Video – Page 7 – The Ramblings of MTBBill

Tacos For New Year’s Eve

Tacos were sounding good today. I went to Alpine to take some more flight lessons.

So I’m calling this a successful jump and landing, with a really bad bit of trail riding immediatly afterwards. My biggest mistake was not really looking at the landing closely before jumping. I have done that jump before but did not take notice of a rut that had developed after the rains and was just chilling there in the shade. If I had I would have made more of an effort to not to go as far left as I did. I really thought I was just going to scrap the bushes a bit and keep on riding.

Here are some shots of the aftermath.

This one taco deluxe!

I thought for sure I would be walking out of there as it was firmly in the hella jacked range.

Surprisingly enough I found that after showing the wheel some luving Ike Turner style, it was okay enough to get rolling again.

One thing is for certain, I confirmed that I am getting the full 160mm out travel out of my front fork. I got a scrap on the my thigh just above the pads and I aggravited an old injury to my right shoulder a bit. I even managed to hit a few smaller things on the return trip back down the mountain but a latter inspection revealed showed that this rim is going to have to be put out to pasture.

Long Overdue Fisher Mesa Video

Okay so this video took just a wee bit longer to get out that I expected. Truth is I got a little burnt out on editing video so I just set the footage aside. I rode Fisher Mesa in May on Day 5 of my Utah Colorado 08 Road trip. Fisher Mesa is a really cool out-and-back XC ride that falls into the “eat your desert first” category as the mesa descends from the trailhead all the way to the turn around point which can be up to 12 miles at the point. It is well worth the return effort. Fisher Mesa is a good chunk of distance from Moab. To give you a rough idea of where it is at, If you have ridden Porcupine Rim, the valley to the east is Castle Valley with it’s signature Castle Rock and the Priest and Nuns. The mesa across the valley to the east is Adobe Mesa. To the east of Adobe Mesa is Mary Jane Canyon and beyond that is Adobe Mesa. The Adobe Mesa Rim trails is on the east side of the mesa and it over killer views of the Fisher Towers, Top of the World and Fisher Valley. Like most of my photographic and video experience in this area of the country, it is tough to capture the beauty of the place.

Right Click here to download the 87MB video that run 6 minutes and 35 seconds.

A little bit of Skyline DH

On a whim, I decided to head up to Corona and investigate a trail I have l been eyeing for a year or so. To get there I needed to climb the Skyline Drive Fireroad on the the northeast side of the Santa Ana Mountains. I arrived at the trailhead at fairly descent time and since this was an on-a-whim ride, I was joined by all of my friends. The temps were pretty nice as I started my solo climb up the fireroad.

While the grade did not seem steep, I was surprised how quickly the elevation stacked up. There were some nice views to the north despite the ickyness that was setting down in the valleys below (That is not fog).

The climb went by quicker than expected and I even got a really cool treat. I rounded a corner to see a young bobcat crossing the fireroad. The cat was not much bigger than your average house kitty. He climbed up a steep embackment and stood at the top looking down at me for a good 15-20 seconds. I was trying to get my camera out without causing him to bolt, but as soon as he saw the camera come out of the bag and me start to raise it, he stepped into the brush. Geez, he was pretty. It was awesome to get to admire one of these critters up close. It was not long after this encounter that I made it to Beek’s Place and continued along Main Divide past the golfball.

I have been tinkering with a new helmet camera mounting setup that would allow to get away from having a dedicated helmet for the camera system. Wearing the helmet camera on long climbs when you are not filming is a bummer. I want to be able to quickly remove the camera gear so that I could only carry a single helmet on a ride. The new setup basically uses the quick-release mounts designed for professional/prosumer grade camera tripods. When completed this setup should be must more versatile. So far I have only completed my full-face helmet. That was also part of the reason I chose this trail, it seemed silly to bring a full-face helmetcam out to some place like Penasquitos Canyon.

After about a mile of climbing on Main Divide Truck Trail, I reached the “Skyline DH” (Have no idea what it’s actual name is yet). I was looking at this ridgeline quite a bit on the climb up and it certainly looked to have some steepness.

Steepness it did have. While this trail felt a little like Bell Ridge at the beginning it soon became much more like Coldwater. These types of trails are somewhat of an acquired taste. There were some sections of pure adrenaline rush as you just flew down the trail. Other sections were so so steep that you had to be somewhat surgical with controlling your bike and the brakes as you could only marginally control your rate of acceleration let alone stop. I like sections like that for the challenge they present but they are not my favorites. As I neared the bottom, I came upon a firecrew contracted out from Oregon to do some debrushing for fire abatement on the trail. They were doing a fine job, but since I caught them in mid-workday, they had yet to remove all the trimmings from the trail below them. This made the last bit of descent slow going but overall this ride was well worth it.

Poison Spider – Portal Video Online

Portal

Last night I finished up and published the Poison Spider Mesa – Portal Video. I ended up including some walking footage in the video. Considering how dangerous some of those exposed sections are I felt the walking bits needed to be represented along with the riding bits. Every veteran of the Portal trail with whom I have talked has all mentioned walking the exposed parts and how frightening that trail can be. The riding only version of the video just seemed to be missing something and the walking bits was it.

So anywho, right click here to download the 9 minute and 35 second video that will set your hard drive back 130MB.

The Portal Trail in Retrospect

I am in the process of putting together my video of the Poison Spider Mesa and The Portal Trail. For those of you who read my review you should have noticed the unusual amount of attention I paid to how dangerous this trail is in the exposed sections. Standing on the edge there knowing that three mountain bikers have fallen to their deaths is quite an experience. I thought we were quite cautious in what we rode and what we walked on that infamous and precarious trail. While reviewing the footage I had a couple of OMFG moments when I saw a couple of spots that we did ride. While these couple of sections were flat and tame with some ground buffer between us and the edge I’m pretty sure I would not ride them again. Too much of the hebegebes put in my head now. For me there has only been a few trails that have gotten into my head like the Portal Trail. If you have ever had one of those dreams where you are falling forever, this could be that place. I’m not sure how this thought process with effect the final video, I’ll just have to see where it takes me.

Bill O'Neil on the Portal �

Arizona South Mountain Video

So I finally got around to getting the video together from our couple of days on South Mountain. This video by far has more climbing scenes in it than any othe video I have done. While Greg, Jerry and I all had our moments in the sun, Keven seemed to always be putting on a technical skills clinic. I am always amazed at how well he can finesse stuff, particularly climbs. This video was also the first time I had some inputs from Will on how to put it together which was a fun bit of Dad, Son time.

December 2020 Update: Please check out this post for the remastered video up to more modern standards:

~~Anywho RIGHT CLICK HERE to download the 9 minute video that will set your hardrive back 123MB~~.

-Bill

Hole In The Ground – Truckee CA

Okay in keeping with my current trend of taking nearly half a year to get a video out here is the video of the “Hole In The Ground” trail near Truckee in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California. The music might be a little cheeseball but I dig both the tune and the lyrics and it just seems to match the flow of the trail that day. This group also has a special place in my heart. On New Years Eve 1988 (Maybe 89), I went to a concert at the San Diego Sports Arena where I saw a group called the “Love Tractor” open up for “The Red Hot Chilli Peppers” who in turn opened up for these guys. Great freaking show.

Nostalgia aside, Right Click on the image to download the 115MB video that runs 8 minutes and 25 seconds long. You may also want to read up about my Summer Roadtrip in Norcal.

-Bill

Is this a good helmet cam?

I get questions regarding helmet cams off and on regarding the various all-in-one and lipstick camera setups. To start off with here is my current setup and Video How-To Page. The camcorder mounted on the helmet method described there is what I use. You can not beat the quality you get from using an actual camcorder versus the tiny optics of a lipstick camera. For me image quality is extremely important. I want my footage to look good even if I viewing it on a big screen TV.

The vast majority of people I have talked and emailed with on the subject are mostly concerned with sharing the videos online or viewing it on their computer. For these users the lipstick cameras and all-in-one setups can work just fine. If you are not going to use the camcorder mounted on a helmet setup here is what I would consider next.

Lipstick + MiniDV Camcorder

A high quality lipstick camera feeding a miniDV camcorder in your bag via an AV input jack. The recording quality will be the best possible, 720 by 480 DV-AVI (uncompressed). You can also use the camcorder for other things such as off the bike stuff or around the house stuff. Should you later decide to do the helmet mounted camcorder approach you already have a camcorder. I highly recommend that you get a camcorder and that has a LANC connection. This will allow you to use wired remote controls so that you can stop and start recording easily without digging in your pack. (The wireless remotes that come with camcorders are almost exclusively infrared which means the remote and camcorder must seet each other to work. That won’t happen if it is in your pack)

Hoytech has a nice kit at a pretty reasonable price. I would get the Professional Helmet Camera Kit. Thier site also has a good list of compatiable camcorders.

Lipstick + minDVR

The next catergory down I would consider is a high quality lipstick camera feeding a mini DVR vice a camcorder. Most of the all-in-one and minDVR setups involve recording to some type of flash memory card coupled with video compression. Don’t be fooled if they say they record to AVI. It is a compressed form of an AVI. Most of these setups give you a few options for how much compression you use. The more compression you select the more time you can record on the memory card but the video quality gets progressively crappier. Remember you can always increase the video compression later, but if you compress right from the start, it is never going to look any better. I highly recommend that you record with the highest possible quality setting if you use an all-in-one or minDVR unit. This however will mean you will need to carry an extra memory card or two with you on the trail. Considering the price of memory cards today this should not be a big deal.

There is a nice aspect of the tradeoff of using a miniDVR. You can use the minDVR for other things such a portable MP3/Video Player.

If I was going this route I would buy Helmetcamera.com’s HC1 kit with the 560line lipstick camera. The resolution of the lipstick camera is better than the DVR’s recording ability, but should you later decide to use a camcorder, you will get the full advantage of the better lipstick camera. While Achros has a miniDVR helmetcam system available, I think the setup from helmetcamera.com is a better option as you are not forced to use the Achros lipstick camera which is not a particularly good one.

All-in-One Systems

Before going with an All-In-One system, you also need to assess how much into the video scene you think you are going to get into as the all-in-one units do not “grow” well. You can not improve the recording capability later. You also can not easily use this setup for other things that are not Point of View shooting, like filming your kids hockey games, birthday parties or whatever. They are however really easy to use out on the trail.

I think the best model going in this class is the VIO POV1 as it has the best recording capability in the class, however it is still not on par with a miniDV Camcorder . It is waterproof and it has a remote that can be mounted on your handlebars or on your camelback shoulder strap. It however is not anywhere near cheap, but if you go this route you will mostly likely be satisfied for a long time.

The VholdR is a nice very convenient and tiny package. It weigh less than five ounces. The videos I have seen from them look alright.

Finally the GoPro Helmet Hero has a lot of bang for the buck. Okay quality at a great price. At less than 200 bucks or so it is an okay way to get into doing video, but you can quickly outgrow it.

Final Words

When deciding on which way you want to go, I think of this along the same lines as someone first getting into mountain biking on real trails and getting their first bike. If you get a department store bike you will not be happy for long. If you go buy a boutique brand bike with all the goodies and end up not really into mountain biking you have wasted a bunch of money. However if you get a well built bike with a mid-range group of components and you get into mountain biking seriously you will be happy for a long time and you can upgrade to top shelf components later.

Wilder Ranch Video

Okay it is raining in Southern California and off the bike for a little bit so I might as well finish up on some projects that have been languishing on the hard drive for a while.

Heath at Wilder Ranch in July 2007

Wilder Ranch in Santa Cruz is a really pictureque and fun place to ride, but hard to capture on video properly. Much like the Demo Forest video, the light was harsh on the day I shot this footage back in July of 2007. The sunny stuff came out good, but the shady areas like the Enchanted Forest Loop, turned out poor overall so you will not see too much of that in the vid.

Right Click to Download the 61MB video that runs 4 minutest and 29 seconds (WMV format)

Soquel Demonstration Forest Video

So I finally got around to putting together the video from the Soquel Demonstration Forest near Santa Cruz that I got to enjoy on my Norcal Summer Roadtrip this year. The lighting was quite harsh on the day of this ride so a good bit of this footage not ideal. I almost decided not to make the video at all, but what the heck there was enough for a shorter video. This was my second time there and I still did not manage to get on the Braille or Tractor trail. I’m riding those no matter what next time. The video is 4 minutes and 34 second long and is 58MB in size. Right Click on the image below to download.

-Bill