So You're Thinking About: Mounting a Camera to Your Bike

"Hey friends! So I'm thinking about taking a GoPro this summer. Probably mostly doing time lapse stuff and I would mess around with it before hand to work on angles and all that stuff. Anyone who has taken one on their trip have any comments, or helpful advise?"


PoV Cameras

• GoPro
• Contour
• Sony
• Epic
• VIO
• RePlay XD
• more...

Do your research to find out what will fit your needs best. The most popular is probably GoPro and Contour. I own four Contours.

PoV Filming Basics

Someone on the Faceboook group talked about time lapse of their summer. I imagine it to be pretty difficult to pull off a successful and interesting time lapse video that holds the attention of your audience. I think you'll have much more interesting footage if you change up viewing angles and just video of your teammates having an awesome summer. I really enjoyed Nathan Kane's (P2S) video from this year: http://vimeo.com/48453748

Footage with stationery objects to give the audience perspective makes for a much better shot - well, at least in my opinion - especially time lapse.

I liked some of the angles from Alex Caves (NC2SD):

I regrettably didn't bring all my mounts last summer. I think some of the most interesting riding shots are the ones facing the riders behind you, so you can see their faces and not their tail end. This is the result of my footage as well as others' GoPro and iPhone video (bring an external drive to snag everyone's video before the end of the trip)

You can layer your data on top of the footage if you are using sensors: http://dashware.net/  Pretty interesting.

Mounting

If you need mounting ideas, there are many here. I used this last summer:

I also recommend RAM mounts. You can pretty much mount anything anywhere. Here is their GoPro page.
You can fool around with the parts and combine them with the ultra clamp. This might help to get wider shots if they ever stock it again.

For my ultra clamp setup, I replace this with this. I add this and then this.

There are different sizes and the price may or may not be cheaper on RAM's web site. The thing about the ultra clamp is that it is pretty versatile. Generally, dedicated handlebar mounts are good for one thing - handlebars, but it could be worth it if it carries no vibration. Just do your research and plenty of testing before you show up to the Atlantic.