The main question on my mind after watching a selection of these you tube videos is does anyone manufacture a solid brass or stainless steel mini pump, around 10 inches long with a snap fitting holder, something small but weighty.

airing it again without a correction is really not helping.

how cynical do you need to be to believe the programme makers knew full well they’re peddling a myth? Just the TV equivalent of clickbait surely?

joolsburger – zefal frame fit pump filled with sand 😉

Debz
This is a good cam to helmet mount – HD quality for under £40
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Full-HD-1080P-DV-Waterproof-Mini-Sports-Camera-Bike-Helmet-Action-DVR-Video-Cam-/171350429427

That does look like a bargain. What weight is the camera and whats the run time.

Thanks.

I shall not respond to anyone getting my name wrong 😛

Oops – sorry DezB!
Still keen to know more about that camera if you’ll accept the apology about your name!

Cheers,
Nick

Here’s a sample. Note, I have it mounted on the bars, so it’s a bit shakier than helmet mounted.
Goes up to 1080p

[video]http://youtu.be/UIWMbdxBMj0[/video]

(or for balance) Bad light, wet day in November

[video]http://youtu.be/oy60aR0i5Hs[/video]

Paid about £50 for mine, so I reckon £37 is a bargain.

Thanks for the replies, tbh if I got one it’d probably go on the bars, incidents don’t happen that often maybe once a week? Pretty much all of them are from passing with far to little room, bus this week, Honda Civic last week. I’d just like a bit of protection and the chance to argue my rights if something did happen.

Easiest solution would be to ride a bit more defensibly, but if anyone’s familiar with the Nelson to Ystrad Mynach stretch of the A472 on a week day morning then there welcome to have a go.

There is a cycle path that runs parallel about half mile to the side of this section but I got sick of getting punctures even with decent tyres.

Thanks for the input!

Can you tell us the weight and the run time Debs, please 🙂

Weight? Not much. The bar mount weighs a flippin ton though, so I use a lockblock thing.
Run time… hmm, couple of hours probably. I just use it to ride to work and back (hour each way), then charge.
One downside is that the USB cable is proprietary, so you only get one way to charge it.
It records 230MB files then starts a new file, the gap between is negligible though.
You don’t really want me to weigh it do you Mary__G?

You don’t really want me to weigh it do you Mary__G?

Oh go on Deborah, please do.

Handily I have a spare lockblock kicking about. Does it loop record, so it’ll keep going wiping over existing footage?

Dunno Hairy Mary, never filled my 16GB card.

I mostly just delete after the ride otherwise it’s full of stuff I have no idea of what. Those incidents that I go looking for, I keep in a special folder, filed by number plate for when I get my gun.

Can’t believe you guessed my stage name 🙂

Weighed it for ya: 77g (including microSD card 🙂 )

But yeah there does seem to be an image of “Youtube helmetcam road warrior” in the public’s mind, pretty sure that is down to some media misrepresentation and a lot of wilful or ignorant confirmation bias.

Yup, and it’s not just drivers. When I see someone with a helmetcam on the commute, I do instinctively think of the YouTube pointy-man. Because that’s the output we generally see from helmetcam commuters – all those who have a camera but *don’t* upload it obviously don’t get represented in that output.

Might be of interest; review of a rear facing light/camera:
http://www.edinburghrc.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=16081.0

Cyclists Under No Traffic are a nice group who deal with this type of thing.

They offer courses in no spacial awareness, using the road as a race track, and jumping red lights. The Go Pro programme is only open to those who demonstrate particular anger and arse-cleftness.

The shitty looks I got from some motorists were a good indicator IMO of how many see cyclists with cameras, it sends an unintended message and they think we’re just out to shame them on Youtube…

In Taiwan loads of cars have dash-cams now, std practice and encouraged by insurance companies. It’ll be the same here soon enough.

It’ll be the same here soon enough.

Hope so – the number of people driving like dicks with impunity needs dealing with. No wonder so many people are too scared to cycle

Had a fun one this morning actually, reminded me how simultaneously ignorant, incompetent, aggresive and dishonest some people can be while driving. (he’s probably an idiot when he’s not driving too, but he’s unlikely to kill me then)

I’m on a roundabout, entering at “6 o clock” and wanting to go to right, so to 3 o clock.

Car is stationary at the junction to my left (9 o clock). As I approach it he suddenly pulls out after looking straight at me, he’s going going straight on, to the same exit as me.

I end up next to him while slamming on the brakes and doing an emergency lane change to avoid him. In the process I let out an involuntary ‘Oh dear’, or words to that effect…. ‘kin ‘ell or something like that, not all that bad really.

He winds down the window (ped crossing right after the roundabout is red) and pokes his bright red, bulgy veined head out of the window and informs me that he’d like me to stop as “I want a word with you, you little s**t”.* I asked why. He then swore blind that he had already been on the roundabout, and that I’d raced onto it, closed the gap on him, overtaken him in the right hand lane, got in front, and then shouted at him.

The thing is, if he’d have hit me he’d have said the same to the police, and promised that he’d been driving ever so carefully and, you know what these lycra idiots are like, he just hadn’t been able to avoid me when I’d thrown myself under his wheels. And the police round here would have believed him. That’s why I use the camera, it’s an insurance policy, not a ‘content production tool’ like it is for the youtube stars. Not knocking them, just saying that you don’t have to upload stuff if you don’t want to.

I got to work, had a quick look at the footage, and yep, I was on the RAB, at the bollard between the ‘on’ and ‘off’ lanes of the junction he was at when he pulled out.

*He told me to pull into the petrol station 50 yards up the road so we could “have a chat”. I said “yeah, sure mate, you first…”, waited for him to be blocked in and then left him to it. Got a nice shout of “OIIII, COME EEEEERRREEEEE” as I rode off. 😆

Be nice if you had a little screen to watch the playback with him during your “discussion” 🙂

But I suspect even with clear video evidence he wouldn’t admit he was wrong.
Take that motorcyclist the other day that posted his own headcam footage showing him sideswiping a cyclist knocking him to the ground in traffic, then shouting at him for being on the phone, and then flat out lying to the police about it.

His own video contradicted his account and he still posted it as “proof” of the terrible cyclist!

I wear a helmet cam for my commutes out of London, I feel naked without it. A couple of years ago, a bloke made a punishment pass (no idea why, I was well over to the left and hadn’t been weaving through traffic) so close I slammed my hand against his car. He threatened to kill me once I caught up to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing.

Since then it’s been mandatory.

I’m not a confrontational guy who’s out to make anyone’s life miserable, so I tend to acknowledge an honest mistake with a nod and a wink – I’d be lying if I said I’ve never made a driving error. That said, when someone’s overtaken me at a pinch point or has nearly taken me out then I’ve had a polite word.

Unfortunately, the most common response to “You nearly knocked me off my bike” is “Well, I didn’t, did I?”. I really don’t want to be a dick about this sort of thing, but it amazes me how blase some people are.

Weighed it for ya: 77g (including microSD card )

Oh thats nice and light, thank you Desdemona.

I wear one because an SUV once did a lane change between me (left lane) and a car turning right in the next lane, almost hitting me and the back of the car. Had to slam my brakes on to avoid getting left hooked onto the pavement. I caught up, sped alongside shouting “You almost ****ing killed me back there!” through the drivers’ window, and they just nodded as if that was okay.

Oh, and there was the white van man who, when I was keeping up with traffic, in the correct lane for my exit on a complex roundabout, sat on his horn behind me then undertook just to scream abuse and push me into the next lane of traffic. Police were at the station, when I mentioned what he’d done they shrugged.

As the motorbike guy shows, helmet cameras aren’t a cure for the kind of tribal bullsh*t people get mired in, but I’d rather have one than not. If some drivers or other cyclists want to assume I’m a sanctimonious youtuber, f*** ’em.

“Well, I didn’t, did I?”

boils my piss, people know damn well there’s a mahoosive gap between not actually killing anyone and driving safely, getting it across to these ****tards is tricky tho. Dunno maybe it’s the instinctive response to you dissing their driving and if you got ’em in a calm environment and explained it patiently they’ve have a little ****ing empathy, but in situ on the roads it appears they just don’t give a toss about scaring the shite out of you.

I can joke about nuking you from orbit coz it won’t happen, joking about, or brushing off as of no significance, their dangerous driving when so many people die or are seriously injured by it is not acceptable.

Take that motorcyclist the other day that posted his own headcam footage showing him sideswiping a cyclist knocking him to the ground in traffic

just tried watching the long version of that, 2 minutes in I had to switch off for my own sanity or else I’ve have had stressed Eric style aneurysm or punched the monitor. What a bellend!