Sure, you always hope you are, but it’s rare (at least for me) to get home and go through your photos to find one or, if you’re lucky, a few pictures you know will be looked at again and again down the road.

With this new column, ‘The Story Behind the Photo,’ we’ll try to do just that – tell you a short story. No, we’re not going to tell you the photo was taken with a Canon at 105mm with an ISO setting of 320 and a shutter speed of 400. The goal of this column is to get into the heads of the subjects of them. What were they thinking about? How did the day go? Was there anything going on behind the scenes that we probably don’t know about? Things like that.

For this inaugural edition, we go back to spring 2015 and Gopher Dunes. Brookfield, NS resident, Tyler Medaglia, was on a new team and heading into the season with a big #3 on his back. This was a very early season race. Tyler got first pick on the gate for the second Pro moto. We got in touch with Tyler to find out what was the story behind the photo.

Tyler Medaglia

“Nothing like hitting the spring races on the way home from a long winter of training. These races always feel good because of the form you’re carrying up from the countless hours on the bike. This was the first time I raced in the Husqvarna trim in Canada and first gate pick in moto 2 means it went well. Racing on the way home is a good way to break up the 35-hour drive, especially at one of my favourite places to ride. Can’t wait to do it again this year.

“My 2015 season was one of the funnest years in a while, just because of the variety of racing I did with good results throughout. I am aiming for more of the same for 2016 as it looks like my first race will be March 5, the first round of GNCC. The deal isn’t official yet with Husqvarna Canada, but it’s looking to be done shortly. I plan to start with GNCCs and then hit up the first two AMA Nationals before Kamloops for the full series in Rockstar Energy MX Nationals.”

One thing about Tyler Medaglia, he is always open to help out with things like this. Thanks for playing along in this flagship edition of the column. Tyler went on to finish 5th in MX1 and will run the #5 for 2016.

[CORRECTION]

Well, we seem to have messed up our very first installment of ‘The Story Behind the Photo.’ Davey Fraser has pointed it out to Tyler that he was thinking of the wrong trip. Here is a new version sent over by Tyler:

Tyler Medaglia

I stopped in to ride at Jeremy’s on the way home. I raced a GNCC, too. That trip to Gopher was actually because once I got home the snowbanks were still over my truck, so Davey, myself and our friend, TJ Martin, decided to go on a trip to Ontario for 2 weeks whilst snow was melting in Nova Scotia.

We had made a rap about that trip, too, and one of the wheels fell off Davey’s truck during the drive. We raced, we go carted, we gambled, we rode a bunch of the old abandoned places I used to ride in the spring. Davey broke his brake caliper off his fork and raced that whole day with no front brake at all.

Thanks, Tyler. We’ll get this format sorted out and move on…