Who doesn't love motorcycle ride videos?

[Mark H]

Well it does seem to polarise people. Some will spend endless hours watching them and others spend their time watching paint dry or grass grow. My doctor recommended them as an alternative to sleeping pills, but then again she doesn't ride a motorcycle.

Now I'm no Steven Spielberg or J. J. Abrams. In fact I have very limited video skills other than being able to pull the video off the camera and into iMovie to cut it up and possibly add some music in the background. Truth be told my wife has done most of that side anyway. I'm more of the silent type in the background.

Anyway, back in 2014 Ros and I spent 5 weeks in the US and Canada (coming from Australia) and rode our hearts out. We captured most of it in still photos and words on a blogg site, but occasionally we took some video footage from a camera mounted either on my helmet or hers. Then picture the two of us perched on a motel bed each evening with laptop and editing software trying to patch together a short snip of the adventures from the day, and then trying to upload it to the web via the less than "high speed complimentary internet".

Back to the point of all this - it is now 2016, we are soon to depart on our next adventure (in May), and I finally got my act together, put all of the videos in one place, and hopefully ironed out the copyright and viewing rights restrictions.

So for those of you who don't have trouble sleeping, please move on to the next post on this forum. But for those of you, like me, who enjoy spending a couple of minutes watching others ride their bikes on roads and through landscapes I would one day like to or indeed have already travelled - here are our videos from the adventure we called Endless Roads - https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/8qIbRB
This is a link to my Google+ page, but you can also find these videos through YouTube directly on the Endless Roads 2014 Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL39Jl5AVpjLHvuc6xO3Wh9chWqjxGEUlY

Any comments are welcome and if there are still issues with viewing these internationally, please let me know.
If there is interest and indeed there are people out there, like us, who enjoy watching motorcycling videos, we will be taking more on our next adventure which we have so imaginatively called Endless Roads 2016.

And finally, for those who are of my vintage, perhaps you may want to cast your mind back and take a guess at where the soundtrack in the Lombard Street video is from. No prizes but let's see who guesses first.

 

[ducster]

Lombard Street video music is from early seventies TV show "The Streets Of San Francisco" Starring Karl Malden and Michael Douglas.

Nice videos BTW.

 

[aquajoe]

Cool videos man. I enjoyed them.

 

[Mark H]

Yep - that's the one, you get the virtual award. Takes me back to a simpler time and seemed so appropriate when we were riding around San Francisco's streets. It was somewhat challenging to take fully loaded bikes down Lombard Street at walking pace. The cars kept pulling up too which didn't help.

Lombard Street video music is from early seventies TV show "The Streets Of San Francisco" Starring Karl Malden and Michael Douglas.

Nice videos BTW.

 

[rangerreece]

Nice videos. Ris is a good rider. The Lombardi street scene where all the kids go down the hill on skateboards was pretty cool.

 

[jek_ict]

Lombard Street video music is from early seventies TV show "The Streets Of San Francisco" Starring Karl Malden and Michael Douglas.

Nice videos BTW.

Good to know; I thought it was from Bullitt.

 

[l1969]

The videos were amazing. Thanks for sharing our journey.

 

[Mark H]

I think the title music from Bullitt is so "cool" in the true sense of the word, but possibly not as frenetic as the theme from Streets of San Francisco.

I'm glad you guys are enjoying the videos and I should add, that if it wasn't for the tips and suggestions from many on this forum a few years back when we were planning that adventure, we may never have had the pleasure of riding some of those roads.

As we get closer to the next journey to the US in May/June, I'll share some more details about the plans with those of you who might be interested. I hope our video skills have improved so that we can share some better quality footage too. We will have two cameras this time, with the ability to shoot backwards from either of the bikes. Should make for some contrasting perspectives to the more standard helmet view.

 

[rangerreece]

Planning on hit the east coast riding Meccas this time? Dragon slaying and such. (I assume your familiar with the tail of the dragon. If not YouTube search. There's about a 1000 videos on it.)

 

[jek_ict]

All those twisties look like a lot of fun.

 

[Omega Man]

Any of you ever make it to New Hampshire, try Hurricane Mountain Road. And yeah, Mount Washington is pretty good as well
OM

 

[mikegalbicka]

All those twisties look like a lot of fun.

Actually they are a lot of work. I enjoyed them but my wife on the back - not much.

 

[Bud]

Mark,

The genius of your videos is the length.

I've wasted time on Youtube watching m/c videos that go on and on and on. For example, the whole ride from Silverton to Ouray, CO. It would have beena cool 3 min compilation.

You do good work and THANK YOU for taking the time let us ride along with you.

 

[rangerreece]

Mark,

The genius of your videos is the length.

I've wasted time on Youtube watching m/c videos that go on and on and on. For example, the whole ride from Silverton to Ouray, CO. It would have beena cool 3 min compilation.

You do good work and THANK YOU for taking the time let us ride along with you.

+1

 

[Mark H]

I agree 10000% - m/c videos are notoriously dull. Watching them often brings back memories from my childhood of being forced to sit through "slide nights" of family holidays. Dad would click through each slide at a snails pace and never seemed to learn the correct way to insert the slides so that they didn't display upside down or back to front. Heaven help us if the globe in the projector popped and he needed to replace it. "Nobody is going anywhere!" he'd yell, "I'll have it fixed in a second".

Videos need to be short and have some point of interest. Including a little up-beat music always helps too.
We learnt a lot from making these and hope to capture some more interesting stuff on the next adventure.

 

[Mark H]

A little more experimentation with cameras and mounting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db1hFFTfbOw&list=PL39Jl5AVpjLEJ5Uly5DAQYuT_AlB2Fhj7&index=3

We found that the mount on the top box (rear facing) gave a great sense of speed and lean angle, but unfortunately it was also a little lively - lots of shudder and bounce.
So we decided to flip the helmet mount and try a rear facing view from head height. It's different, and although it can be a little disorienting when the person does head checks, overall it makes for an interesting interlacing with forward view of the same stretch of road.

For those who are interested in the hardware side of things, we use Drift Ghost HD and HD-S cameras. These are not the most common (Go-Pro is the go here), but we think the Drift is not only technically brilliant and easy to use, but it just looks more integrated when attached to your helmet. The mounting bracket is simple to swap around for rear/front changes and the cameras are weatherproof out of the box, so no need for extra housings.

Uploaded video to YouTube never does justice to the original footage, nevertheless the quality of the end result is where we need it to be and I hope others may enjoy seeing where we have been.