Aren't Bicycles Great.

Johnmcl7

On the subject of cameras, I see Cycliq have a new front camera coming out:

http://www.bikerumor.com/2016/05/17/cycliq-fly12-front-video-cam-now-shipping-capture-bad-drivers-everywhere/

Their battery claims seem unrealistic but even at half that, it would still be decent and coupled with the rear light camera would give good, subtle coverage. Price is high for both and quality isn't apparently as good as a gopro but if it's a setup easy to use daily and reasonable batterylife then I'll be giving it some consideration.

John

brat

I must admit I now routinely put my GoPro on a chest mount, probably because I don't want to miss anything interesting while I'm out. I'm considering the Fly6, but I like the knog blinder so much as a rear light I don't want to replace it. I'm not very interested in the Fly12. DCrainmaker (tech review blogger) has posted a video using the F12, and I wasn't too impressed.

Johnmcl7

The problem with the gopro though is the battery life is appalling, it really doesn't last any time at all and on the session you can't change the battery either. The video quality doesn't look as good on the Fly cameras but the fact they last far longer on battery makes them a lot more useful to me. I don't see them as a replacement for existing lights (I like my fibreflares) but it seems a neat and subtle way to mount the cameras.

brat

The world needs more powerful rechargeable batteries! Hopefully this will happen in the next few years.

My rides the last few days have been uneventful in terms of video interest. I had a coach pass a little too closely https://youtu.be/5J5kIjmbOE4, and a slightly manufactured incident with a taxi driver https://youtu.be/tRCr0-oCo3c, but nothing more exciting than that.

esuhl

brat wrote: »

I'm considering the Fly6, but I like the knog blinder so much as a rear light I don't want to replace it.

Me too. The choice of lights seems such a personal one, that I don't really like the idea of an all-in-one unit.

What kind of recording is best for insurance/safety purposes? Is high resolution more important than frame-rate? What gives the best chance of being able to read number plates? (Anyone know?!)

Anyway, I've finally relented and bought an Airzound air horn. There have been a few occasions where I wish I'd had one (I'm a quiet person, so shouting doesn't come naturally until the last moment where I'm staring death in face). Hopefully I won't have to use it very often, but there's always the chance it might save my life.

Johnmcl7

I'm not fussed about the builtin lights, there's nothing else I'm aware of with long recording times - the Session can't hit even two hours while the longer running Virbs can still only manage two and a half hours. Even if the Cyclig lights don't manage their full runtime, they're still going to nee much less frequent charging which in turn would make me more likely to use them.

Image quality is important for insurance/safety purposes and it's difficult to quantify, people often confuse higher resolution for better image quality but unfortunately while higher resolution can mean better quality it's no guarantee - you can easily have two mega pixels of rubbish on a 1080p camera. Similar better sensors have better low light quality but you can't really quantify that, you really need to go by reviews.

The catch is that usually the cameras that offer the best image quality also have fairly short batterylife, the GoPro Session seems an ideal camera as it's small, light and great image quality but its batterylife is short and it can't be replaced.

John

Johnmcl7

Yesterday it was wet and cold so wasn't looking good for a ride but dug the good old fat bike out and was amused a couple of others thought the same:



The guy on the right hadn't been impressed with my fat bike when I'd first bought it but recently he was thinking of a plus bike as he does a lot of remote hill climbing and needs a bike to get there. I recommended he try the Salsa Mukluk one of his friends was selling and fair play to me, he's been open minded about it and loves it - finds it great for very off the beaten track riding but fun for trails stuff as well.

It's the first time I've had mine out for a few weeks as I've been using the plus bike and it felt great to get back on the fat bike. I'm thinking I need to get the plus bike to trail centres where it should really shine.

John

brat

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

I'm not fussed about the builtin lights, there's nothing else I'm aware of with long recording times - the Session can't hit even two hours while the longer running Virbs can still only manage two and a half hours. Even if the Cyclig lights don't manage their full runtime, they're still going to nee much less frequent charging which in turn would make me more likely to use them.

Image quality is important for insurance/safety purposes and it's difficult to quantify, people often confuse higher resolution for better image quality but unfortunately while higher resolution can mean better quality it's no guarantee - you can easily have two mega pixels of rubbish on a 1080p camera. Similar better sensors have better low light quality but you can't really quantify that, you really need to go by reviews.

The catch is that usually the cameras that offer the best image quality also have fairly short batterylife, the GoPro Session seems an ideal camera as it's small, light and great image quality but its batterylife is short and it can't be replaced.

John

Most of my routine rides are less than 2 hours, yesterday's ride was 2 hours exactly, and I was able to record1080 @ 30fps for the full ride using the Hero Session. After every ride I connect it to the computer and it automatically saves all the files to my 3TB external drive, empties the SD card and recharges itself within a couple of hours.


I like its size and its ease of operation. I'm not wanting to go down the line of using it only to record offensive driving, so I'm happy to be restricted by the limited battery life. I can switch it on and off on the move, so if I'm out for a longer ride, I'll stick it on when traffic is busy, or if the scenery is good.

Johnmcl7

I've no idea how you're getting such great batterylife as I've never got anything like that out of my Session, it barely manages much past the hour mark with wifi and anything else disabled. Even two hours is very short particularly when it can't have its battery changed.

That's why the Cycliq device is appealing as it wouldn't mean needing to recharge the camera all the time and would be usable on longer rides. The quality may not be as good but it's still going to be much better than a dead GoPro. I'm disappointed Garmin dropped the ball on their new Virbs as I liked a lot of the features of their older ones (UI, buttons, stability, batterylife, software etc.) but I suspect their new Gopro clones which threw away most of their advantages will be their last.

If there's any other models with decent runtimes and replaceable batteries I'd definitely be interested to take a look, I've kept an eye on the Sony's in case there's a chance of getting one cheap but no luck yet and I'm not sure on their odd mount design.

John

armyknife

After today's washout, hoping to get out tomorrow; the trees look nicely in leaf now, so hopefully a lot of greenery to soak in this Sunday.