Capturing good photos or video while riding your bike can be a bit tricky, not to mention potentially hazardous to your health.
However, fastening a small camera to your bike can be as easy as attaching it to a small tripod that’s strapped to your handlebars.
The small Gorillapod is a quick and easy way of wrapping your camera to just about anything, whether it’s a backpack strap, handlebars or your buddy’s helmet. While the Gorillapod is an extremely versatile tripod overall, for cycling pics it works best on smooth pathways in dry weather. In rough terrain or wet weather, it tends to slip and bounce around too much.
Another tripod option is the UCO Ultrapod. This is an extremely lightweight tripod, with an included velcro strap that makes it easy to quickly lash it to your bike. The ball and socket swivel makes it easy to adjust the angle once it’s attached to your bike, although the Gorillapod is easier to adjust while on the move.
Lastly, if you’ve got a few spare parts kicking around in your bike-bits-box, the folks over at Photojojo have a cheap but functional solution for building your own bike mount.
We were hit with a surprise dump of snow several days ago, which made for some interesting and challenging cycling.
When I woke up at 5:30, it had just started to snow. The weather forecast had called for up to 2 cm (about 1″) of snow – no big deal. However, when I left the house at 7:30, there was almost 25 cm (10″).
The flakes were huge, traffic was at a standstill when the cars weren’t sliding into one another, and cyclists were slowly but surely moving along much faster than the other traffic.
I strapped my little digital camera to my bike and slapped together the following cheesy little video of the day’s bike ride to work.
From Bicycling Magazine, some cyclists don’t ride for fun, fitness or camaraderie. They ride to stay alive, earn money, and support their families.
One of Calgary’s newly elected aldermen has already made significant improvements to the city’s support for cycling commuters.
Brian Pincott, alderman for ward 11, also a year-round bicycle commuter, recently introduced a motion at a city council meeting to raise the priority level for snow removal from bike lanes. The motion was passed unanimously.
To read more, see the story on FFWD.
The global cycling community has lost an Internet legend with the passing of Sheldon Brown.
Sheldon was recognized around the world as a passionate cyclist who freely provided years of cycling wisdom on his website, http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/
Rest in peace, Sheldon.
For the past month or so, I’ve been using the Deuter Dry Shield Bike 18 backpack on my daily rides to work.
For years, I’ve been searching for a good waterproof backpack that will keep my stuff dry during the nasty wet Calgary winters. While a good drybag, or even a garbage bag, can usually keep things dry inside a regular pack, the pack itself will still end up soggy and smelly, and it’s a pain to dump everything into a drybag.
The Dry Shield line from Deuter is a waterproof line, which includes a cycling-specific pack — the DS Bike 18.
A few weeks ago, the permanent new pathway section by Heritage Park was put in place.
Early in the construction of the new buildings at Heritage Park, the old pathway was torn up and a number of temporary pathway sections were put in and taken out as construction progressed.
The old pathway was good. It cut across the old tram tracks, and was relatively smooth and straight as it took you from the reservoir to the Eagle Ridge residential area.
Early on, I expressed a couple of concerns to Heritage Park that the new pathway section they’d put in place was going to cause some potential safety issues on the pathway, as it was right between the new buildings and the new parking lots. After parking, all the people were being fed onto the pathway system without any notification they were on a section of the city pathway, and not a Heritage Park pathway. I was told that was just a temporary solution. I asked to see an electronic copy of the proposed final pathway, as that section is a key piece of the commuter route from the S.W. but was never sent anything.
So, now the new pathway is in place. Instead of a relatively straight section, there are now 8 bollards, 5 sharp turns and 6 intersections with other roads, pathway intersects and crosswalks. Two bollards are placed right in the middle of the arc of a curve. One of the sharp turns has a nicely landscaped “pit” at the arc — if you don’t notice the sudden turn, you’re going to end up in the pit. Bollards also spread large groups of pedestrians and runners out across the entire pathway, as they split and flow around the obstruction.
This new pathway is probably one of the most dangerous and poorly planned sections of pathway infrastructure I’ve seen in the city, and I’m amazed that the Parks & Rec department even approved it.
As a regular cycle commuter and a long time family season’s pass holder at Heritage Park, I’m also quite disappointed that the park’s executive team only considered what was ideal for the park, and not for the thousands of other people who use the city pathway on a regular basis.
Here’s a short video of that section.
Reflective ribbon on backpack, originally uploaded by elliottzone.
If you use a backpack when you’re commuting, adding some reflective ribbon to your pack can help make you more visible.
On my backpack, I have two pieces of reflective/neon yellow ribbon. I fixed them to the pack in an X pattern. They’re about 16″ long, so about 7″ dangle below my pack and flap in the wind.
My theory behind this is that the flapping parts may attract a bit more attention because they’re flapping. I added three grommets to each strip. This makes it easy to attach to any pack with a couple of mini carabiners or plastic ties.
Cost for the ribbon was about $10.
The City has filmed a couple of ads promoting some of the new on-street bicycling routes.
The ads encourage people to consider cycling as a safe and viable option for commuting to work downtown, and also remind cyclists and motorist of the rights and rules of sharing the road.
View the 30 second ad hosted at BikeCalgary.org
View the 60 second ad hosted at BikeCalgary.org
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