Wanna go for a ride?

[MotorPlow]

Alright, so your bored at work this morning and you really want to be out riding your vision instead.  So, in honor of our new website, I just made the TeleVISION entry on my Vision Blog.  Visit here: http://motorplow.blogspot.com and take a virtual ride on a vision without even clocking out for your coffee break.  The videos are between 7MB and 9MB and run 30 seconds each.

[Lucky]

your killing those of us who are still on dial-up, lol

[h2olawyer]

Chris -

Great video & fun road!  What type of mount are you using?

I recently purchased a helmet camera & installed the mounting velcro (industrial stuff, not your typical hook & loop) under the headlight of my fairing.  Took some video & am currently playing with it - editing & adding a soundtrack.

Looking forward to seeing more of your riding area.

H2O

[MotorPlow]

your killing those of us who are still on dial-up, lol

Sorry Lucky,
Believe me, I still have dialup at home.  High speed wireless at work.  The dialup at home is a free perk I get from work.  Unfortunately, when the system goes down at work, I lose the connection at home too.

Chris F.

[MotorPlow]

H₂O,
I bought a used "Sticky Pod" off eBay.? The suction cups are worn out, so I have to bungie the hell out of the thing until I can find new suction cups.? Even with new suction cups, I will probably still use the bungies just to be sure.? Aerostich has some nice mounts. I almost bought this one from them: http://www.aerostich.com/product.php?productid=16289&cat=0&page=1

And I might still buy it because I don't think the Sticky Pod will support a full sized video camera on the front of the fairing.? Enjoy the ride....

Chris F.

[h2olawyer]

Chris -

Thanks for the info.  Here's a link to other videocam mounts, to give you an idea of what all is available.  That Aerostich unit looks fairly sturdy.  A safety cord of some sort is a good idea, no matter what mounting method is used.  RAM seems to have the greatest variety.

I was just going to use the tankbag & t-shirts method but now the videocam can stay safely tucked away in its armored, waterproof box and the bullet cam is protected within a sturdy billet aluminum mount.

I'll post some video one of these days.  I'm very impressed with the picture and sound quality.

Hope you get some good footage of the Vs @ the Tail!

H2O

[MotorPlow]

Hope you get some good footage of the Vs @ the Tail!

So you noticed that I was starting to prepare...  I bought a 256MB Memory Card for the digital camera.  The next time I get a chance, I am going to see how long of a video that will hold.  Then, I guess, I will have to shoot for under that time to ride the dragon's tail  ;D

[h2olawyer]

Got some video posted on my website.? Around 5MB or so and in .avi format.? Might be too much for the dial-ups unless you're willing to wait.

The road is Centennial drive, just to the west of Fort Collins.? This is about 5 minutes from my front door and is the road I use as a general ride and is very good to test the latest tune or modification.

http://home.comcast.net/~h2olawyer/videos.htm

I took the video using a JVC GR-D72u Digital video camera as the recording unit.? I hooked up a HelmetCamera.com bullet camera (420 lines of resolution & .2 lux sensitivity) to the AV in jack on the camera.? The mount, below the headlight on the fairing, is some industrial velcro.? Company says it has been tested @ over 200MPH so it seems fairly secure.? It is the real rough, grabby stuff - not the normal hook & loop normally seen.

Enjoy!
H2O

[MotorPlow]

H2O,
I think I am doing something wrong.  When I try and play your video, all I get is the sound of your bike.  I don't "see" the video.  I am using Windows Media Player, should I be using something else?

Help,
Chris F.

[h2olawyer]

Media player should work fine.  What browser do you use?  It should play on its own - right on the page without media player - at least in MSIE.  Just wait a while & it should show up.  I'll look into it in the next day or so & post when I've got a more reliable & versatile file.

H2O

[MotorPlow]

Yes, I can see where it's supposed to play, shows the graphic that appears when an image is not fully loaded yet.  Then that disappears and I can hear the audio, bike sounds good by the way.  However, the video never shows.  I can download the file and "Save To Disk", but even when I do that and play it in WMP, all I get is sound, no video.

I tried it in Explorer & Firefox, neither worked.

[h2olawyer]

Well, I've tried a different format.? Try the link again (posted below) and see if it works this time.? Won't play within the browser but should bring up media player.? I used medium compression and .wmv format.? It plays @ 200% zoom pretty good.? The picture in the full, uncompressed video is much clearer.

Hope it works this time.? I'll be trying it on my other computers just to make sure.

EDIT: Tried it out on both my other computers & it worked great.  First try, both had same problem as MotorPlow.  Thanks, Chris for pointing out the error.

H2O

http://home.comcast.net/~h2olawyer/videos.htm

[MotorPlow]

Yup, that works!  Incredible.  Love the sound of that engine.  Sunset looks pretty good too.

[h2olawyer]

Thanks, Chris -

That was the first ride with the helmet cam and I wanted to see how well it works.  I'll get some more video in the next few days - now that I've corrected my charging glitch.  I'm limited to an hour per tape so I'll need to keep track of time while filming & stop every 55 minutes or so on longer rides to change the tape.

The lens in the CCD is a fairly wide angle - 72 deg. field of view.  One reason I went with this company is that the lenses are replaceable.  I'm going to try a little narrower one soon.  This one flattens out the mountains quite a bit.  Want to try it actually mounted to the helmet so I can get some gauge footage as well.

The video is a small excerpt from a 1/2 hour ride.  It crosses three dams - each of which has similar S curves on both ends.  This clip shows the middle dam (Dixon Canyon) going from North to South.  The sun is reflecting off the thunderheads to the East.  It's very difficult to ride that road at near legal speeds.  (25 ~ 30 MPH)It is patrolled very heavily - especially on weekends & evenings.

Getting the bike to run that well took quite a few hours of fiddling with mixture & synch.  I haven't done much with the tune yet this year - except for replacing the plugs.  It could use another synch.  Don't think I exceeded 9000RPM on that ride - mostly 6 ~ 8K.  The microphone is just a small, clip-on unit.  I was worried about wind noise but it seems well protected where I mounted it.  I'll post photos on my web site later, showing the power hookup, camera mount & cable routing.  It's a really clean system - very unobtrusive.

H2O