I received a very nice bit of kit today, the new Ritchey WCS Matrix C260 stem. I’m planning on fitting it to my mountain bike, to go with a set of bars I’ve been wanting to use but had stashed away for a while.
Opening the box I found that the stem comes in its own little pouch (why does a stem need a pouch?!). It’s amazingly light and looks really cool. Very smooth clean lines to it.
Of course I popped it straight on the scales after initial caressing was over and it came in at 116gms for a 110mm.
The bars are again from Ritchey, not that this was planned, and are the unusually shaped WCS Carbon Flat 10D. I’ve got a thing about the angle of my bars. Whereas I like risers and the width/control they give, I also like the lower, more agressive position of flats. With these I’m hoping for the best of both worlds. I weighted them when I got them, and if I remember rightly they are 142gms.
First impressions out of the box where good. Pretty light, clean lines, nice easy to use buttons, simple mounting, and the built in playback feature, so you can see what footage you’ve taken will surely come in handy. There is also a neat remote control that you can mount to your handlebars, so you don’t have to film continuously, and save on memory card. The skin, or outer casing of the camera seems durable being made of the rubber variety and looks like a sensible decision over using a harder material, so in other words, less likely to scratch and it all comes together at a price of £279.98.
The size of it is twice the length of a GoPro (I have both cameras) which sounds massive but isn’t really. My first impression was the HD170 is probably a better option, due to the cleaner lines and easier to use functionality. There is also the cumbersome and less thought through casing, mounting and ease of use of the GoPro. Despite the GoPro being a very good camera I always find myself re checking the instructions on getting the best out of it. While setting up more adventurous camera angles means getting some strange bolted mounting unit. There must be a way of coming up with an elegant solution for this, as its a pain.
Speak of mounting, as you can see in the videos, I’ve placed the camera on the top of my helmet. I opted to not go with using the sticky Velcro mounts this time, as I want try out how different mounting positions effect the footage. In this view there is a certain amount of separation between you the viewer, and my view of the same trails, as the rider. There is no real frame of reference for you to relate to such as front wheel, handlebars or part of the helmet. No fault of the camera of course, just down to how I’ve positioned it. So anyway, that’s something I’ll be messing around with in the coming videos.
Weight will obviously be something you all want to know about, particularly if you do use it on your head. Complete with battery and SDHC card the whole thing came in at 174gms. I actually didn’t notice any effect of this on my head/neck while riding, but then I’ve been using a head mounted light through the last two winters, so my neck can handle it. If you haven’t done this before, you may experience some tightening of the neck muscles initially, but it soon goes away.
There are two formats options that can be recorded on; Full HD 1080p: 1920×1080 pixels with a 12.4 Mbps data rate. 720p : 1080×720 pixels with 8364 Kbps data rate, both running at 30 frames per second. I recorded on the 720p setting. You can also set it to take 5 mega pixel photographs.
There are three test videos for you to view, which you can navigate to from within the video. All the footage in the videos are untreated and straight off the camera. I didn’t add any music to these to demonstrate the microphone sensitivity (which has three settings). This post is about initial impressions rather than full on review, I’ll do that after I’ve been using it for a while. The camera has plenty more features to it so you can check out the full spec here.
So that’s enough for now, overall I’m pleased to be able test it out and look forward to seeing what it can handle over the coming year.
Well I didn’t quite manage to get my hands on the camera this weekend, having been feeling off colour but here is a clip taken from Robs ride this morning. Will be getting mine in the coming days…
I’m lucky enough to be getting one of the Drift Innovation HD170 cameras to play with, courtesy of course to Action Cameras. I’ve been checking out the quality of the footage and its pretty high up there, looks really easy to use and has a few really neat little features suitable for riding with, like the playback feature for example. The amount of times I’ve been recording footage only for the memory card to be used up, or a bump have altered the angle of the lens…
Anyway, it should be turning up in a couple of days and will be posting pictures, clips and generally putting it to the test for you all! In the mean time, check out a couple of clips with Steve Peat and Greg Minnaar using the very same camera.
Since my post on custom oakleys has been popular, and I was born in 1975 Oakley have launched a series of new glasses in celebration of this.
Ok, ok, that may not actually be true… lets start again…
To celebrate Oakley’s 35th birthday (1975 was true!) they have launched a series of new glasses (that’s true as well!). Released so far are, with more to come in the coming months, the Tennis edition of the classic Eyeshades and the Golfball edition of the radar. Check out the history of Oakley here.
Oakley are now supplying customers with the option of customising a range of their products to suit you. I recently got a new pair of radars and thought I would tell you what they are like. Included below are some pictures of the sample version found on the Oakley site, and some of the real product to give you an idea of the differences.
I believe this option is only available through the website, the custom area having been launched around Christmas time. The site is pretty easy to use, giving plenty of options to get the glasses just for you. I decided to go for a pair of radars as I say, but with a polished white frame (I feel like a bit of a footballer for it but hey..), ice iridium lens and of course the etching in the lens (now I definitely feel like a footballer!). When I received them I saw the difference in colour presentation, so I thought I would share for those interested in getting their own pair, and keep in mind.
Delivery is pretty quick, I think i had mine in about 5 working days. The only mild stumbling block was that the online payment system seems to use an old address list, so my place wasn’t listed which prevented the order from being fully processed. But we received a phone call from them and get that sorted out pretty quickly.
The fit of the glasses is up to the usual Oakley standard, with the blue lens having a nice balance between being able to see more than you would think and not getting a load of light on your eyes. I won’t go too much into the detail of the product as its well known and there isn’t much need to repeat it. They also come in a hard case which helps if you might accidentally sit on them, the little cleaning bag and spare nose piece. Not cheap though, I think my pair came in around £180.
Overall I am pleased with them, and will probably get another set of lens (probably orange) for the days which are a bit grey. If you are interested in a pair, try over here.
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