Among the unexpected joys of cyclocross, I found race videos and compilations of professional footage absolutely fascinating. It started as a way to recon upcoming races. Watching the first lap of someone else's race felt a lot like train spotting. But as I tried to get a feel for the course, I started noticing details and cheering riders on. Next I was searching for footage of races I had done. Finally, I was watching highlights and montages of European races. And re-watching it all over and over.
It was all compelling, but there seemed to be a gap between barely edited bar cams and TV outtakes. My sense was that mixing a couple different camera mounts with some careful editing might capture the excitement of racing or just riding. I could see the shots in my head. I imagined Warren Miller voice overs...
Hence the set up pictured above. The first thing I found was that a camera encourages some sketchy riding. Documenting a broken collar bone was not what I had in mind. Second thing was that my PC is not optimized for graphics and the software that came with the camera was less than bare bones. So I've gone from learning about mounts, dismounts, call ups and gluing tubulars to ins, outs, cuts, trims and codecs.
This is going to take some time. It took a whole season of hopping off and on the bike to before I realized that I needed to maintain momentum to make the whole thing work. It took a half season of gluing tubulars and rolling tires before I got a set to stay put. Keeping that in mind, I should have some half decent videos just in time for jungle cross.
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