You, your bike and your camera whilst cycling

You, your bike and your camera whilst cycling

On this edition of the Ask Coach Parry Cycling podcast we take a look at technology in terms of you and your camera that goes along for the ride.  While it's great being able to capture all those special moments and scenes, our cycling coach, Devlin Eyden goes into depth on the safety of operating these little things whilst riding.  We look at all the safety aspects and chat about the considerations to be given to other riders on the course and what you should be looking out for.

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Transcript

David Katz: Thanks for downloading the Ask Coach Parry Cycling podcast, it’s fantastic to have you with us today and we’ll bring you another great topic, another great question from myself, Mr Active, David Katz and Devlin Eyden and this is a technical one and something that’s popped up everywhere. Everyone has a GoPro, everyone has one of these sort of cameras, the TomTom Bandit, everyone wants to be showing what they do, but it can become dangerous as well, if you’re worrying about a camera or where the camera is placed and looking down, if your camera is still fine when you’re riding. That leads into our question Devlin today, the safest place to mount a camera on a bike and safety tips on operating them during that ride.

Safe places to mount a camera on your bike

Devlin Eyden: As you mentioned, everyone is an aspiring film maker when they’re out on the bike these days and it’s brilliant, we all want to document what we’re doing to our friends and social media. In terms of placement of the camera on the bike, firstly it’s important whether it’s on your bike or on your person rather, it’s important to first take note of UCI regulations and race regulations. It is illegal to ride with a helmet mounted camera in any race, the reason being there, is you’ve got an extension above your head which you don’t often take into account. If you’re going under any low hanging branches on a mountain bike, for instance on the trails, it’s quite easy, those brackets are mounted really firmly, the idea is to not break your bracket on the camera or the camera itself.

If you have a helmet mounted camera and you make contact with a low hanging branch that you haven’t quite anticipated for the extra height on the helmet, it could potentially cause neck injuries at a really fast pace when you’ve got that jolt. In saying that as well, there have also been a couple of theories in the sense of, a helmet mounted camera also changes the impact point on the helmet, so if you do happen to crash and land and you hit the camera on the helmet, it actually changes the whole structural strength of the helmet which is again a safety issue in itself.

Secondly, some of the GoPro’s come with a chest mounted camera, so you wear a harness and the camera sits on your chest as well. Again, the problem there is the potential of you falling. That camera sits on your sternum and if you had to fall and land on your chest without putting your arms down or any sort of protection, there’s chance of you cracking your sternum, cracking ribs and that sort of thing. From a safety point of view, the best place to mount your camera would be on the bike itself and that would be either on the handle bars and there’s various ways of mountain it on the handle bars for different kinds of shots as well. Whether you want it on top of the handle bars or hanging below the handle bars, gives you a little bit of a lower view, you can get a little bit more of the wheel in, for instance, and then turning around to face you as the rider or the trail ahead of you.

Another option, and a very popular place to put a camera would also be on your seat post, pointing backwards so that you’re able to see what’s happening around you as well. That’s the mounting side of things. Then in terms of operating the camera, most of the cameras these days are also coming out with a wireless or a Bluetooth remote control. That remote control usually straps onto your hand or your arm and then it’s easy to power the camera on and off and take still shots and get it recording without you having to lean over the bars and see if the camera is on and the light is flashing because that in itself is just a risk for safety for yourself and for other riders around you.

Consider other cyclists on the trail when photographing

Then I must just ask, if you don’t have that technology, so have a remote with you for the camera and you are going to stop and start and try and take various parts of the route that you want to record, please stop, get off the bike, set your camera up, make sure you move off the trail so that you’re giving time for other riders to come and go without having to worry about you and your film making. Move off the trial, start your camera, get it recording, get back on the trail when it’s safe and there’s no one around you that you’re affecting their race. Carry on when you feel again that you feel you need to stop, exactly the same would apply. Stop the bike, get off the trail, stop your camera when it’s safe to go, get back on and enjoy your ride.

DK: You really can get some of the most amazing footage with these little cameras. Anyone who watched the Tour de France this year, post-race, after the day’s stage they put together some fantastic packages and when you saw the speed at what these guys race, taking turns, some of the accidents were captured on these cameras, it was absolutely fantastic. But as Devlin’s touched on, safety has to come first.

Thank you very much for joining Devlin Eyden and myself, Mr Active, David Katz, please do leave us a review and rating on iTunes and with that you stand a chance for a lifetime membership to this site.

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