Cycling camera recommendations?

WheelMeals

What do the esteemed ladies and gentlemen of this forum use/recommend for recording rides?

Ideally looking for handlebar mount for general 1-3 hour rides, not for day to day commuting/narcing on bad drivers.

Seen a bunch of Garmin Virb videos on YouTube, are there any similar that you can print the data from another computer (a Wahoo) on to the video?

cooldad

Why bother?

Instead of wasting time watching a ride, go for another one.

WheelMeals

Fair point, was more thinking overseas rides/trips etc, more than weekly slogs. Noted on GoPro, thanks folks

djrikki

I use a second-hand Go Pro Hero 5 Black for all my videos on YouTube... I think them graphic overlays showing dashboard, speedometer, position on the circuit etc.. are all unique to the Garmin Virb.. I must admit they look pretty slick. I think its doable on other devices such as using GPS data from a Wahoo Elemnt - although I would imagine its very hard to pull off effectively / nigh on impossible.

The 128mb SD card I use can store up to 5 1/2 hours at 1080P, the batteries last less than 2 hours, but are small enough to keep in your back pocket along with any spare change for cafe stops.

For what I use it for it's great, I don't record entire rides, just snapshots during the ride. I can't imagine sitting through entire recordings and watching them back; I'd get bored watching after 2 minutes. Equally I wouldn't want to record entire rides and having to bore through editing them afterwards; already takes long enough bringing a finished video together.

As for handlebar mounts, you can buy Mount Bundles at knock-down prices on e-Bay from China; an assortment of mounts for every conceivable activity. My handlebar mount broke - I over tightened it - currently I use a wrist mount which I am finding awesome as it gives 360 degrees of rotation and 90 deg on the vertical - that's a lot of freedom without having to mess about to getting on/off your bike - plus if your wanting to add audio dialog - just lift your arm closer to your mouth to reduce wind interference. (means you don't have to shout at your handle mount in order for it to pick you up)

cld531c

GoPro Quik stories will edit a boring 1/2 hour or so footage into a nice circa 3min video with music. No idea how it does it but seems to pick the more interesting bits with no effort from me (as i wouldn't have a clue where to start)!

pauly69

I think Quik willl also do the GPS overlay now for GPS equipped gopro (like the hero7 black) - haven't tried it mind. As above, generally boring for day to day riding but I have taken clips when riding abroad - the interplay between a few mates / group riding, capturing your arrival at the top of a significant 'peak', hammering downhill - can all be nice to bring back top jollyday memories when you're home again

cgfw201

You can use the Garmin Virb Edit software to overlay data on any video file, not just one from a Virb Camera.

Have done that a few times with my GoPro hero session 5. You just need the .fit file which then matches up with the timestamps on the video.

Pretty pointless, as posts above say, nobody cares about the video of your ride, but good for things like hill climb races or crits where the data is moderately interesting.

EBEB

I use a Shimano CM-2000. The support is not existent and it is not intuitive, but once you have figured it out it is good. Most other films suffer from being incredibly boring. It can be set to trigger with ANT+ data (eg. When your heart rate is up and not stopped) or by GPS. In your example use case you could get it to turn on near the top of each mountain etc. although I’d get lots of practice in first, as if you try it without it’ll act unexpectedly.

They were massively discounted (£65), probably because they really suck until you’ve figured them out. Not sure they are anymore though.

I’ve never been tempted by a go-Pro because, as well as looking ridiculous, I prefer not to have to think about when to start/end recording. None of them have a big enough battery to record an entire standard length road cycle.

kingdav

A cyclic fly12 will do overlays of strava data. I use one along with a fly6 on the back every day on the commute but I think they would work well on other rides. I bought the older model when the new one came out.

davidof

cgfw201 wrote:

You can use the Garmin Virb Edit software to overlay data on any video file, not just one from a Virb Camera.

for example this is from a cheap Xiaomi Yi camera with cheap gopro clone handlebar mount. I wouldn't want to use an expensive gopro on a bike ride in case it got damaged but a $50 Yi is ok.

https://youtu.be/AfXHpmpxZZ0

I agree that is is pretty pointless, which is why I've only done a couple.

homers_double

I use my GoPro session 5 for skiing and have bought a little mount that screws into the underside of the Garmin mount.

Set up and control it from the app on your phone, job done. Then use quik to make a short film which lasts long enough not to get boring, ie 60 seconds.

pauly69

...what he said - it's no hardship with a gopro to use one touch to turn on and start recording / another to stop recording and turn off - which saves battery as it's not turned on all the time. The button on the sessions is unmissable even with full gloves. No need or desire to record an entire ride. The little mounts that screw under your garmin / wahoo / whatever are tiny