Action Cams for the Bike

I’m fed up of car/truck/bus zombies trying to kill me, so thought I would get an action camera for the bike so at least my kids could hear my last screams.

Any default non brand suggestions before I blow £150 on a go pro?

Olfi OneFive is really good value for £150.

Had some great reviews. The mobile app isn’t as good as some of the competition from the big brands, but the camera is great to use, fits the gopro mounts, and has loads of features that make it useful for commuting cam.

The size is in between the gopro hero and session.

And it’s a British company.

I’ve got one of the aldi £40 Faux Pro cameras marketed as a “maxtek vision 4k camera” – I find the 4K mode is a bit low frame rate but 1080 and 720p are great!

Not bad as I only really bought it to help with being able to look back on my Autosolo runs to see where I can gain time, but it’s actually good enough quality to be able to use properly, yes a bit washed out compared to a go pro, but less than 1/3 the price!

I’ve got a Fly 12 camera/light. It’s a big lump. The light is very good, the camera provides excellent footage, but to be honest I’ve been less than impressed with the overall experience. The operating system is complex, it relies on linkage with an IOS device, overlaying Strava/Garmin metrics is a chore that I can’t be bothered with, and it is a pain to remove from the Go Pro mount just to charge (I now use an exposure adaptor). If I were to do it again, I’d buy the small Go Pro session to sit under the Garmin on my K Edge mounts, and rely on a decent Exposure light, as and when required. By contrast, the Fly 6 is less feature rich and all the better for it.

That said, I used them both for a 3 1/2 hr evening/night ride last night and it performed flawlessly, but a Session and Joystick would be about the same money# and more flexible.

#(I bought mine for £200 before they launched, they are £300 now)

Was tempted by a Fly camera but ended up getting a new Exposure light when Evans had them cheap last year. Leaning back towards my original plan of getting a Garmin VIRB Elite (original model) as that automatically starts when you start your Garmin GPS so sounds ideal for a commuter camera. Only a battery life of 3 hours though (2 on the newer model!!) which is the only thing that puts me off. Should be good enough quality for the occasional sick edit as well 🙂

Anyone who uses a VIRB as a commuter cam care to comment?

I’ve just (this week) got a sjcam m10, for £40 on EBay….

Came with a bunch of mounts (‘siver pack’ bike mount, helmet mountains a load of spares and a dash cam mount), has a screen on the back and records in 1080p. Seems to do the job and the footage on YouTube would suggest its good quality (especially for the money)… Only real criticism is that the camera isn’t waterproof so you have to use the waterproof casing all the time which makes it a little bigger.

Session is good for commuting, battery doesn’t last long enough to use for serious rides. If I had the money I’d get a Fly12 and not rely on the light 10hours recording then.

I use a session, but have to charge the camera twice a day, and manually delete the footage every day because it doesn’t do proper loop recording. It’s a bit of a faff.

Session was favourite until you said it doesn’t loop.

The looping is the worst part of it TBH, I can see why it’s not default but it should be something you can override in the settings. But all they give is some crappy loop alternative which doesn’t do the job.

charge the camera twice a day, and manually delete the footage every day because it doesn’t do proper loop recording. It’s a bit of a faff.

That would annoy me immensely. The Fly 12 has 10 light modes; off, flash x3, intermittent flash x3 and full on x3. I’ve set it to cycle through off/low flash/med intermittent/high full because pressing a button 10 times is annoying. The button is nowhere near as good as the Exposure, either, being quite recessed.

Last night was an even mix of flash and intermittent, with about 30 min of full before it jumped into get-me-home low full mode. Footage and looping are fine, but to be honest, I seldom bother looking at the footage, it’s just a security measure.

For just commuting, I’d probably charge mine every couple of days. low flash is very economical, and it seems a shame to carry the weight of the thing and not have some form of day-running light.