rumrunn6

I am a fan of captions / titles / text overlay

Pizzaiolo Americano 

I've been to Saudi Arabia. It is an awesome country but there is absolutely no way I would want to ride a bike on the roads there with the drivers I experienced. You are one brave dude...

rollagain

Nice vids; I like the way you keep things interesting by putting up the little text notes onscreen. That camera seems to work quite well

Also I'm glad I'm not the only person who runs out of air and/or fuel. Is there some reason you don't carry your own water?

Rollfast

It's gone now. Maybe you should have added the guy that says "In a WORLD where...)

sjanzeir

Probably could've worked as a pilot that some network would've picked up... Damn, I could've been rich!

sjanzeir

Thanks! I know where you're coming from with this. Once you get the hang of it, know what (and who) to expect and look out for, and apply a reasonable level of common sense, you'll be fine.

With that being said, the country - and the people, both local and foreign - has changed whole lot recently. The Saudi Arabia I live in today is a far cry from the country I had known 10, five, or even two years ago.

On the one hand, the (new) government has been cracking down with all sorts of new laws and high tech surveillance. They encourage people to document and report incidents with pictures and video via any audiovisual means that's handy, be it a smartphone, action cam, and dash cam, or security cam; they even have an app just for that now, which I regularly use to report the more serious stuff I come across while riding or, more and more rarely these days, driving. A police officer once told me that I should never ride without an action cam.

Traffic-related litigation is even done across its own courts, separate from the country's core penal system. The new transport code even specifies rules that govern cycling and cyclists and their use of public roads. There still are those who run red lights and stop signs, go against traffic just to get to a nearer exit or u-turn, make left turns from right-hand lanes, hoon their modified offroaders on public streets (all of which you'd probably seen while you were over here,) but they and everyone else are more aware now that it's much more likely for there to be a camera trained at them anywhere at any given time. YouTube is filled with interesting - if sometimes tragic - videos of what goes on on the streets.

On the other hand, there are fewer people living in Saudi Arabia nowadays. With the recent government and economic reforms, as many as 1.7 million expats - legitimate and otherwise - have left the country. The free-for-all charity that was a migrant worker's heaven is no more. The government is increasingly making it very difficult for expats to live in the country, and making it harder and harder for businesses to hire them, the idea being to create jobs for Saudis on the one hand, and to retain only the most skilled, most useful expats on the other.

What this means on the ground is that people are happier. They are becoming more considerate towards and accepting of other road users, there are fewer cars on the road, less congestion, and less reckless and dangerous behavior. Only God knows whether or not things might improve as women take to the wheels on June 24th, but I'm inclined to stay home for a while

sjanzeir

Thanks! I love the Cube! And the best thing about it is that it's so inconspicuous and subtle - nowhere near as in-your-face as, say, a full-size Gopro. Most people don't even notice that it's there - and filming - unless I point it out to them (which I conveniently fail to do ). Some people even asked me why I've got a "flashlight" on top of my helmet!

As for carrying water, those charity water coolers are almost always handy, especially in residential neighborhoods where homeowners put them up for charity. Every mosque has one or more of them. The running water is free and ice-cold, which means one less plastic bottle going into the landfill. And even if I do run out, there's always a shop around the corner where I can fill up for the equivalent of 25 cents!

BobbyG

Nice video...I see drivers are somewhat the same everywhere.

sjanzeir

Pretty much, yeah...

sjanzeir

Getting breakfast could be hazardous to your health!

rumrunn6

hey, you are getting good at this. love the special effects. & guess that DIY cube mount is still working out well for ya?

beachball42

I've played around a bit, this was an attempt to make a video of a short ride from last weekend.

sjanzeir

Thank you so much! I got brave enough to try something new this time around.

The pieces of tube and PCV piping are history! I'm still using Scotch DualLock as Matt suggested; it's been working very well securing the tiny camera and power bank in place while keeping things as simple and as inconspicuous as possible.

sjanzeir

I like the warm colors! What were you using?

beachball42

The majority of it is filmed using a GoPro Hero 5 Session using a chest mount. Then for some of the other shots I used my iPhone 6. I would say 90% is GoPro and the rest is iPhone footage. I tried to make sure I matched the frame rates and shot both in 1080 with 60 fps on both devices.

indyfabz

This film is decent:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_World...

The main character is the daughter of the fictional "In a World" guy.

sjanzeir

New video:

dahoneezz

Dan Burkhart 

sjanzeir

Thank you! I hope I get around to making some more videos of other areas in town in the future, such as downtown Jeddah, which is quite far away from where I live.