I got a gopro knock-off for Christmas, I can't figure out what I would ever use it for. I guess I could mount it on my commuter handlebars, and record every commute just in case, but that would mean I'd have to erase the SD card all the time (there's no way I'd want to save up all that video or post it or watch it) and recharge the thing, and I just can't be bothered.

I could see maybe recording a fun trail ride, but even then, the hassle of setting up the mount makes the idea not worth it to me.

Mtn bike videos are fun to watch, mostly because I suck at trail riding and love watching riders with actual skill.

I only have two videos that I've ever kept as actual ride videos, although I have a few clips I've saved by uploading, usually just to FB. Of the two I've kept, one was a mtn bike ride in CO. My riding was boring, but the scenery was pretty spectacular (and it's an old GoPro 1, so lower res). The other was my 65 mph downhill run in my velomobile. :)

The one incident I caught on GoPro I didn't wind up doing anything with, because nothing wound up happening (car completely blew a red light, but I was clear of the intersection) and I didn't get a license plate.

That's so true. Everyday I do have to recharge my camera batteries and delete the videos when there are no incidences.

But I've also decided I will be committed to doing this for those incidences with commercial vehicles that do occur and report them to back to the companies about their drivers. It's my way of doing something when there's hardly anything that can be done.

there's the key. i need to edit the videos. easier said than done.

craigslist. i got a gopro session with an sd card, cage (which happens to mount directly to the bontrager blender system without an accessory, and charger for all of $60 usd.

thank you for sharing.

i don't have much interest in spending time seeking justice on irresponsible drivers. my camera is more for the sake of shooting street. unless a driver falsely accuses me of causing damage.

mounted to my blendr without the gopto extension, i get almost shakleess video despite the lack of on-camera or post stabilization. due to how how close to the handlebar the camera is mounted, it experiences almost no vibration. i owe this trick to the manager or village cycle center in chicago, who pointed out that the blender and gopro use the exact same mount. the fact that a blendr gopro mount exists is some sort of strange joke.

i record my entire ride. it records for over an hour and half, which is sufficient for all my commutes. i don't record road biking for exercise, as that would be the equivalent to recording paint drying.


now i gotta learn to edit to make the videos worthwhile. right now i just have hundreds of miles of commute. i still get high and watch them. i don't know why, but for some reason i enjoy it. i should go through them and pull out the good stuff. i gotta do something, as i'm running out of hard drives.

yo, who was out riding today! it was 60f in chicago this evening. i was ripping through grant park in a tee. i know i got some good footage. i was riding through grant park during golden hour. my stupid computer hard drive is full, so i can't go over my footage until i find something to delete.

i ordered a gopro 8 today. they said they even pay return shipping if you don't love it.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...c00aedeb0e.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...0fe60d7441.jpg
I run a Polaroid Cube+ on each helmet, held in place by a Telesin mount on a GoPro-style base. The 6Ah powerbanks can power each camera for four hours of continuous filming. They are held in place with a Velcro-Scotch combo: a pair of 10lb Scotch strips on the bottom of each powerbank are secured to a 10lb Velcro mat on the helmet. Of all the combinations I tested, this was by far the strongest and most secure.

I haven't made any YouTube videos in a long while, but I still record almost every outing just to make sure I've got evidence in case something untoward takes place. I report a lot of people who run red lights, drive in the wrong direction, drive recklessly, fail to stop at intersections or pull out in front of me. I also report *******s who block wheelchair ramps and the like. Saudi law enforcement have been taking this **** very seriously in recent years.

No camera, but I used my phone once with a handlebar mount and positioned it to record. I've done it once. I've thought about doing at different times of the year or in the dark but haven't. And actually the one time I did it I was playing with the time-lapse like feature of my phone's camera, so basically it is my commute sped up which makes it look like I'm biking in a Formula 1 race.

I don't feel I have time to mess with a bunch of footage. If I were to get one, I'd go the delete it except when something worth saving happened route.

I’ve had a GoPro 3 White for several years, which I’ve used intermittently. It takes excellent pictures, but the setup is a pain. If the battery is exhausted, it has to be set up all over again. Maybe the newer models are more convenient.

haha that's great! I love it! especially the sound effects!

Of course, you'd know better than me. But I'd be concerned if I accidentally reported a car owned by someone related to the Royal Family.

I do. I have a gopro 3+ mounted to my helmet. I've been recording all my rides for the past 3-4 months. Theoretically would've been great when I got hit a couple months ago, but it popped out and lost the battery and therefore didn't save properly. I was only able to get right up to the accident, not the accident itself. But it at least showed that I was centered in the lane and he had to have illegally crossed the double yellow to pass me, putting him at fault.

I've thought about making a YouTube channel highlighighl all the idiots who cut me off etc, but it's probably not worth the effort. Most people just don't care, especially the local cops, no point at all in forwarding things to them.

I've saved a few things, mostly I just delete.

That's kind of a relic in this day and age of everything-is-on-Twitter and the "new" Saudi Arabia. The monarch told the government in no uncertain terms that no one should be above the rule of law, not even the royals. Nowadays if anyone gets caught breaking the law - even a minor traffic infraction - they will see the inside.

With that being said, it is still illegal to take "unauthorized" pictures or shoot video of official vehicles (and any and all royal vehicles do qualify as "official" by law) or within the perimeters of public or government-protected private buildings without probable cause. I work for a major utility that's protected by the government and there are very strict sanctions on the use of mobile devices. There's a whole agency under the Ministry of Interior, appropriately called "Industrial Security," that polices vital private-sector institutions, such as oil and gas and major utilities, and I could tell you from first-hand experience that these people don't screw around!

I record my road rides because I have a blog! Mostly I grab screenshots. Once in a while I'll capture some video that might be of interest to the cops or insurance:


I got a free Fly6 from a distributor to do a review on - I keep it on my commute bike because it has a neat flasher - it records on loop unless you crash or upload the files.
It does do a pretty good job of capturing license plates and such.

I was in Goodwill the other day, and I glanced in the display case and saw a new camera bag, still with tags, well I'm always looking for a good camera bag, so I got the attendant to show it to me an lo and behold! inside the camera bag was a GoPro camera with all of the mounts, two waterproof cases, battery, SD card charging cable, the complete set. The price on the camera bag? $24.95, but as it was Tuesday it was seniors discount day, so $21.00 out the door with the bag and all. Took it home charged the battery, put the card in and it works great, I put it on a mount on my Jeep last week-end while four wheeling and got some great shots.....I'm going to get a handlebar mount for the bike, and identify the idiots who apparently spend all day waiting for me to ride by so they can try to kill me.

Goodwill hunting paid off nicely. Thats almost free :) Hope you enjoy it and maybe it was meant for you, if you believe in good karma. Thanks for sharing.

Wow, nice score. I got a good deal too through Facebook marketplace, although not quite as good a deal. 50 for a hero 3+ with a bunch of mounts and a back screen.

#I_Record
 

I've a had a rear mounted video camera for about a decade, ever since a cyclist was found with a fractured skull, broken ribs, and a fractured pelvis, and the Resident Trooper wrote it up as "fell off bike". Medical professionals I asked said "Hit & Run". Video of an incident gives police a reason to do some work, and gives family some closure (the cyclist died). I've since added a front facing camera.
Most video files get deleted without review, but sometimes I see charismatic wildlife, or boneheaded driver behavior. Those I clip and save, or publish on Facebook. If the behavior threatens someone's life, well I'll have documentation of the encounter. Most of what I save are still frames.
But yeah, be ruthless about culling, or it WILL get too much to handle.

Let me suggest mounting it facing REARWARD.
I've had dangerous things thrown at me from passing vehicles, including separately, a glass bottle and an AX!
It's always too startling for me to be able to remember the license plate.
So set up your camera to record passing plates, and delete the files if nothing interesting happens.

I always run mine these days, why not? Something always happens on days I don't run it. I run a Fly 12, love it, might get a second one.

I save close calls but invariably find, upon review, that the "close call" was nowhere near as close as I perceived it in the moment (see below). So it helps me keep things in perspective, somewhat.


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...319af3d4ae.png

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...9d557e4317.jpg

wow, that's a recipe for disaster!

That's what Matt Damon and Ben Affleck said

This is precisely why I don't record. If you don't have time to edit/organize footage now, that doesn't get easier after time passes, memories fade over what to target, and you have much more to deal with.

One of my cameras is a Hero Session 5 -- love the form factor and the low light performance. However, if you want great street footage, a 360 camera is the way to go because you can change perspectives constantly. The GoPro Fusion delivers excellent footage though both the space and video editing becomes a bigger deal.

I agree. Here in CA you have one law that says you need to give bicyclists 3 feet, and another one that says you can't cross over a double yellow line. How does this shake out IRL? Just look at the chaos! If ever you wanted a picture that symbolizes the current state of CA ... there it is, right there (good thing that Toyota had 4WD).

Recording video only makes it more difficult for me to forgive and forget. It's only marginally useful if I'm severely injured and useless otherwise.

I'm bad at predicting where I'll encounter incidents I'll want to record. I expect to encounter more problems at busy intersections and bottlenecks, but I actually encounter problems on slow parkways with ample room for passing or even MUPs.

I pretty much only record during high-risk times, which around here (North Carolina) means rainy days. In some other places, hot days and early season snowfall are ripe for bad driving, so I'd record that too. I've also done a few recordings just for fun on recreational rides.

I got a camera after an accident last summer (which was followed up by some absolute ridiculousness from law enforcement). A recording of the incident would have been very helpful in making my case, but would not have eliminated the awfulness of bruised ribs. So, recording comes down to a risk assessment; if conditions make it more likely that I'll encounter funny business, I'll record; otherwise, it's not worth the hassle.

:thumb: but ground clearance is more important there :eek:

What video resolution do you use to be able to read licence plates?

On today's commute, I set the video resolution at 720P120fps. The only way to read a licence plate is to get right in front of it. Even if the car is the next lane, I couldn't read the letters.

If I set the resolution to 1080p60fps, the battery might not last the entire one hour trip.

even 4k footage can be hard to make out plates due to the constant movement and encoding algoritms. the best is to say the plate out loud if you can so that you have a verbal record of it.

That's what I was thinking. Thanks.

i looked at the max, which i think is the new fusion. it's not my style. i like a more classic look. and i'm a street photographer, so the wide angel lens of the 8 and the session lend themselves to my style.

i haven't really started using my 8 yet because i haven't figured out how i wanna mount it yet. i love the session.

i'm an analog photographer who is insanely pick about my scans, so editing and organizing is a challenge i'm willing to take on. i'm yet to figure out a system for my gopro footage yet. i better decide and get started quick, or i'll be so backlogged that the daunting nature of catching up will cause me to continue to avoid it.