Sunday Parkways SE, More Helmet Cam Fabrication

Wow, this year the SE Portland edition of Sunday Parkways was not as much fun. Oh, it was cool to see all the people and the diversity of people out. With the huge growth over last year, maybe the time has come to break out of being hidden away along narrow side streets and really duplicate the Bogata event by closing off main roadways like our SE Hawthorne and a section of E Burnside. This seems even more needed if part of the message is to increase awareness that bikes are more than just for "play time" to the masses.

Evan and I, where there were any people, were basically nearly stopped and using the bikes more like scooters with seats. Some sections had too many parked cars which narrowed the neighborhood side streets. Near the parks, some of the vendor booths were set up in the street so not only was the road narrower, but with booth visitors in the street there was little to now room. Time for a different event for us? We'll see.

I do think it is great to see so many people out participating, and not just the cyclists. Pedestrians and families, really awesome. I have more pics on my flikr site:

My Sunday Parkways SE PDX Pictures

Warning: Geeky, nerdy content ahead ...

I have some editing to do on a bunch of my test videos, but I can share some more lessons and thoughts. Based on some internet research I had been shooting 720p/60fps as this is suppose to make for smoother playback. Out of curiosity, I switched over to the highest setting of 1080p/30fps. Wow, in addition to having the full ultra-wide angle (142 degrees), I think the imagery is better, smoother. So, I've been shooting at that setting this week on my commutes and will do some test editing. I've run my handlebar mount and have re-designed my helmet mount.

Why re-design? Based on both the bike and helmet mount I have found the key is to create an extremely non-flexing system. Bike-wise, I have better results using my home-made mount over the parts from the ultra-mount. The reason is that on a bike, there is so much vibration transmitted during riding that any of the rubber cushioning of the bought mount transfers additional shake to the camera head. Using an absolutely rigid mount and 30fps creates a very stable image.

Now, applying this same learning to the helmet mount was a bit tricky since there is always a bit of looseness between helmet and head and it is amazing how much shake your head takes, even on smooth roads. Again, changing to 30fps helped quite a bit. I also picked up some helmet pads (thanks Bike Gallery!) for free and fine-tuned the head to helmet fit. I then tried a few different mount designs and placements.

The above picture shows the camera mount and camera head in its current set up. With the ultra wide angle, I can get a portion of the helmet in the image and still have a lot of image space for my surroundings. The final test will be tomorrow's full commute ride versus the up and down the street test I did today.

The bracket itself? An earlier mount I made that I curved to create more surface to contact the curvature of the helmet. I then stuck a piece of no-slide rubber so the mount would not move around on the smooth helmet surface. I used a shock cord and slide clamp from an old pack to cinch the mount snugly to the helmet. Note the mount can be ever so slightly twisted to align it with the helmet center line.

Notice the turn knob on the left? I have a slot so I can adjust the vertical and rotation of the camera head. Using the knob I can make adjustments during my ride (after stopping to the side of course). There is actually enough space I can also turn the camera around and shoot backwards (something I am thinking of trying).

Looking forward to testing this new setup tomorrow. So far, with the setting and mount changes, the images are much better and more satisfactory to this perfectionist - lol.

If this works as my short tests have shown I may actually use the helmet mount as my primary. This is much easier to switch between bikes, since the mount is on my helmet and allows me to shoot what my head is pointing at rather than just where the bike/handlebars are pointing.

I will on getting some of today's and yesterday's test rides edited and uploaded to my Vimeo account soon. Really.