Classic run in Christchurch

[far queue]

Excellent, and as daylight saving finishes that morning don't forget to put your clocks back or you'll be hanging around for an hour waiting.

[BADGRL]

OOOOOOOAAAA!! I'm gonna miss this one again. I'm dying to bring the ol' girl out with yas and I love the Yaldy Museum!

[far queue]

After lunch at Hororata I'm planning on heading home via Waimak Gorge and Ashley Gorge if anyone's interested. That's about 100 km from Hororata, or about 150km from the 10am meeting point, to the end. There's fuel available at Oxford if you're concerned - that's about 88km from the start.

[Buyasta]

After lunch at Hororata I'm planning on heading home via Waimak Gorge and Ashley Gorge if anyone's interested. That's about 100 km from Hororata, or about 150km from the 10am meeting point, to the end. There's fuel available at Oxford if you're concerned - that's about 88km from the start.

Sounds like a plan.

If no one is actually stopping in Oxford, I'd advise avoiding Main St - since Jo Seagar opened her cafe a few years back, Oxford gets pretty crowded at the weekend, particularly on Sundays.

If people aren't afraid of half a km of gravel it's easiest to turn left opposite the pub and take Mill rd, Bush rd and Church st, but if people want to avoid gravel or stop for fuel, most of the traffic and both pelican crossings are after Bay rd, so you can stop at the Challenge and take Bay rd then Church st.

[Buyasta]

Well, that was a good ride, definitely a lot more fun than the unbearable heat of last time.
Here are a couple of pictures:

There was a rather interesting sky going on..

On the way up out of the Waimak gorge..

The only time I got a decent shot of Flip and Crowe in the sidecar was as I passed..

Majestic steed with slightly less majestic rider ..

Watch out, it's Peeteey and the enormous finger of dooooom!

[Peeteey]

Watch out, it's Peeteey and the enormous finger of dooooom!

Well, I can honestly say it hasn't been called that in a while

That's a great shot! It looks like I'm in some shitty hiphop video (aren't they all?), especially with my other hand on my enormous finger of doom!

[Flip]

I can just see Peeteey singing this to a rap beat; This little piggy rode a honda.

Great ride, glad I wasnt too far behind everybody.

[toycollector10]

Those are great pictures from Buyasta.

What camera do you use and how is it mounted?

Cheers, TC

[Buyasta]

Those are great pictures from Buyasta.

What camera do you use and how is it mounted?

Cheers, TC

It's a GoPro HD Hero 1080p, chin mounted like so:



Although the last two shots I wasn't actually wearing the helmet at the time, hence the upwards angle.

[toycollector10]

It's going to be a long wait for Santa for me then, I think....When in video mode are you happy with the GoPro? When I was using a cheaper bike mounted video the vibrations of the bike went in and and out of synch with the frames per second of the camera. The result was just rubbish. Do you get a lot of wind noise in video mode?

[Buyasta]

It's going to be a long wait for Santa for me then, I think....When in video mode are you happy with the GoPro? When I was using a cheaper bike mounted video the vibrations of the bike went in and and out of synch with the frames per second of the camera. The result was just rubbish. Do you get a lot of wind noise in video mode?

I've only had the camera a couple of weeks, so I'm still playing around with it to figure out which shooting mode I like best, but given it's size and pricing I'm pretty happy with the video quality.. If you want to check out some footage, Peeteey uses the exact same camera, shooting at 720p, so if you check out his youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/peeteey, you'll see plenty of example footage.
I need to do some more daylight shooting to get more comparison footage, but I am beginning to think I might also go with 720p, as 1080p has a narrower field of view which I don't like quite as much, and I'm not sure I'll be doing slowmo shots often enough for the doubled framerate of 720p60 to be worth it.
Anyway, if you don't need to shoot in 720p60 or 1080p, there's the GoPro Hero 960, which is pretty much identical except for the lack of those two shooting modes, and is a bit cheaper.

As far as the audio goes, there is a fair bit of wind noise, but not as much as I was expecting. It's also worth noting that GoPro say that the non-waterproof backdoor will provide better sound up to 100mph, but I haven't tried it as I don't really care about the sound either way, I'm really only interested in the video footage.

[Peeteey]

Do you get a lot of wind noise in video mode?

I've only had the camera a couple of weeks, so I'm still playing around with it to figure out which shooting mode I like best, but given it's size and pricing I'm pretty happy with the video quality.. If you want to check out some footage, Peeteey uses the exact same camera, shooting at 720p, so if you check out his youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/peeteey, you'll see plenty of example footage.
I need to do some more daylight shooting to get more comparison footage, but I am beginning to think I might also go with 720p, as 1080p has a narrower field of view which I don't like quite as much, and I'm not sure I'll be doing slowmo shots often enough for the doubled framerate of 720p60 to be worth it.
Anyway, if you don't need to shoot in 720p60 or 1080p, there's the GoPro Hero 960, which is pretty much identical except for the lack of those two shooting modes, and is a bit cheaper.

As far as the audio goes, there is a fair bit of wind noise, but not as much as I was expecting. It's also worth noting that GoPro say that the non-waterproof backdoor will provide better sound up to 100mph, but I haven't tried it as I don't really care about the sound either way, I'm really only interested in the video footage.

Hey fellas. The 1080 model has the Herobus port on the back, an extension port, but the 960 doesn't. That's the only other difference.
That port could be useful if you're like me and always want to 'play' with things and make them do something they're not really supposed to.
The one thing I'm gonna get is the external battery pack. It should double your battery life and also, when it's not on the camera, it can be charged via USB so now, finally, the Gopro has an external battery charger!
There's also an LCD screen for it so you can see what you're recording and also playback footage on camera.

As for wind noise, it's not too bad with the closed back on it, especially if you roll all the tops off the EQ in your editor. The sound is still crap when compared to an actual video camera but it's better than most action type cams around.
The open back is basically a wind noise fest! I can't use it but lots of people do, maybe I'm just picky ... well, ok, I am picky!

Buyasta, it's interesting hearing you say you're gonna go 720 instead of 1080. I was watching back the footage you gave me and I was thinking that the 720 60fps makes it look so much smoother! It's not as good in low light but hey, it looks nice and crisp!
Granted the 1080 has a narrower field of view but it's still plenty wide and would look great! I think I'm becoming a resolution snob!
I just can't use the 1080 mode on my cam 'cause of some dead pixels that show up when I do!

[Buyasta]

Hey fellas. The 1080 model has the Herobus port on the back, an extension port, but the 960 doesn't. That's the only other difference.
That port could be useful if you're like me and always want to 'play' with things and make them do something they're not really supposed to.
The one thing I'm gonna get is the external battery pack. It should double your battery life and also, when it's not on the camera, it can be charged via USB so now, finally, the Gopro has an external battery charger!
There's also an LCD screen for it so you can see what you're recording and also playback footage on camera.

As for wind noise, it's not too bad with the closed back on it, especially if you roll all the tops off the EQ in your editor. The sound is still crap when compared to an actual video camera but it's better than most action type cams around.
The open back is basically a wind noise fest! I can't use it but lots of people do, maybe I'm just picky ... well, ok, I am picky!

Buyasta, it's interesting hearing you say you're gonna go 720 instead of 1080. I was watching back the footage you gave me and I was thinking that the 720 60fps makes it look so much smoother! It's not as good in low light but hey, it looks nice and crisp!
Granted the 1080 has a narrower field of view but it's still plenty wide and would look great! I think I'm becoming a resolution snob!
I just can't use the 1080 mode on my cam 'cause of some dead pixels that show up when I do!

Yeah, like I said, I need to play around with it some more to do more of a comparison - I haven't shot any in standard 720p to compare the smoothness, and I've really only shot a tiny bit in 1080p, which looked like crap because the sun was about 90% set and there just wasn't enough light.
So yeah, I'm beginning to consider 720p, which I hadn't really done before because I'm also a bit of a resolution snob, but I definitely haven't decided yet - I basically need to film a decently lit ride each in both 720p and 1080p so I can do a proper apples to apples comparison of the footage.

[gloplg]

You make sure the apples are ripe Nino .................. or you will get a bellyache.

I agree about the sound quality of the gopro. The advertising raves about the sound, however I think the reality leaves a little to be desired.

Missed you two last Sunday, this week Greta.

[Peeteey]

Yeah, like I said, I need to play around with it some more to do more of a comparison - I haven't shot any in standard 720p to compare the smoothness, and I've really only shot a tiny bit in 1080p, which looked like crap because the sun was about 90% set and there just wasn't enough light.
So yeah, I'm beginning to consider 720p, which I hadn't really done before because I'm also a bit of a resolution snob, but I definitely haven't decided yet - I basically need to film a decently lit ride each in both 720p and 1080p so I can do a proper apples to apples comparison of the footage.

I think 720 at 60fps is about as good as it's going to get because of the extra smoothness and lower warping of the image.
At 30fps, when there is fast movement you get blurring of fast moving frames but at 60fps this is dramatically reduced so even the high action looks nice.
However, it does take up a lot more space! Anyone want to donate a nice fast 32gb SDHC card or seven?

Won't see you tomorrow or Sun. Practising for a crazy gig up in Nelson.