These days you see more and more riders with an action cam mounted somewhere. Camera prices have dropped and the technology has advanced to a level that lets you shoot footage that is actually worth watching.
This can be used to show that you weren’t bluffing about dropping the hammer during that group ride or Strava KOM segment, but – more importantly – it might serve as proof in case you are confronted with motorists’ less desired behavior.
Whether such footage will put an end to the ‘your word against mine’ debate remains to be seen. At the very least, it can be used to (publicly) expose such behavior, which is what we’re seeing a lot of right now.
Cycliq, maker of the Fly6 rear view and the Fly12 front view camera, has a section of their website reserved for not only that, but also the more funny and sometimes painfully hilarious footage shot by cyclists from around the globe.
Speaking of Cycliq: I recently bought both Fly cameras – I am currently testing them and so far, I’ve run into only a few minor issues, but the quality of the footage is really good.
The cheaper Fly6’s recordings obviously do not match the quality of an action cam at least twice as expensive, but it does a good job recording what goes on behind your back.
The Fly12 offers much higher quality, albeit still short of that of a GoPro or Sony. In return, it offers some unique features like ‘tram lines’, Strava and map overlays, and an alarm function.
And both devices have incident protection technology*, should bad things happen to you. Plus, they have integrated lights, so you’ll never need to take bike lights with you ever again…
To be honest, I was rather disappointed with my older GoPro (3 – Black) at the time – recordings during my rides would almost always be too shaky to watch without getting dizzy.
I guess the – in my view – awkward mounting system had something to do with that, and one of these mounts broke into two during a descend too, so that was not a plus either.
The Sony (AS200VR) I bought late last year, on the other hand, provided superior quality footage and its mounting system is much better thought through and stable. However, that camera also only lasts for two hours or less – if that’s enough for you, consider one of those, seriously. But for my average ride, it just isn’t.
Between the GoPro and the Sony, I considered buying a Garmin VIRB, but before I made up my mind, Garmin released a new model which just looked like another GoPro, so I didn’t go for it…
Cycliq claims their cameras will ‘last longer than you do’, which remains to be seen – I will get back to that after I’ve finished putting them to the test 🙂
I’ll also write a post on how to properly edit the raw footage and stitch it together into awesome clips to share. The Fly6 doesn’t offer anything to edit – just take out the SD card and use a third party program.
And while the Fly12 has an accompanying app to edit footage straight from the device, it’s actually easier to do the same with its SD card. Unless you need the ‘tram line’ overlay, which is really only important in case of serious trouble…
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* Which doesn’t mean you will not get run over by that idiot driver, but it will safeguard the footage that can later be used as evidence.
