My local riding buddy Eric is going to “track” me tomorrow on the beach bike path on his bike while I ride my Rad 36! I rigged my camera up with a makeshift mount so he will be able to get smooth footage and the full shot of me riding and weaving in & out of ppl on the path and doing some speed runs!
The cam can easily be moved in all directions with the handle, so he can get side shots as well. I hope it works as it might make for a cool 36-er vid! He can easily keep pace with me even if I hit 15-16 mph! Look for the vid soon after!
Well i already took it for a test run and it is just a tad shaky, but that’s on city streets; it will be less so on the smooth bike path at the beach. And yeah, that bike has a very nice front shock system so that will help dampen thing as bit.
I had to use somw extra washers so the tilt of the cam would clear the center handle bar clamp.
haha nah I work during the day tuning/repairing pianos, and 90% of my riding is done after 4pm when I’m usually finshed by then. And the weekends are free as well so I do have lots of time on my hands…so I put it to good use!
Are there a lot of pianos to be tuned? Like enough to keep you busy all week? It seems like such a specialized profession that if there is any competition in the area work will be slow… And from what i can tell simply by your uni collection, you live a pretty decent lifestyle.
I’m just interested cause its not often you meet someone who is a Piano Tuner…
Forgive me for being intrigued by your profession.
Hey np I appreciate your question. I have a database of more than 2,000 clients, adding new ones all the time from various sources, like YP ad, referrals, and just word of mouth. I love my customers and truly love my work.
It’s challenging but always different from day to day. There are more piano owners today then ever before in the 300 year history of the piano! This is simply because the poulation has grown to 6 billion plus today, from a far smaller number just 100 years ago, at which point the piano had still been around for 200 years!
For example, the Yamaha corp. produces about 200,000 NEW pianos every year! that’s just ONE maker. There are relatively few piano tuners to tune and service the many millions of pianos in the US alone, so there are well more than enough for ALL of us to have a very successful, lucrative career in this great and specialized field.
The summer can be a tad slow for new people calling, but that’s what my database is for! I simply call past customer’s who are due for tuning! As you may have gathered, i love talking about pianos, and thats part of my success I think; My customers appreciate my attention to detail and work ethic. I treat their pianos with repsect and they like the results.
that looks like a pretty cool set up, while it would be probably crappy at highspeeds, slow shots would work greatly for some very cool slow shots
edit: however, if he was riding with no hands and carrying a tripod, he would have much greater success filming you, (meaning i’m sure your video is going to be filled with sideways jerky movements as he starts to lose you and corrects his bike position, etc…) and the shots would be 1000’s of times smoother with a much wider range of shots
We’ll do some test runs to see how it looks at different speeds. I wanted him to be able to concentrate on riding and keeping up as I go faster, without having to hold the cam in his hand, risking dropping it or crashing! If it sucks, I won’t make the video, but I’m predicting that I will end up with some decent footage.
That front shock system isn’t going to dampen out the tiny little bumps that’ll make your video look shaky… you’ll have better results if you deflate his tires a bit, though.
A gyroscope does not auto-level nor does it absorb shock. The utility of a gyroscope in this case would be to maintain the orientation of the camera.
Yes, definitely lower tire pressure will help reduce shock. This should at least make for an interesting experiment. I sure hope things worl out 'cause I have a couple funny bits that tie in.
