Bush riding in the rain

Visibility poor, pissing down with rain. Awesome riding and a few spills. A great way to spend an afternoon.

Lessons in life

My OE consisted a stint up in the Islands, Western Samoa as it was called then to be exact. I had visions of eking out a career as a well paid international agricultural consultant and a stint as a volunteer wouldn't do me any harm. That didn't work out as I planned and now it seems that I may have brought back something more than the interesting experience of living and working in a very poor Pacific Nation.

From the first winter I returned to New Zealand I have been afflicted by a form of dermatitis, something that sometimes looked like ring worm or at other times itchy dry and flaking skin. Over the years I have been prescribed all kinds of anti fungal and dermatitis creams and latterly have actually found more relief from over the counter anti histamines than anything else.

While experiencing generally rude health, I have always had this lingering feeling that all was not quite right and wondered if I was carrying around some kind of nasty internal parasite. I exercise regularly and eat reasonably well and get out and charge around on my motorbike. But I always felt that I should feel a lot fitter than I actually did.

At times I have had different series of tests but all of them have indicated pretty good health although now that my knees are knackered I am carry a bit of weight that I can't run off.

The change of seasons always seemed to be the worst time for the dermatitis outbreaks, patches of skin would get dry and itchy and I would rub some cream on them and take anti histamines for a few days and they would go away. In recent years I have hardly noticed the problem.

A few weeks ago what I took to be the annual autumn drying of the skin and the usual itch wouldn't respond to treatment so off to the doctor I went. The same doctor I might add that I have seen for most of the last 15 years or so.

This time he prescribed an oral treatment (terbinafine). The relief from the outward symptoms of the fungus were almost immediate. But it is the other affects that are most interesting. I wouldn't call them side affects, though I guess they are.

I haven't felt as physically good as I do now for as long as I can remember. To quote a cliche I feel like a new man with a lot more energy than I seem to have had for as long as I can remember since starting this course of treatment. The sudden feeling of well being was almost immediate.

The disappointing thing is that on reporting this to my doctor he couldn't come up with a reason why this would be so. I have done some research of my own on what might have been wrong with me but it would be nice to have this confirmed. I guess I had better change my doctor but I will give him another chance.

My doctor like any other professional that society unfairly deems should be perfect is only human. All of us make mistakes and make decisions that in the fullness of time prove to be bad ones. The measure I think is how they or we recover and put these mistakes right.

I also have to admit being the enlightened new age man that I am. That instead of wondering whether something was wrong and being worried that people might begin to see me as some kind of hypochondriac I wished I pushed a little harder when I felt that things were not right.

Woodhill Two Man series round one

The team at the Kawasaki Sandpit have organised a Two Man series in the Woodhill forest. The first round was run on the 26th of July in good conditions.

I was going to ride the Iron Man and simply rove around and take video but ended up entering in the Vets class. I ended up on the fourth row of the grid with all the guns which was a bit intimidating to say the least.

The longer length version can be seen at www.dirtvideo.co.nz



While this was supposed to be a fun event most of the local big guns were out in force. You get an idea of how many of these guys are around when in the pit tent beside the spot we marked out for our own pit was the temporary home to people like local luminaries as Chris Birch and Karl Power.

The first lap was pretty intense, starting from the 4th row with all the big guns meant that I spent the first half of the first lap simply getting out of the way.

In the second half of the ist lap I moved along a little quicker trying to pace myself with people a little ahead of me and actually managing to pass a few people.

I have no idea where we placed as on my second lap I stopped to help out with an injured rider and that was more or less that.

Had a good day and got a chunk of video.

The Nukeproof mount for V.I.O POV 1.5

The only accessory I have bought for my camera is the Nukeproof mount and we now stock them-visit us at Dirtvideo

The camera head itself is fairly robust and I was wearing it on the side of my helmet so it was fairly well protected.

However, no matter how robust the camera head is supposed to be it will only take so many knocks before it suffers some form of damage so it is essential to protect it.

The short video clip embeded below shows what can happen out there on the trails and why a Nukeproof mount is an essential piece of kit.

Vio POV 1.5

We now sell the VIO POV 1.5. Contact us via www.dirtvideo.co.nz for a price.

As I wrote my last post I was lamenting the difficulty of getting good advice about helmet cameras, at least locally here in NZ. I was also agonizing over separating myself from my hard earned bucks to buy a new camera.

I love riding dirtbikes. The Husky WR 250 is the greatest thing since sliced bread as far as I am concerned. This bike has quite a hard edge to it. I need to be fit to get anywhere near the best out of the bike. So there has been a double benefit to me in buying it. Not only is the bike new, got a great suspension package and handles exremely well, so it is basically just awesome to ride even for a weelend warrior like myself. It has also prompted me to work pretty hard on my fitness. Since Christmas I have lost almost 10 kilos. So I am fitter, skinnier and can enjoy blasting around the trails on the WR-which equals more fun.

This just proves that with any sport or physical recreational activity you do actually have a lot more fun when you are fit.

The other thing that I realized was that I get almost as much if not more pleasure out of the hours I spend editing hours of video down to short clips posted on YouTube. (let me know if you have any bright ideas around making money out of this as I have exhausted mine)

This self discovery had a major bearing on my choice of camera. The other major influence was the old but true adage that when you are buying equipment, well lets' be honest-when we go buying toys. Anyhow you need to buy the best that you can possibly afford, spend the extra to buy a modern dirtbike, instead of that cheapy 90's 'great deal'. As sure as god made little apples most of us end up regretting taking the cheap route when we find that the 'cheapy' doesn't cut the mustard and end up having to spend more bucks to upgrade to something decent/suitable. I speak from experience.

To cut a long story short I spent the bucks and bought myself a Vio POV 1.5 extreme/sports/helmet cam system. I have taken it out for a test run and I am not disappointed in the usability of the system and the quality of the output.

I still have a bit of work to do in sussing it out-particularly the mounting of the microphone and the sound levels in general-but this will give me something to do next weekend.

This camera system is everything that I expected and more. The video quality is second to none and I was particularly impressed by the battery life. With my old camera system I would be lucky to generate an hours' footage. Running on AA batteries and saving to a 4 gig SD card -gives 3 hours plus videoing -almost an entire ride for old farts like us. If this is not enough all I have to do is slip in some fresh batteries and another card.

The four minutes or so of footage in the YouTube clip above was created from almost 3 hours of raw footage. Clearly I am going to spend more time shut in my office with my editing suite as well. I'm not sure whether the missus thinks this is a good idea or not.

She says that it is 'cos it keeps me out of her hair-but you can never be sure about these things.

What helmet cam to buy?

A few years ago I did one of those once in a lifetime rides -Cairns to Cape York, Queensland Australia -and back again -with Cape York Adventures. It was a great ride and as an aside I would recommend one of these trips to anyone looking for a great adventure.

There were two of us Kiwis amongst a bunch of Aussies and despite the inevitable sheep jokes we really enjoyed the ride and showed them a thing or two about riding, especially through the wet bits.

One of the Aussies had a video camera hooked up to a lipstick camera and took plenty of footage. I was impressed with the whole concept and even more so when a tape arrived of the ride and saw myself in all my glory. I resolved to get my own camera.

Eventually I bought a Samsung Minikit. Samsung no longer makes these cameras and to be fair technology has moved on. This camera has served me pretty (click here for links to various videos) well but has finally succumbed to the kind of abuse you'd expect if you were duck taped to a trail bike. I had thought that the video quality was fairly good but now I have been looking around for a replacement I can see I can do much better for a package that will cost $6 or 700 less than the Samsung unit cost me four years ago.

Latest Video- as the helmet cam died

I am not all that technologically savvy in some respects so I have found that actually selecting a new unit has been a bit of a mission. There are not many places locally that you can go to get information about this kind of thing. The staff in most local stores, even the professional suppliers just give me blank looks when I as a=bout this kind of thing. Shopping on the internet has its own risks, you need to know exactly what you are after. If the shop is in the US or Europe you can't just stroll in there to look at the device or get some expert advice. However, I have made some progress-now it is just a matter of coughing up the bucks.

There are two main types of helmet camera system. Single unit models that you simply strap to yourself or your bike. The video quality is not too bad -resolutions of 640 x 480. The same as my Samsung. The advantages of these cameras are that there are no wires to worry about, they generally record to SD cards and they are relatively cheap. They can be quite bulky and generally don't have a playback function so getting the angle of the dangle  right could be a challenge initially. 

The last thing the budding videogropher wants is to find that they have spent several hours videoing the sky or the ground just ahead of their front wheel and not the series of crashes, hills, and spills they thought they were. This blog has a good review of these options. The winner appeared to be this little beauty from Tachyon.

The other options are generally variations on a theme-a bullet camera and some kind of recorder. The recorders can range from someone hooking up a bullet camera setup to a camcorder to fully integrated units -some using DVR's as the recording device. There are all kinds advertised on the interweb. It is actually a real mission to sort out what they are offering in many casesand compare various units.

The best units have an package where the bullet camera gets its power source from the recording device via the audio/video cable that. Most units require a separate power source for the bullet camera. More batteries and wires to get hooked up or cocked up.

You also have to be careful with these options that the solution-dictated by the bullet camera specs and the recording device - delivers a better quality picture than the much cheaper one piece units. Otherwise why bother?

The best value for money seem to me to be the likes of the Vio POV 1.5

Not cheap but the resolution is good up to 720 x 480, they record to an SD card, they do have a small screen for playback. Best of all these little babies apparently record for hours on a couple of AA batteries which seems to me to be a great solution. 

I am still tossing up what to get. It really comes down to how much do I  want to spend. $4-500 NZ or a bit over a $1000.

For me the choice has come down to the Tachyon or the Vio POV 1.5. The Tachyon  appears to be the best of this type of unit around. Simple, rugged, and well priced. The only thing that concerns me is that it is a fairly bulky unit and I wonder how easy it would be to attach to my helmet and how often I would whack it with something out in the bush.

Of all the integrated systems I have looked at the thing that struck me about the Vio POV 1.5 was its use of AA batteries to power both the recording device and the camera and an impressive recording time. It appears that it is not called the Holy Grail of helmet cams for nothing.

Now it is just a matter of justifying to myself how much I want to spend.

If anyone wants my old Minikit for spare parts and batteries let me know.