One of the things I've always loved is the old "London to Brighton in 4 minutes" film made for the BBC many years ago - you can find it on You Tube if you just search "London Brighton" - there are a number of versions.
I loved the idea of doing a similar thing with my bike journey home from Battersea to Stanmore. I already had the camera, the excellent Kodak Zi-8 and it's probably worth a few lines about why I like this camera so much.
Although there are plenty of Hi-Def cameras around, like many people, I can't really exploit the technology. I have an HD TV but my computer cannot cope with editing the files, and for all practical purposes, the best output medium for finished movies is the DVD (at least until Blu Ray burners drop to a more reasonable price). The Zi-8 gives me the future proofing of full 1920x1080 HD with the more user friendly option of a WVG (widescreen 848x480) which has the added benefit of taking up much less storage space on a memory card. It's natively better than DVD resolution and more than enough for any online application such as You Tube. There are plenty of inexpensive cameras that record in VGA, but very few of them offer a true widescreen format. The ZI8 (and others of it's ilk) has two further advantages which might be seen as negative points but are actually significant benefits.
Firstly, it has a fixed focal length lens (although digital zoom is available). This means that there is not an expensive and fragile mechanism to move the lens - it makes the camera compact, and most of all much tougher than the cheaper cameras with optical zoom. You only have to look at the number of "broken - for spares or repair" digicams and camcorders for sale on eBay to see
how fragile these things are.
Secondly, it has a fixed focus lens. On a still camera this is obviously a very bad thing, the small aperture needed to keep a substantial depth of field translates into poor light gathering ability. On an inxpensive camcorder, it's an absolute boon. Again, There's no fragile focussing mechanism to break and secondly, apart from a close up switch, the device is "panfocus" so you don't get the constant focus hunting that plagues other cheap camcorders.
So much for "a few lines" !
So, we have the right camera for the job, all we need now is a way to attach it to the bike. I had toyed with the idea of using the very fine RAM mounts but they are not readily available except by mail order and you need to construct a mount from a selection of brackets, bike specific fittings and camera plates so I'd put the whole problem into the too hard/expensive box and left it at that. However, as we approached our Summer holiday, I wanted a solution for the car to enable me to add backgound to my holiday DVD by adding clips of entering a Channel Tunnel Shuttle train, driving through Paris, crossing the Millau viaduct etc. A quick search found the "Fat Gecko Mini" from Delkin and a number of reviews praise it for being a sturdy well made bit of kit.
Delkin Fat Gecko Mini
Although it can be found for under £25 online if you search around, the going rate seems to be £28-£30. Whats more, Jacobs Photo in the Kings Road has one in stock so I didn't mind paying the top end of that range to avoid postage costs and to have it in my hot sticky mits straight away.
It certainly is a high quality bit of kit - and comes with a short 3" extension making it flexible enough for most uses and it certainly grips like a limpet (Gecko) on smooth surfaces, even the slight curve on GP800's Givi screen. The best fit was achieved by putting it over the rev counter on the GP800 but it was difficult to remove as you couldn't reach the little "tag" that releases the suction as the instruments are quite recessed. I rode with it fitted without a camera attached and it certainly hangs on quite happily despite the poor state of London's roads.
As you can see from the pictures, when I fitted the Zi-8, I attached its lanyard to the mirror as well as a second lanyard between the Fat Gecko and the mirror. When riding, especially on poor surfaces there is a bit of "bounce" from the screen (even in its lowest position) and of course when you come to a stop, the front forks dive a bit but it doesn't really notice in the final video. When you first ride you tend to look at it but it soon becomes easy to ignore as you concentrate on the road and traffic conditions !(it's a pity that the video has to be compressed for You Tube - the original quality is first rate)
It's pretty good in the car as well. The Mazda 5 has a fairly steeply raked windscreen but using the 3" extension allows the camera to be mounted on the small quarter light window just in front the door mirror. The camera then sits neatly in the corner where it doesn't obstruct the drivers eye-line (we don't even have the Say Nav mounted on the windscreen - we use a Brodit mount which brings it down by the radio - which has the added benefit of reducing glare on the screen). On holiday I'll mount it on the passenger side and my wife will start and stop the recording.
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