A new toy

California winter

Although it’s winter, and pretty cold, I’m lucky enough to live in California.  There are nice riding days in winter, though it can get cold.  I got an electric jacket and a GoPro I wanted to try out, so on a warmish, sunny day, my BFG and I went out.  We both needed gasoline, so we decided to run into town to the gas station, fill up and then take the scenic route home.  It’s a good thing we don’t live close to town, because even getting gas can be a fun ride!

Air

When you don’t ride a lot, and even when you do, your tires have a tendency to lose air.  I don’t know where it goes when there’s no holes, but it goes.  I needed air in both my front and rear tire and Glenn did too.  I tried my little travel compressor and Glenn used the big one we’ve here at home.  His filling up was a lot quicker, but my little compressor got the job done.  Once the bikes were ready, we put on all the gear and tried to link our com system.  While we were waiting, I turned in my electric jacket.  Even though I set it to low, it got really warm just sitting in the driveway!  Holy smokes!  It was only about 55 degrees Fahrenheit, so it was chilly, but I started to sweat.  At least I knew it would keep me warm.  And I only had a T-shirt on underneath it, though my motorcycle jacket and liner were over it.

GoPro

Our coms finally connected and we took off.  I started the GoPro right before we left and it began recording.  I had no idea how the video would come out, or how the sound would go, given I didn’t have an external mic yet.  The video came out amazingly!  The angle was great, though my dashboard and the front of my bike is in the frame.  The road is clearly viewed, and as long as the windshield is clean, my phone, GPS, dash and road are viewed very well.  I’m super pleased.  The sound, as expected, was terrible.  Only wind noise.

While there was nothing great to see on our ride, I wasn’t really taking video for that purpose.  I wanted to try out the camera, the mount, and the angle to see how it would come out on my trip.  I also want to try to put the videos on the portable hard drive, load them to my Google Drive so they can be edited, and download the edited versions to post to the blog.  When you don’t know how to do stuff, there is a lot of learning to be done.  I am not the quickest to learn something new, especially when I’m searching the interwebs to learn, so I need some time.

Anxiety and practice

I also used the ride to keep practicing my techniques.  I’m really working on smooth stops and slow speed maneuvering.  I got the slow speed down our dirt road and at the gas station, and the stops throughout the ride.  I’m super happy with how much better I’ve gotten stopping this bike.  Man, I don’t know if anyone else deals with this, but I build things up in my head and they get so HUGE.  Like the stopping.  When I’m not riding my bike, but thinking about it, she seems so huge and heavy and I feel like I can’t control her.  If I’m not careful, I believe it when I’m on the bike.  Then, when I got to stop the bike at a sign or light, I think to myself that I can’t hold it up or that I might drop it and nothing goes smoothly.  Maybe this is only what happens to people that have anxiety, but I’m getting better just by focusing on technique.

Things went well on our ride and I got some decent video.  The sound was awful, because there was only to GoPro mic.  I will play with the settings a bit on the video to see what works best, and I’ve not got an external mic that I wired up into my helmet.  The next ride I’ll try different settings and test out the new mic.  It’s fun getting to try new things.

Check out the video!