Rock Stars

Eventually you might want to capture one of your gnarly rides on video so you can show your friends and family how rad you are.  Mostly they are going to think you are a total nerd but do it anyway - if nothing else your riding buddies will appreciate it.

One of the easiest ways to do this is using a POV (point of view) camera that is mounted on your helmet, chest or somewhere on your bike.  GoPro has emerged as the most well known maker of cameras for this purpose, mostly from advertising heavily in action sports magazines and during action sports TV shows.

Another option is to use a handheld video camera or the camera on your phone and get a bunch of shots of your friends as they ride by.  It's not really possible to use one of these cameras while you are riding - mountain biking is pretty much a two-hands-required sport.  If you do try it you will probably get some pretty cool POV footage of your wreck.

The following video was shot with an Oregon Scientific ATC9K helmet mounted HD video camera.  I was using a 16GB microSD card for data storage which holds something like 3 or 4 hours of 720P HD.  If I recall it will record around 2 hours at 1080P. We also took some footage with an older Cannon handheld video camera from the side of the trail.  After doing a little research on video editing software I went with Corel VideoStudio X4.  For $39 you get a ton of editing features and it was pretty easy to learn.  Adding music, particulary something that rocks, makes your video seem about ten times for awesome than it really is.  On youtube I had to fill out a form to acknowledge the copyrighted songs were only used for personal enjoyment and not for profit - I wouldn't be able to have these on this blog if it were a for-profit endeavor (it is not).   Feel free to jump to the 4 minute mark where I wreck trying to show off for the camera and my friends laugh hysterically at me.  No I was not hurt but I felt like a dork.



Another option is to take still shots of your trip and make them into a video montage.  Again, cool music makes it seem 10 times more awesome.



Here is a video of my friend Dave following his friend Rod in a cyclocross bike race.  A POV camera is mounted to the seatpost of the bike and facing backward.  


2011 Valmont CX 45+ from Rod Yoder on Vimeo.

Good luck...give it a try and have a gnarly ride dude.