I am trying to learn something new about ride videos and at the same time about Sony Vegas. There are too many options and you could likely overwhelm a viewer with transitions and wipes. The only thing done in this video is time compression in various spots between roads. As opposed to a mountain bike trail video, road cycling videos are rather mundane. With that in mind I used both of my cameras to do a picture in picture.
All posts about bicycles.
I know I haven’t updated these pages in a long while but that is going to change. I will be playing with a few things, video is one of them and I have a couple of other things brewing, which I can’t reveal just yet. For now you will start seeing some ride videos and here is the first one.
Last evening, Nicole and I experienced our first crash on our Ruegamer tandem. It was a minor incident and not much happened. Here are the details. About 1/4 mile from the start we were rounding a corner and some railroad tracks. Immediately after passing the tracks as we were traveling somewhere around 10mph we had a front tire blowout. Now a blowout or flat is not usually something that is of much consequence if it is on the rear wheel, but this was a front tire blowout. With the added weight of two riders and the sport geometry we have on our tandem suffice it to say it was a bit squirmy as well as unnerving. Instead of crashing in the road and suffering all sorts of road rash I had the idea that we would head straight for the lawn of the house next to us. Fortunately here in our riding area there are few curbs or sidewalks so I did not have any problem rolling into the yard. What we do have here are drainage ditches and we ended up going down one side of the ditch then attempting to climb the other, at least we missed the large bush as well as the mailbox. That ditch is where we finally went down.
On our tandem!
It seems that every time we went on a ride the rear derailleur would come out of adjustment during the ride. We wouldn’t have to go more than ten miles before we needed to stop and make a minor adjustment. On the bike stand before a ride I would adjust the rear shifting until it was spot on. One issue, though, was that it was never perfect in all three chain rings. It would be close, but not perfect. Now the drive train is not a low end group or low end components either. We are using a Shimano Dura-Ace rear derailleur as well as Dura-Ace STI levers, a KMC chain as well as a SRAM Powerdome rear cluster.
I am sure none of us sound minded cyclists would ever think about riding the streets at night without the proper reflective gear or clothing. A headlight and some sort of blinking warning lights are a must in twilight or night time riding. But, how many of of don’t even think twice about those same rational decisions during the day! Well maybe we should.
CyclingNews covered this event with a lot of pictures.
There were a lot of Snow Bikes (when it snows here everyone stays inside) and some tandems. Paketa showed their version 2 tandem that they claim can be built to about 24 pounds with the right component mix. Wow 24 pound tandem, that is 2 pounds lighter than our Ruegammer!
Quite a few single speed and commuter bikes. Renovo featured a ride worthy wooden frame bike.
In the first post in this series we discussed some tips about taking documentary images of bicycles. While that is a very good place to start, there is so much more to bicycles than just a sum of it’s components. Bicycles are one of the most efficient and elegant machines mankind has ever created. So why not show off just how beautiful bicycles really are. (Please note that most of the images in this article are not mine and I did attempt to get permission to use them, as a result some of the images may change over time.) We are not professional photographers but dabble in both photography and cycling. Do not take this article as the gospel on artistic bicycle photography but rather a starting point to spur your imagination.
This is the first in a series of articles offered as a suggestion on how to photograph your bicycle. These are not hard and fast rules and you have plenty of room for artistic expression. There are just a few things that you should know about how to take simple documentary types of photographs for your collection or for sending to your cycling associates via email or for posting on various bike related forums. We are not professional photographers nor professional cyclists but we have a passion for both and want to pass on some of the things we have learned along the way. Hope you enjoy it.
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