A dad n lad adventure in Cong Burn Woods

Kyle (my son) and I set off around 10'ish this morning on my bikes.
I'm still loaning my Ibis Mojo to Kyle until he can afford to get himself his own ride (of course would help if he could get a job to start saving towards one)

We headed over to, then through Craghead and continued down to Black House and up towards Edmondsley bank. At the top of Edmondsley bank we turned left and went down towards Waldridge and the fells.

I had intended to ride in some woodland at the back of the fell, but noticed various No horse riding and No cyclists signs. These signs have been put up when Durham County Council took over all the district councils so I have heard. It's a real shame as there are some really nice trails to ride and to be fair the majority of mountain bikers who use trails such as these actually take a pride in the area and look after the place.

 Ah well never mind, so it was a case of a small detour and we found ourselves at the start to a trail leading into Cong Burn Woods which we could ride.

Dad n Lad, WoW that Tree was slippy nearly set me neck lol

I've walked through Cong Burn Woods a few times with Mr Hinks and I have ridden through on my bike, but from the opposite direction, but have never actually been on some of the trails we found today. The woods are pretty big so it was real fun exploring different routes.

I shot more footage of our outing today and if you watch it you will see what a great time we were both having. I haven't laughed so much in ages, especially when Kyle went in a really deep water filled hole and then afterwards which you can't really see on video, (you will hear me laughing on camera) he tumbled off his bike coming down a gulley which the recent floods had made down a steep hill (excuse my language as it was pretty hairy as the ground was muddy, uneven and it was hard riding in the water made channel)





After we finished off at Cong Burn, we headed back over towards Chester -Le- Street and up towards Stellar Gill Industrial estate, where we cut through and joined the C2C route. A quick ride up to the Kings Head Statue or sculpture or whatever it is and we broke out the Cornbeef and Jam sandwiches, Ooh and a banana a piece. Then it was a steady ride home. Covered just under 20 miles, but what a fun filled 20 miles.

Kyle posing on the makeshift tripod I constructed

The tripod I engineered, even stood up lol

Did some canny jumps off this bit of the trail

Had a bit mess about with CS6

Nice and Vibrant

Kyle coming down the trail

Ooh bright T-shirt Kyle

One of Kyle's pedals bit him : (

A little review of the Magic Arm + Super Clamp

I decided to go out and shoot a small video today so thought it was the ideal opportunity to try out the Magic Arm and Super Clamp I've just purchased off eBay.

 Ok so as stated in an earlier post I opted for the 11"inch Magic Arm, there is also a 7" available. I know women always say the extra few inches don't matter, but I just felt the extra reach would help enable me to get some better shots and angles.

I'll start with the clamp... I'm not sure if there are slightly bigger clamps available (as in jaw size), the one I got opens to 5.5cm's, this is just a fraction to small to fit around the downtube of my bike. Never mind you could always do what I do and just use your GoPro helmet strap for this area. The clamp seems to fit all other places I tried it (well apart from my fork legs which are quite wide). I found the clamp nips up really well and is solid. Down side it is a little bulky I would hate to see anyone have a spill and the clamp dent their frame. I mean this is a solid piece of metal not your usual plastic GoPro type clamp. The jaws of the clamp come with rubber protectors, so this helps with not scratching your frame.

The Magic Arm. I really love how the Arm adjusts. It has 2 swivel heads, one either end of each arm. One arm you pop your GoPro or Contour or whatever camera you use on to. I bought a GoPro camera mount, the type you can fit to say a tripod or GoPro pole. The other end fits into the clamp. In the middle of the 2 arms is a knob that you can turn and hears the really clever bit, you adjust the arm from that one knob. So say the knob is slack the arms move around easily for adjustment. Tightening the knob tightens both arms and both swivel heads. The angles you can get are infinite, really it's just a case of experimenting. You can even do as i did today and fasten the arm to other stuff so you can get a ride by at an unusual angle. I secured it to a tree branch for an overhead shot.

Top tip.....make sure you tighten your Magic Arm into the clamp securely, you can use a small spanner to do this, also make sure you do likewise with your camera mount at the other end, though this can be done by hand using the knurled threaded washer. On today's testing my Magic Arm was keep dropping, nothing to do with the design, it was my own fault I hadn't tightened the clamp to the arm before setting out.

Overall I think this is a great bit of kit.....

Positives +     get some great angles, sturdy design, ease of use.

Negatives -   Watch you don't have this on your bike and take a spill, it could damage your frame depending on where you have it.

If there's anything else you would like to know just drop me a line, like I say I got my Magic Arm off eBay. It arrived in like 2 or 3 days.

Sunrise Secret

Checked the weather forecast last night and it said today should be a nice day, well in the morning at least. So I got my gear ready as I had a plan to shoot a bit of video at an area your not really supposed to ride the following morning. I asked wor Kyle and my dad if they fancied a look out with me to help take some shots, explaining I would be getting up at around 5:00am so as I could be at the undisclosed location at 5:49 for the sunrise. They both said they would come along. I think it's mainly to try catching me falling off my bike so they can have a good laugh about it lol.

The sunrise was very pretty,well worth getting up for....

A Beautiful Sunrise

Really enjoyed playing about on my Sandman, it's fantastic when you can find a nice bit of trail to ride, it's just a shame this area your not supposed to use a bike on.

Check out further on for more pic's and a movie I made of today's adventure
 

GoPro Backpack Pole Mount

Whilst checking out Youtube for new and interesting stuff I came across this....

I've seen various short video's on the making of these backpack mounts, and think they are an excellent way of getting some really neat camera angles.

Rodger Dean has decided to take the idea one step further and try and manufacture and  sell his VuVantage Backpack mount as a complete unit. Rodger is using top end materials and like he says

 "You could buy parts of this product And still, no third person perspective"

I spoke to Rodger via email and he informed me his "Kickstarter project" wasn't going as quick as he planned but he does have a back up plan which is good to hear.

I for one would like to get my hands on one of his designs and go out and make a  movie you would hopefully find interesting, with some unusual camera angles.

Checkout the link below for more info

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vuvantage/backpack-pole-mount-for-action-cameras-gopro-or-co 

11"inch Variable Friction Magic Arm + Super Clamp

I've just ordered one of these off eBay.

It's an 11"inch Variable Friction Magic Arm + Super Clamp. I'm going to use it to attach my GoPro in various positions whilst I'm out taking video's, so hopefully get some nice unusual shots.

Adam the camera man from the BBC recommended it to me, so thanks for that Adam. It's a lot easier than fiddling with my current GoPro set up of attaching various mounts together to get an arm you can adjust. With the magic arm you can pop it where you want a with one turn of the screw it locks the whole arm in position.

Re -Magic Arm + Clamp

WoW that was pretty quick the Magic Arm arrived today. It's a very sturdy bit of kit and should make for some great angles, "watch this space" .My only concern is that the arm is so sturdy when it's clamped in place thatit could possibly dent or bend my frame in the event of a spill. This is something I'm going to have to keep an eye on.

Can't wait to see what angles and interesting shots I can get. I've got a covert movie making session planned  que evil laugh"Muhahahaha".

I will do a full review of the Magic Arm after I test it out, should be fun....

To ride or not to ride that is the question?

As the title says "To ride or not to ride, that is the question". Ok so whilst out for a walk with Ern (my dad) and Mr Hinks our slightly fruit cake of an English Bull terrier, we ventured out to an area which I won't disclose for a walk.

Though I had been to this place before I hadn't really explored it, however on having a look around yesterday I thought "wow this would make an awesome place to shoot a short Fat Bike movie". Now here's my dilemma, the actual place I'm talking about has signs up saying "No Horses or cycling". So on the one hand as a law abiding citizen the little angel on my shoulder is saying "No stick to the rules", yet on the other shoulder my little devil is saying " Be a rebel just go for it". I mean if I did go ride the trail I have seen it would be very early in the morning I'd like to catch a nice sunrise. Also I wouldn't be riding this area on a regular basis it would be a one off, just to get the shot I'm after.

So I don't know what to do, guess I'm looking for input from people, what do you think? Am I seriously impacting on the eco system by riding maybe an hour or two in this area. What will happen if I get caught will I be slapped with an Asbo or have to face criminal proceedings.

After a slightly elusive sunrise

I'm determined to catch a nice, or should I say beautiful sunrise. So far I've failed in my last couple of attempts. I used to be up at the crack of dawn when I worked as a postman, but that was years ago, before I became ill with my leg. Since then well I can find myself in bed till all hours of the morning and don't get to catch too many sunrises. Just lately however I've been getting up at silly o'clock like this morning for instance 4:00 AM and heading out on my bike.

 Last night I checked the weather on-line for our local area and from what I read I thought it was going to be a canny morning.......how wrong was I ? I had intended riding up to Consett to catch the sun coming up over the Hownsgill Viaduct and shoot a small movie with my GoPro.  Well to cut a long story short the weather was pants, very dull, lots of clouds, mostly of the miserable variety. I decided I wasn't going to let this ruin my day. So Kyle my son who had joined me on this early morning adventure thought about where we could go and capture a few photo's and a bit of movie footage. We decided to head towards Waskerley and the reservoir as we hadn't actually visited it before.

Once you start to get up into the moors and the area opens up, it's so beautiful over there. It's so peaceful down by the reservoir. I rode right down to the edge of the reservoir and got a little bit of footage and even had a bit plodge in the water at one point to capture some pics of my bike at the waters edge. I reckon we did around 35 miles or so today and had a really enjoyable time, even if the weather was caca doo doo.

 Oh one thing I'm not happy with is my new cycling shorts, the lycra padded variety. I bought a pair of Funkier 8 panel gel filled shorts thinking they would help me out in those long rides in the saddle. Boy how wrong was I, these particular brand or design of shorts are so uncomfortable for me and have actually chaffed me pretty bad on both my good side and socket side, so I think I'm going to have to invest in another pair from a different manufacturer. I've been sore in the saddle before but not like this Ouch lol !!!!

Here's a few photo's from today

I saw that some kind of work was being carried out on the Hownsgill Viaduct as there was a few barriers up. I then spotted this notice when heading over towards Waskerley Way near the farm.

Apparently some sort of fencing is being put in place in the hope it will stop people committing suicide off the viaduct, as it is a pretty well known area for people to actually jump off.

A Notice of work being carried out on the Hownsgill Viaduct

Me playing on my Sandman coming down a trail near the Viaduct

Kyle and me on our way up to Waskerley. Rowley Station was actually dismantled brick by brick and is now at Beamish Open Air Museum

Yeah I know it's just a gate, but the sky and trail leading off into the distance caught my imagination so I thought why not take a snap

Here are a few shots which I experimented with using different camera settings and a filter I got of my good friend Adrian. I took quite a flot of shots,  didn't want to bore you so only put up a few....

Sandman Hoggar Ti at the shore line of Waskerley Reservoir

In at the deep end lol

The sky was quite heavy with clouds, added to the shot though