Coker Muni in the Mud [Video]

Unicycles and Equipment
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I’m experimenting with combining photos and videos into slideshows. If you’re interested, take a look at this first effort: http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery/?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=196681 and let me know what you think. The file is MPEG2, just over 50MB - 640x480, 2:49.

It’s hard shooting while riding on steep muddy terrain - do you think the camera shake is too much to be watchable? Any criticism is welcome.

This ride was last month, in Santa Cruz, California with 8 local Coker Muni fans. The ride is about 20 miles (half on dirt), and such a blast to ride in rainy muddy conditions.

Thanks for checking it out,
Nathan

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That was good Nathan, I for one liked the combination of the videos and the pictures. Camera shake was acceptable i felt.

I would like to see more on ride footage videos especially when it involves other riders, it gives a different perspective to all those fixed camera tripod shots. Also it gives a good feeling of just how high up you are!

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Fun, that was fun to watch. Camera shake was fine. thx for sharin.

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Nice, Nathan! I enjoyed the mix of media types. If there is a higher-rez version I’d love to see that. It looks like you guys are having a great time. That uphill with the erosion channels looked really tough!

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i’m a big fan of pic/vid combo’s, good stuff!

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that had to be really fun

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NICE!!!

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Nice!!!

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that looks like a lot of fun, how fast do you think you were going?

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Nice editing, the pictures and videos went well together and it was fun to watch.

Did you have the camera attached to your helmet or were you just carrying it?

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Thanks for the comments - glad you guys liked it. It’s just a first attempt and I’ve already learned more to make them better.

About speed, on a fast downhill section, we’ll go up to about 15mph - I suppose a normal speed is 8-10mph on dirt. We are using 152mm cranks generally for this type of riding so can’t go all that fast, but the bumpy dirt makes it feel fast, that’s for sure.

It’s funny, but that particular ride was the one that I compared a ForeRunner 305 to a 301 so you can see the speed, heartrate, elevation, maps, etc here (305) and here (301). Click on the chart marked “Everything”. The dirt section is from about mile 5 to mile 13. It was starting to rain at the end so you can see we blazed starting around mile 15 - Beau was inspired.

The camera is a simple digital camera, hand-held (Nikon 7900, 7MP). It looks like helmet-cam footage because I’m so high up on the Coker. To see what I mean, look at this photo I took of Kris while we were riding Cokers - doesn’t he look small? It’s just the angle.

Dave, you wanted a higher-res version? That is 640x480 encoded at over 2mbps. It’s over 50MB for less than 3 minutes. I need to experiment with other encoders so I can get the size smaller. Although these shows are AWESOME shown on a big TV from a DVD. That’s the real way to see them. I have three more shows I’m working on and will put them up on the gallery when I have a way to get them small enough (don’t worry, I’ll never go below 640x480 resolution). I could experiment with 800x600, but the video clips are limited to 640x480 so I thought that was best.

—Nathan