Tag Archives: mountain biking

Overkill!

For everyone who has ever asked, “Didn’t you just go [hiking|skiing|biking|rafting|kayaking|insert outdoors sport of choice here]?”  Well here is my response.  And you may (in fact I encourage you to) quote me on this.


This represents the first ‘lengthy’ video I’ve done in quite a while.  After roughly a year of considerable slacking, and the associated accumulation of interesting footage, I decided enough was enough.  No point in owning two GoPros and two expensive point-and-shoots without ever doing anything cool with the footage.  In the end, this video uses on the the Hero 3 Black and HD Hero footage – the rest of the stills I’m saving for subsequent projects.

One of my goals for this project was to collect up all of the clips which were cool but did not really warrant a standalone treatment.  Additionally, I really wanted to focus on quality over quantity.  I settled on a thematically appropriate soundtrack which was only moderately long and lent itself to the ‘story’ being told.  With the intent of producing what is essentially a mashup of miscellaneous old footage, a moderately long soundtrack should let me cram in a lot of random stuff without feeling the need to add filler or fade out the music after I’ve run our of exciting footage.  The numerous ‘false endings’ provide the ability to naturally segment the clips and offer some periodic changes in tempo.  Also, it’s Motorhead.  Seriously, there is not enough classic heavy metal in action sports or pop culture, or really anywhere…

Hell On Wheels!

A new sport graces the pages of 1water1coffee1beer: mountain biking!  Kelly talked me into this madness over the spring and it’s getting to be nearly as much of an addiction as skiing – and that’s saying something.  A few weekends ago, Kelly was in a race, and I decided to get creative with some cameras and gadgets.  After consulting Dad I set up my Canon point-and-shoot to a low ISO and a f-stop of 1/60 or 1/40; if you can manage to track the target during the exposure, you can get a relatively clear subject and a blurred background, giving the feel of rapid motion.  It’s going to take some practice, but some early action shots are below.

Also thrown into the mix is some remote controlled GoPro.  By hanging the GoPro from a tree and posting up, down the trail a bit, I could snag a few stills with my point-and-shoot before firing a 30-shot burst from the GoPro using the Android app, allowing me to capture a few choice angles of the action without having to be everywhere at once.  Check it out!

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Remote GoPro

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All smiles!

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These two are clearly having a blast…

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FYI, her bib is definitely 666…

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Dangerous curves?