First time out with Insta360 X4 at Gawton Gravity Hub

On holiday near Plymouth recently and drove up to Gawton Gravity Hub while I was in the area (having never been as it’s about 4 hours from home), and what a great bike park it is!

Reminds me a lot of Aston Hill in Buckinghamshire, which feels like it has been closed forever. Proper rough, steep, rooty/rocky trails and then a pedal/push back up to the top.

I wasn’t riding with anyone so I took the opportunity to faff about with my new insta360 X4 and try a few different mounting options. I was super impressed with the quality and POV once I got it all setup, and I love being able to just slap it on and not worry if it’s at the correct angle now.

It’s a long way to go for a dedicate trip, but I’ll definitely be going back if I find myself in the area!

I should probably go more given I can pretty much see it from my house…

It’s the kind of place I’d definitely go more often if it wasn’t so far away. But my God the roads for the last part of the journey are truly awful, unless I just picked a bad direction to approach from, I genuinely don’t know how people in anything wider than a Ford Focus gets there with its paintwork still intact!

If you cut through from Plymouth over denham bridge it’s a bit narrow.

longer/slower but better roads to go through tavi

Good quality image that, certainly seems like a nice angle you have it at now.

Was that chest mount or helmet chin?

Also, how do you find the editing of footage? I am used to gopro so just downloading files and chucking them into Davinci but I understand the insta360 needs some work before this?

Also… was that 60fps?

Never much of a fan of Insta360 footage as it looks so weird and distorted, so fisheye.

The panning around to different views while moving is a bit nausea-inducing I find.

Very clever technology though. Ok in moderation.

Used to love Gawton but not been for years and years. There used to be an uplift run by the FOD guy I think.

longer/slower but better roads to go through tavi

Yeah I think that’s the way I was directed when I left (the longer/slower way), as I remember thinking I wish I’d arrived from that direction as I was back onto sensible roads much sooner.

Was that chest mount or helmet chin?

This was chin mounted vertically. I had tried horizontal chin mount, and chest mount previously. But I found the chest mount put the POV too far back, resulting in the underside of my chin getting into the top of the shots a lot, especially in portrait crop. Putting the camera ON my chin obviously solves that, while keeping a similar viewing angle.

Also, how do you find the editing of footage?

I’m currently editing and exporting in Premiere Pro using their plugin, but even with an M2 Pro MacBook, having to process that volume of data AND run it through the plugin is not ideal performance-wise. To be honest I’m probably going to move to the same flow The Loam Ranger uses, which is to crop the aspect ratio/POV you want with Insta360 Studio and export that, then edit in Davinci.

Also… was that 60fps?

Shot and exported in 30fps. The X4 maxes out at 30fps in 8K mode anyway, but personally I always shoot in the frame rate I want to export at (unless I want to slow it down).

Never much of a fan of Insta360 footage as it looks so weird and distorted, so fisheye.

I always use the ‘Linear/Dewarp’ mode to avoid the curved trees etc. It narrows the FOV a tad, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make to keep a realistic viewpoint. The FOV I crop to is probably no wider than you can achieve with a GoPro/Max Lens Mod.

The difference is I get full 360 degree gimbal-like stabilisation, unlike the GoPro which is still quite restricting and has that trademark indecisive ‘Shall I pan this way, nope stabilise, oh now pan this way’ digital stabilisation which I hate. haha

Cased it :)