Bike Camera - both camera and setup recs wanted
August 10, 2020 10:52 AM   Subscribe

After four near-misses of drivers almost hitting me on my cycle home this evening, I think it's time to get a bike camera. It seems that having both a forward facing one and a rear-facing one is the way to go, but I'm totally new to this and would appreciate any advice. Previous questions on this are several years old, so I'm thinking that options might have changed. I'm in the UK, as this might change availability of some options.

To pre-empt some of the points that came up in previous questions about this:
- I know that a camera will not stop anyone hitting me, this is so if some ******* does I can find out who it was.
- I have lights, am covered in reflectors, and my height plus preferred cycling position leaves me able to see over the top of most cars. If you can't see me you probably shouldn't be driving.
- I both drive and cycle the same route on different days. As a driver, the drivers getting close to me on my bike have zero excuse.
- I have both a helmet and insurance.
posted by Vortisaur to Travel & Transportation (9 answers total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
For the last couple of years, I've run a Cycliq Fly 12 on the front and Fly 6 on the back.

https://cycliq.com/bike-cameras/?v=3e8d115eb4b3

I like the integrated, rechargeable lights. I also like the incident save feature where the camera will save the footage before and after it detects a fall. The lights are bright enough to pick up license plates at night. The biggest con is the price.

The microSD card that came with the device was small, so I upgraded so I could record entire rides. That isn't necessary for safety, just a nice to have.

I ended up buying a few extra cards for a cycling vacation in the Netherlands last year. There wasn't a stabilization feature for going over cobblestones, but that wasn't and isn't my biggest concern. :)
posted by TORunner at 11:07 AM on August 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


The Cycliq is the only bike-specific "dashcam" that I know of. I don't have one myself, but I've seen a lot of reports that it is not very durable. A fair number of people use one or another GoPro as dashcams, although you'd need two for front and rear coverage, of course.
posted by adamrice at 11:15 AM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


I use a cheap Dragon Touch 4K Action Camera with a 32GB SD card for my front camera; I don't have a rear, and I'm curious if others have suggestions (racks tend to be a lot narrower than handlebars with less satisfactory mounting options). I just record entire rides and purge old recordings routinely; it doesn't have any sort of incident-detection. This camera came with halfway decent handlebar-mounting hardware and a waterproof case.

It's a bit fussy to remember to turn it on at the beginning of rides and off at the end, and I still occasionally find myself with a dead battery or a full SD card when I'm hoping to ride. It comes with a spare battery, so if you keep it charged then even that sort of carelessness doesn't have to be a problem.
posted by jackbishop at 12:25 PM on August 10, 2020


I brought a rear facing camera/ light from Aldi in one of their cycling specials a few years ago. Mounted on a rack for my commute mainly because I was/am fed up with close passes.
It’s OK, could use some image stabilisation - I believe you can do this in software afterwards, bUt that’s a hassle. Similarly smart phone playback without having to hook up to PC first would have been a timesaver.

I used it a few times but realised the footage was of limited use, local police aren’t interested and the majority of my close passes are careless rather than malicious. It did stop me forking out for a more expensive option so did the job I needed it to I suppose. I am also in the UK and would be happy to send it to you if you wanted to see how useful you actually find one before investing.
posted by paulash at 1:49 PM on August 10, 2020


I wouldn't spend more than Dragon-Touch kind of money unless I was reasonably confident that local police actually bothered to enforce traffic laws in some meaningful way when a cyclist was injured. Cycliq cameras would be a waste of money in Toronto, for example.
posted by mhoye at 2:15 PM on August 10, 2020


Some friends ride with cameras and are still looking for the balance of detail to capture number plates in ways that the Police will take on. (There's YouTube channels and tweet # tags for 'cyclist near miss' if you want to be triggered.)

A GoPro Session 4 worked reliably and provided good stabilised video when on the helmet of a cyclist friend for their commute. Upgrades mean it's now their rear-facing camera. The GoPro Hero 6, 7 & 8 seem to have some overheating and battery life issues, both they and internet forums report, so inside the GoPro ecosystem they're going for a Session 5 instead of (holding out for) another Hero.
posted by k3ninho at 12:49 AM on August 11, 2020


I run Cycliq front and rear cameras as well. For commuting, I'm currently using a bike that has dynamo lights built in, so I leave the lights on the cameras off.

They work pretty well, and I like not having to figure out how to mount them on my body or helmet. However, the process of getting video off them is not always as fast and easy as I'd like, and night performance is not great even when I've got the included lights on (this is a problem with cameras in low light in general.)

They definitely serve the intended purpose of keeping me from spraining my wrist or worse while trying to snap a photo with my phone of yet another driver who tried to kill me, and are occasionally useful for other things. And sometimes I capture wildlife with the camera and that's always awesome even if the video quality's not amazing. Local law enforcement is not especially interested in even informing dangerous drivers of the law, much less actually enforcing the law. If I'm ever seriously injured or worse, I figure having a record could be useful.

I will say that I've been using a new route since the pandemic started and have found that attaching a stiff-but-flexible flag (it's from my cargo trailer) to stick out horizontally from my rear rack has been awesome. Drivers seem to be a lot more worried about scratching their paint on my little stick than they usually are about maiming me (alternative explanation: they all just have such horrible depth perception and ability to estimate distances that they shouldn't be driving), so they give me more space and life is just generally more pleasant.

There are commercially-available flags for this purpose, but they're all smaller than I wanted and not compatible with my usual panniers. I've got a spring trap thingy on the top of my rear rack so that holds it in place well, but not so securely that I'd worry if someone were to hit the flag with their car (beyond the fact that if they can do that they are Much Too Close). I've hit bollards with the thing myself with no problem at all. Some people like foam pool noodles over flags for this, but those look much sillier and don't collapse as well as my flag does.
posted by asperity at 2:34 PM on August 11, 2020


One addition: I know some people who ride at least occasionally with 360-degree cameras, mounted on handlebars or on the fork or frame. I've had one recommendation for an Insta360 One R Twin camera, but haven't tried it myself and I'm not sure how well it would work to capture usable front and rear video that would include license plates etc. It looks like they've gotten better since I bought my Cycliq pair, and could end up being cheaper and simpler to use than two separate cameras.
posted by asperity at 2:52 PM on August 11, 2020


A couple of other factors: how long is your commute, and is it often in the dark?

I started out with an older GoPro and now have a GoPro 7. In between, I had a cheap GoPro knockoff.

The video quality of even the older GoPro was great, and the 7 does 4k. The cheaper knockoff had ok video quality, but the video was a lot shakier and it absolutely was worthless for recording plates at night. The GoPros are better at night, but not great. I only get a few hours of recording on the GoPro whereas the Cycliqs run longer. I got a high capacity video card for the GoPro, but the Cycliqs can just keep recording in a loop so you don't have to worry about forgetting to erase video. If I was starting from scratch today and wanted both front and rear, I'd probably go with the Cycliqs or research 360º cameras (so you only need one camera).

A good guide I saw on Twitter this week

Looking at a DJI OSMO on YouTube

If you want to see my videos on YouTube to check quality, I won't self link but my channel name is Spacebike and the profile pic is a bright orange bike (that you can see from space).

One thing I've learned is to read out any part of a license plate you want to report. Often if the video is a bit fuzzy on one or two numbers the audio will fill in the blanks.
posted by mikepop at 12:19 PM on August 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


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