The Friday Fifty
Leaving the office an hour early on Fridays, leaves an hour more to ride. Now that the days are quickly getting shorter, it’s a valuable hour during which a few more miles can be ridden at daylight. Having recently received a package from Newbury Park, California containing a small Replay XD1080 action camera, I wanted to test that little gizmo out on the road. With it’s cylindrical shape the camera fits perfectly into a vent of my Giro Atmos helmet, no mount required. I cut 23mm wide strips out of an old mountain bike tube and fit them around the XD1080 front and back. The tube sections fit without much tension, add friction between camera and helmet and protect the camera housing. A velcro strap holds everything in place. Still do get done are mounts to attach the camera at various points on a bike frame. I ordered a couple of mounts from Replay, but to have a system that lets me quickly switch the camera from one place to the other trailside, I need to come up with my own mounting system. To get done: a universal handlebar mount with rubber O-rings, a rear dropout mount and maybe a top tube mount.
Yesterday’s road bike ride took me up to my frequent high spot - the Place Centrale. With the extra afternoon hour, I first headed east though and threw in an extra loop up to the small village of Plagne. It adds a nice climb through forests from Lengnau to Romont and a second hillside climb from Vauffelin to Plagne. The descent that follows is fast and fun too, especially since they repaved much of the road below Plagne. Our tax money at work! Seems like we’re giving Uncle Tell lots of it based on all the road construction everywhere. Anyway, I had another long climb ahead, the stretch from Orvin to the Place Centrale. This is an awesome bit of training miles both up and down. Going up to push yourself, going down to let it fly.
This was the downhill that I wanted to capture on film. The the sun setting behind me, it provided some awesome scenery with long shadows of myself stretched out in front of the road. But in a silly user error, I paused the cam instead of setting it to record. Here’s maybe one of the weak points of the Replay XD1080. There are two small buttons to operate it; an on/off button and a recording button. While the camera vibrates when operating the buttons (3 times when turning it on or starting to record, 1 time when turning it off or stopping to record), I didn’t pay enough attention to those vibrations when reaching the camera sitting on top of my helmet. Beginner error. I’m sure I’ll get a better feel for the vibrator on my head. At home, I played with iMovie for the first time and I stitched together the footage that I had. Better videos to come.
| Distance: | 52.4km (32.6 miles) |
| Elevation: | 1’902m (6’240 feet) |
| Time: | 02:04:52 |
| Speed (avg/max): | 25.2/78.5 kph (15.7/48.8 mph) |
