[Closed] The Beast cable cam

Stop bragging and share it!

Oh yeh the link always helps!

Good man, I'll have a nosy...

Cool stuff Gareth! Best bits when your chasing it down the beast, as it were.

looks wkd!

I LOVE that descent

Good stuff!

That cable cam works great, I like it loads more than a headcam anyway. Shame you didn't do a vid of the whole trail but I guess that a lot of pushing and tree climbing.

What bike is the guy riding with the green full facer?

That's fantastic - well done mate !

Looks like a ih Sunday with boxxers

Nice one Gareth, was that all shot on your GoPro?

Yes on the gopro, seems to have worked out quite well. Next job is to make a compact version to carry around more easily, currently made of half a cannondale frame and 4 roller blade wheels and 60m of 8mm rope with some serious tensioning.

The bikes an iron horse sunday with 888's, makes the beast feel far smoother than normal! My mates on a SC blur lt

looks awesome gareth!
tons smoother than when i rode it a couple of weeks ago on my stiffee anyway!

Cheers for the comments, trying to think of where to try next, need a straight line with plenty of trees somewhere in the peak

Heh good work! Love the shots with the rider coming towards the camera as it rolls backwards.

That is fantastic... The from-the-front shots especially are brilliant. Top stuff!

Any pics of the setup/rig by the way?

I'll get some put up, its a cannondale road bike downtube and seat tube upside down with the cranks still on with an axle and 2 roller blade wheels, on the front an old stem, bar and light mounts + 2 more wheels and a wing nut for altering the speed. A bit bulky at present, need to make a lighter version!

Wow, good work, and I've just realised I've never ridden it properly dry, not that I've got your speed anyway, nor the big bike.

Awesome vid and nice effort on rigging that up makes me want to ride it in the dry too, never realised it wasn't a proper stream!
Next one how about the campsite descent into hayfield, or wharnecliffe?

That's realy good; needs refining a bit but still really cool!

Nice.

Really, really good. Don't normally like the home brew bike videos as they tend to be a bit samey but the head on shots tracking down the trail were great stuff.

Going to sound a bit of an old hippy here and this is not directly aimed at the OP as I can't see how he's tensioned the rope for his setup, but. If anyone is going to do this can they please use a flat (wide as possible) slings around any trees rather than wrapping a rope directly around them. An 8mm rope at such high tension could seriously damage the trees.

A lot of effort had gone into that - wel done.

I have been really caning the Beast recently due to how dry its been, I'm getting more and more confident in getting faster - even pedaling!

We rode the beast yesterday and it was really cut as there where 6 motocross riders coming up it

maybe worth looking into a chandlers to find rollers and tackle blocks for runners on the rope.

good effort though.

just for the record, shot by some SingletrAction peeps

Great video Gareth.

excellent bit of work. fair play on all the pushing that would have needed too!

These are great!

I like 🙂

Great work! The speed and gradient comes over really well in that footage - unlike normal helmet or bike-mounted cams.

Watch out Clay Porter!

Very good

Awesome, would be interested to see how you made it!

Someone I know built one of these, and his whole setup fits in a small rucksack. You can see a picture of it in this video. He said his rig cost $10 to make!

He said that if you don't tension the rope too much you actually get smoother video - I think he only hand tensions, rather than using anything to make it super tight, even on 300 foot runs.

He has a leather strap that drags on the cable and can be tightened up to slow the camera down for filming steep or slow technical sections.

I think he also rigged a remote launch trigger, so he can film himself!

Excellent! Why does it look like a motorway when you guys fly down it and yet it looks like the North face of the Eiger when I do it?
My son completely blew me off coming down there on a fully rigid Kona when he was about 13. Now he is an adult he has completely lost interest and would rather play with his decks. What a waste!

Really good work there.
Like other's have said - the bits where you're travelling towards a rearward-facing camera look great.
It's a while since I've done the beast (group usually prefer the other track down to A57), but you've got me looking forward to it.

The rope is a bit visible at times, so I've made a mental note to use green rope (although I'd better make sure it doesn't cross the track and take people out!).

I think a compact setup should be fairly easy for a GoPro. I'll be having a go in a couple of weeks.

That's really good Gareth! It works almost perfectly for a few of the shots. Some of the others could have done with some way of controlling the speed of the camera's slide down the rope, and some way of panning the camera. Can't think how those could be done easily though.

One question though - how did you avoid the camera smashing into bits when it went into the trees at the bottom of each slide?

Absolutely fantastic! Really inspirational stuff.

Just spotted a vid I've seen before, off one of the links.

This video is a great example of cable cam work, love the gnarly dog too. 🙂

Shining cliff woods might work

Good going just need to add in panning shots.
DONT take this wrong just a bit to much cable shots
DEFFO keep it up mate 😉

Just thought it might be worth saying that as the 'guy' garethh is copying it's not me it's my missus he's copying. All I do is hump gear, push bikes and do what I'm told. Hannah is the genius and driving force behind the films. Props should go to her. 😀

ooop...should also say great work garethh. I know how much sweat and effort goes into those few minutes of footage. You got some really great shots.. I really liked the front facing stuff as well. 😛

slowrider - Member
Shining cliff woods might work
POSTED 56 MINUTES AGO #

No it wouldn't
Riding there is troublesome enough without people rigging cables around the really old and really quite protected trees within a SSSI
Sorry to sound like some sort of tree hugger but it's sensitive enough up there all ready

[geek mode]

Pinch flat at circa 1:15?

[/geek mode]

It's all the rage this cable cam lark.

A mates been experimenting up at Stainburn

Seems like it's been said a lot in this thread already, but that's BRILLIANT. Both riding and filming are superb. Never seen the Beast ridden so bloody fast! 🙂 🙂

No it wouldn't
Riding there is troublesome enough without people rigging cables around the really old and really quite protected trees within a SSSI
Sorry to sound like some sort of tree hugger but it's sensitive enough up there all ready

There are plenty of not so old trees as well as trails that no walker would venture near

What specifically is the SSSI status here? Is it the trees? People bang on about it but no one has really said. Is it the northern hairy wood ants?

Ace vids, nicely executed. Now you just need rider tracking on the panning of the rig! (another project on the list damnit!)

Must take some time to set up the cable etc but the results are great.

Going to sound a bit of an old hippy here and this is not directly aimed at the OP as I can't see how he's tensioned the rope for his setup, but. If anyone is going to do this can they please use a flat (wide as possible) slings around any trees rather than wrapping a rope directly around them. An 8mm rope at such high tension could seriously damage the trees.

lol, they are short of trees in this area.....not
make sure you dont hug them to hard

great vid, I can see you put a lot of time and effort in to it, and I just wish I could ride down there that fast,

well done

Brilliant stuff.

This is by far my favorite way of filming mtb, especially when the camera is infront.

I'd like to try this on my fully ridged 😯

Good effort Gareth, nice to see it all edited. Looks like we'll have our work cut out at the weekender again this year!

Have you got a pic of your rig Gareth, this is the one used at Stainburn [img] [/img]

That is ace! Anyone got a link to a route that includes that descent? I fancy a bit of that.

It's easy to fit it in to a win hill/ derwent area ride, lots of other great descents there too.

Some of the others could have done with some way of controlling the speed of the camera's slide down the rope, and some way of panning the camera. Can't think how those could be done easily though.

One question though - how did you avoid the camera smashing into bits when it went into the trees at the bottom of each slide?

The one I've seen the slide speed can be controlled by using a strap tied round the rope which drags on the rope to slow it down - I think he uses a leather strap with some kind of adjustable tensioner on it , so that he can tighten it to get the right speed. It looks really smooth even on very slow technical riding.

For avoiding it smashing he uses foam with a hole in (pipe lagging maybe, or handlebar grips, can't remember), which the rig bashes into.

Panning the camera would be brilliant, but I can't see any simple way of doing it - I'd be sticking a servo on and some kind of control hardware - either a radio control receiver, or just a simple microprocessor (arduino or something else cheap and simple to work with) pre-programmed to do the pan that you want. That would be neat actually - if you were bunging a microprocessor on there anyway, you could also rig up a servo to a braking strap, for varied speed throughout the shot.

One thought on panning - if you rigged up a radio controlled pan-tilt & speed control, you could stick on a second wireless camera to the same mount - we have some at work, they're tiny and dirt cheap (I think they were £30 on ebay or something ridiculous, and size wise, they are much much smaller than the 9v battery that powers them, about 1cm x 1cm x 2cm) - that would allow the operator to have an idea of what they were pointing the camera at.

This guy has built a radio controlled pan-tilt for a go-pro, which looks disgusting, but appears to work and uses pretty standard parts that model airplane places will have (RC receiver, servos) - http://www.rcflighttest.com/home/2010/11/quick-and-simple-pantilt-mount-for-gopro-hero-hd/

Alternatively, with an HD camera and a very wide angle lens, you could probably point it half way between the two shots you want and then fake the pan in software without losing too much quality, which might be easier!

Thanks for the comments, just looking at getting 100m of 5mm static cord for some longer runs, trying to bodge a lighter version to take skiing, will post up some pics when I've got it sorted 🙂