Keeping Your Head Cool And Attached

We have a resident rant and raver here at ZXRworld, come and say hello to Jamz.Wanna join him? got something to get off your chest? let it all out................
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Jamz
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Keeping Your Head Cool And Attached

Post by Jamz »

Friday evening, and despite the rain I was looking forward to a weekend with my girlfriend.

I kitted up and got on my bike, carefully taping on my new MD80 micro DV camcorder to test it. I wanted to see how the footage of the cheap £15 version compared to the £65 Veho Muvi Pro that arrived the day before.

A few minutes later I was cruising down the dual carriageway, following happily behind a BMW that was lolloping along at 100mph.

As he passed traffic in the left hand lane which was moving at almost the same speed, I followed him through.

As I neared the back of a small red car (let's call him "Mr Twatbastard"), his indicator flicked on, flashing his intention to move to the right to overtake a car ahead of him.

I clocked this just as he swung directly into the lane where, well... I was!

This happens occasionally because most idiots are blind, ignorant and probably drunk. Usually, they spot me as they move, and sheepishly move back into their own lane, disaster averted. Not Mr Twatbastard.

Mr Twatbastard swung ALL the way into my lane.

I reacted and swerved hard right, straightening out as close as I could possibly get to the edge of the road. I'm talking literally centimetres before the tarmac ended and it was gravel pits that you REALLY wouldn't want to hit at walking pace, let alone 100mph - with of course razor sharp metal Armco barriers separating my lane from the oncoming traffic.

Now, I've seen a lot of crashes where the bike didn't need to crash. Most cars drive leaving some kind of gap between them and the curb or any traffic alongside them or oncoming. In my experience this is usually a big enough gap to fit your bike in if you don't panic. If I'd have panicked here I'd have just ridden straight off the road into that barrier...

Instead, having gone as far as I could go, as calmly as I could, I reached out with my left hand and knocked on his drivers window.

I imagine he jumped out of his skin and I hope he died in his sleep that night, but sadly I couldn't really look at him at that moment - either way it had the desired effect and he fecked off and gave me a bit of room.

Catching it all on the helmet cam would have been better, because you'd have seen my gesticulations and exaggerated clapping at him, but at least I got most of it on camera.




Despite all this, you have to let things like this go. Well, I say that, but I did think of following him and smashing his stupid face in so badly that even Jimmy Nail would have been sick, but if you're not going to do that there's no point staying mad about it. It's done - you survived - get over it. In this case he refused to even look at me after or acknowledge my existence, staring straight ahead and not even glancing at me!

If you don't let it go you make mistakes...

Thirty seconds or so later I filtered through traffic approaching a busy roundabout. As I got to the front I had to squeeze past a filthy great big truck. You have to be careful here, because if they move off and turn you can very easily get squished. Normally I'd have held back and waited, but still having my Murdering Face on, I chanced it.

As we were both at the front (with him completely blocking my line of sight to approaching traffic), I heard his engine revs rise as if he was quickly pulling away, so I gave it a big handful to beat him and get clear.

As soon as I did this my Spidey Senses were tingling. I slammed the brakes on just before I cleared the front of the truck (which had now stopped dead again), and of course saw a car heading straight for me.

As the camera is mounted on the handlebars, you can see I used a fair bit of opposite lock as it all slid sideways, and stopped inches before the car sped past:



What more can I say? That was totally my mistake - and luckily I got away with it. Keep it safe out there, kids!
Who needs tyres when you've got knees!! :twisted:

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mxj560
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Re: Keeping Your Head Cool And Attached

Post by mxj560 »

Jamz

Is that the island coming off the duel carriageway from redditch? It looks dead familiar!!!

I'm glad you escaped both of those unhurt! And always beware of that bloody island, it an absolute giraffe!!
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Re: Keeping Your Head Cool And Attached

Post by Jamz »

mxj560 wrote:Jamz

Is that the island coming off the duel carriageway from redditch? It looks dead familiar!!!

I'm glad you escaped both of those unhurt! And always beware of that bloody island, it an absolute giraffe!!

Yes - that's coming from Redditch to the island just before Bromsgrove centre. It always seems to be slippy as hell in the damp/wet, but I've never heard anyone else complain so I'm half convinced it's psychological?
Who needs tyres when you've got knees!! :twisted:

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Re: Keeping Your Head Cool And Attached

Post by masterofinsanity »

bloody hell Jamz that was a close one at the island geek
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Re: Keeping Your Head Cool And Attached

Post by cargo »

Tell us more about the cameras you've been using.
I'd like to find one to use at race meetings this year.
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Re: Keeping Your Head Cool And Attached

Post by Jamz »

cargo wrote:Tell us more about the cameras you've been using.
I'd like to find one to use at race meetings this year.
We're in the same boat because I'm trying to find one for trackdays!

I'll do a full write-up about my cams when I get around to it... but the short version is:

I bought 4 of the 'keychain spycams' off Ebay (under £10 each) - 2x type 1 cams with internal flash memory (claimed 8GB but almost all are actually 4GB), and 2x type 3 cams (which use separate micro SD cards for memory). Both give around 1hour battery life before you need to plug them in to a USB port to charge.

Quality is better on the #3 cams, but they're more affected by vibration which makes the sound go weird and on mine almost always switches the cams off after a few seconds! I was using a #1 cam in my helmet for months but it seems to have died now... There's loads of vids from these and the rest on here: http://www.youtube.com/user/nastyevilninja?feature=mhw4

If you ask me, they're worth the risk - some don't work at all and chances are they will die eventually, but at a cost of pennies!

For more reliable cams I looked at the cheap (£15) MD80 cams on Ebay. These are basically the rip-off Hong Konganese version of the £65 Veho Muvi cams. They're harder to mount quickly for daily use, but should be ideal with a fixed mount on a racebike etc.

The Veho definitely gives better quality footage, but both are affected by vibrations a little (should be easy to fix with the right mounting), and surprisingly sound quality on both is worse than the #1 keychain cams! The Vids in my first post are from the MD80, and I will be uploading more from the Veho.

So the Veho ones are the best - but are they £50 better? I'm undecided yet...

Oh, and the Veho Muvi's have a metal case (also identify them from the cheapo ones by the sliding on/off switch rather than push buttons) which makes them a little heavier than the MD80. Veho also do a silicon waterproof cover but it costs silly money...

If you look at my YouTube vids it should say which cam is used and where it's mounted. I'm still trying new things!
Who needs tyres when you've got knees!! :twisted:

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Re: Keeping Your Head Cool And Attached

Post by masterofinsanity »

gonna get me 1 of them MD80s when i get paid :smt003
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Re: Keeping Your Head Cool And Attached

Post by Jamz »

I've done a comparison of the Veho Muvi Pro and the cheap MD80 cameras by mounting them side by side on the bike so they film the same run at the same time! Quite interesting results:

MD80:



Veho Muvi Pro:

Who needs tyres when you've got knees!! :twisted:

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Re: Keeping Your Head Cool And Attached

Post by Tyrant »

Good post... It's easy to get the red mist after someone has tried to kill you! I need to reign that in myself.
The Gopro Hero HD is a good piece of kit. Take this video for example!


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Re: Keeping Your Head Cool And Attached

Post by masterofinsanity »

impressed with the quality of both of them Cams Jamz, i'm off to scour ebay......
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Re: Keeping Your Head Cool And Attached

Post by Jamz »

Tyrant wrote:Good post... It's easy to get the red mist after someone has tried to kill you! I need to reign that in myself.
The Gopro Hero HD is a good piece of kit. Take this video for example!



Yes those Gopro's are serious kit, but compared to the Veho they're serious money, too!

The Gopro's are still an absolute bargain, though, if you ask me. 5 years ago I was using similar (but probably worse) stuff for covert surveillance jobs and it all cost many many times more. You've gotta love technology! :smt004
Who needs tyres when you've got knees!! :twisted:

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