My wife almost caught me this time.

 
 
Here is a very short video my wife and I just made the past few days while learning to work with a GoPro camera.
 
This video shows off a local mountain bicycle trail that we have been riding for a little over 25 years. I've been trying to get regular exercise for the past year and having a fun trail to ride on has been a key factor in my keeping at it. The trail is in a beautiful section of the Apalachicola National Forest. The forest managers keep the forest healthy by prescribing periodic burning so as to encourage the native plants to thrive while minimizing the danger of wild fires. This year the wiregrass and the wildflowers are making an excellent display of what the pine woods around here can look like in their natural state.
 
http://vimeo.com/79778185 If you want to watch it please use the "HD" option so that the picture quality is OK.
 
The distribution video codecs don't handle all the fast movement very well. The HD web stream doesn't look any where near as nice as the original "source" footage but it's the best we have in 2013. :-)
 
It was fun to make this video and I hope it conveys the fun we have when we are out riding our bikes in the forest.
 
My wife is much faster than I am... it was nice of her to let me ride at the front. :-)
 
best regards,
mike
 
 
 

The video looks very good. Time consuming but good work. Thanks for sharing Mike. Looks like fun.

Cool stuff, Mike. 

Great video Mike.
 
Have you thought about doing it professionaly?

Thanks Karyn.
 
Hi Zonno,
 That video made me envious. I like living in a forest but the idea of living in a city where you can use a bike safely seems really, really fun.
 
:-)

:-)

 Those trails look like a lot of fun to ride. The video quality looks pretty good even on a lower resolution. How do you get the image so stable? I would think there would be a lot of vibration.Is the bike that stable?
 
 

Hi Guys, Thanks for watching.
 
The camera looks smooth because it is a super wide angle shot and that minimized the effect of jarring. At the risk of seeming immodest, I have been told by many other riders that I am kinda smooth and steady on my bike. (I'm not a good stunt rider or a fast guy so it's nice to be good at something) I actually noticed when I put the camera on the "follow" bikers' handlebars or helmets that the shots were a lot more jittery.
 
The GoPro camera we were using is one of those popular small cameras that has a lot of convenient mounts available for it. For example, I had a helmet mount and a handle bar mount. The close up reverse shot was made a wooden stick strapped to my helmet like a boom. I mounted the camera upside down, and facing me, on the front end of the stick. I used a sock full of pennies as a cantilevered counter balance on the back part of the stick. Yes, it was a white sock. :-)
 
The "lock down shots", where we just rode thru the picture, were made by strapping the camera to trees when ever I thought the light was nice and the trail looked good. I used some large rubber coated wire twist ties that I bought at Home Depot recently to make tying the camera to the tree quick and easy.
 
The hardest part was trying to work when the light seemed consistent enough for shots gathered on different rides to seem to work together.
 
Stuff like that.
 
Thanks for watching!
 
 
 

I got to watch last night..can't check out a lot of stuff on the work PC.
Very cool Mike. Wish I could take you for a ride like that on my bike. :)

 
Hi spacey,
 I can't really imagine it, but I imagine it would be thrilling. I like the sensation of speed. :-) 

mike_mccue
 
Hi spacey,
 I can't really imagine it, but I imagine it would be thrilling. I like the sensation of speed. :-) 

I don't know why I haven't bought an action cam. I sure enjoy seeing, making and editing videos. (not that I'm any good at it)
I've wanted to share one of my rides and capture some of the local landscape...I guess time is an excuse.
Yours was a great inspirational production not to mention-very cool seeing you and yours in action-but also in that you kept it very interesting without tricks. I mean with no trilling bike jumps or BS fades/transitions. ( I don't care for those home movie transitions or crazy credits...nothing turns me off faster)
 
I did notice the very professional riding qualities you both have. Very smooth. How cool to have such a nice track. Great stuff Mike.

Thanks for watching!
 
:-)

Thanks for watching Obi. We sure do think it is beautiful.