Short motorbike trip
 

I would love to make a video of a long motorcycle trip to a far away country but unfortunately because of the covid missery, I can not do that.
So the video's I make now are about trips in my own area.

So maybe you like to see how riding in my part of the Netherlands is.
https://youtu.be/2mBM9O1axn0

Under our Covid restrictions I'm not sure I could even do short trips round here at the moment - unless they were 'justified' in some form or another (going to work, supermarket etc).

Are you filming the ride using the helmet mount you 3D printed? It looks as though it works well but (as far as I'm aware anyway) the only commercially available alternative is either a chest mount or one that glues to the side of your helmet. Do you have any way of stopping / starting the camera as you go or is it a case of filming everything and editing afterwards? I only ask because I'm trying to work out an easy method of using GoPro's for a trip I'm planning for this summer (Covid notwithstanding). I've been using them for years but every time its been hard to operate them on the move.

What part of NL are you in? My son was at Amsterdam University for three years some time back so we got to know the area round the city quite well.

I have used GoPros that I have run off the GoPro app on my phone reasonably successfully - they biggest problems I had were firstly taking the phone too far from the camera to operate it and it seeming to take an age to resych (my fault entirely) and secondly battery life as both camera and phone are “running” the whole time (it may possible to keep both on charge when on the bike).

Personally, I wouldn’t like to operate the camera as it would, IMHO, be too much of a distraction from the business of riding safely during the actual filming. Starting / stopping the filming would be straightforward as long as the screen would operate under the ouch of the gloved fingers. Perhaps something for a pillion to do so no safety distractions.

The phone app works well under certain conditions. I've used it professionally to both film and take stills of events I've been at, but universally it was under 'easy to use' conditions - i.e. when I could use both hands walking around. That's not going to be the case on a bike. A lot of 'virtual buttons' (on a phone screen for example) become unresponsive if you're wearing gloves or your finger's wobbling or either your finger or the screen is wet - all common bike scenarios. I ran a 1/2 marathon last March where it rained on the start line and it took a good five minutes to get the start button on my Apple watch to respond.

I've got a GoPro remote that has actual buttons to press to start and stop the camera and that works well but again, using it on a bike is awkward. I filmed this sequence a few years ago with the remote hanging round my neck on a lanyard -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nFf6fKenaM

Actually finding the remote as the wind moved it around was the hard part. If it had been in a fixed position it would have been easier but that's with the advantage of hindsight. Giving it to the pillion (if you have one) is better but you lose a bit of 'the director's vision'. When we were touring Canada a few years ago I tried that approach but we ended up with some very odd bits of film where the stop start instructions got lost between rider and pillion.

Some of the newer GoPro's have voice control (mine are all old ones) but I don't suppose that works well on a bike with all the wind / ambient noise.

Yes, that is the one I use. I don't want to glue something on my helmet and this one is attached with velcro so I can very easy remove it without a trace.
It works fine for me. The only downside is thjat I can not close my visor completely but most of the time I ride with my visor completely open.

I can stop en start with the buton on top of the protective housing but for now I film everything and edit on the PC. For longer trips, I will use the start stop button because I don't want to edit eight hours of video. Specialy not because I often use two camera's so that would be twelve batteries, a lot om SD cards and hours and hours work.

I also have a RAM mount on the handlebars with a bar where I can mount two GoPro's, one pointing at me and one pointing at the road in front of me. They are easiers to manage while riding.

I live in the South West of the Netherlands in the province Noord-Brabant. Where I live is close to the border of the province Zeeland en to the border with our neigbouring country Belgium.

There has to be a better way than manually pressing the buttons. Even using the remote is fraught with problems while you're riding. Ideally the cameras would be linked (bluetooth or something) to either a dedicated button on the handlebars (like repurposing the horn button for example) or to something like a voice command through an intercom. If I can get my phone - or even my watch - to make calls by voice command while I'm running it can't be that much of a stretch to get a GoPro to start and stop while I'm riding.

Having to stop every time I want to get the camera to start means that all that's recorded are the easy bits. I have so many photographs of US gas stations from our various trips there because they were the only places I could get the camera to work.

Anyone else got any GoPro workarounds ?