UKC

Hi. After a fun commute in which I got passenger doored, a pedestrian eased her way through buses to step out in right in front of me and a car turning left clobbered me, I’ve decided I need a camera to record the fun and ward-off lawyers and lynchmobs.

I already run lights in top of my helmet so I was thinking handlebar mounted but wonder if footage might be a bit shakey. 
 

Can anybody recommend a camera, answer my handlebar concern and/or tell me if I need a rear camera too. I’m not putting anything on you tube or vlogging so  cheap rather than quality is the order of the day.

Thanks

It's a sad state of affairs when you have to record all your rides. I've considered doing so myself for all the same reasons you mention but I ride for pleasure and this just seems to suck the pleasure out of it.

I've got a handlebar mounted drift ghost, not the cheapest but adequate footage and a decent battery life. 

I have a cyliq fly 6 at the back and the fly 12 at the front. As products both are good - picture quality is good, lights are good, battery life is good, build quality is good. As a company tho cyliq is terrible - I ordered (and paid for 2 day delivery) in Nov (black friday), I think i finally got the second light (the fly 12) in September the next year!

On balance i'd avoid, unless I could find evidence the company had sorted their delivery issues.

Also, not cheap.

Edit: one annoying thing - the front light is poorly shielded so intefers with my wahoo bolt - apparently less bad with some garmins.

I'm running a Veho Muvi K2 NPNG on a K-Edge bar mount.

I've also got the same camera set up on a K-Edge saddle rail mount for the rear, but haven't got round to using it (had issues with the camera GoPro-style mount attaching to the K-Edge mount - now resolved with a bit of sandpaper!).

All sourced via eBay.

Image quality is good enough and not shaky - you can make out number plates and so on, as the mount is solid. If you want better images, there's a K2 Pro, but it doesn't come with the waterproof case. The nice thing is you can swap batteries if it runs out, unlike some others.

The problem with the bar mount is that it is a bit low if you're trying to get the image of a driver and it doesn't look sideways. Helmet mounted is better for that, but then it waggles around all over the place as you move your head.

I had Cycliq fly cameras, when they worked they were brilliant but first went wrong, took 6 months to get replacement which then went wrong within 6 months. I gave up with them, bit the bullet and got a teentok camera which is brilliant. Much better life than fly and no problems with it so far

Agree with regard to helmet mounted cameras: the footage from those is often quite nausea-inducing.  However, I find that the footage from bar mounted cameras is also distractingly wobbly.  Anyone who thinks that you only turn the bars to steer round corners doesn't really understand how bikes work.  The footage from my seatpost mounted rear camera (an early Fly 6*) is rock steady in comparison to that from the Fly12 that I had for a while and then sold on.

For my forward-facing camera I use a GoPro-style clip mount that wraps around one of the shoulder straps on my rucksack.  That gives me much more stable video, which also helps with making out registration numbers and the like.  (It also means that the camera doubles as a body-worn camera should the incident end up as a face-to-face confrontation.)  It shouldn't matter if your camera of choice doesn't have a GoPro-style fitting: there are scores of different types of adaptors available through the bay of E, the big river and other such online marketplaces.  There are certainly GoPro⟷Garmin adaptors available - I have a few examples myself.  (FWIW, the search string that seems to get the best hits for rucksack strap camera mounts is "rucksack strap camera mount".  Who'd have thought it?)

I think the OP is mistaken is referring to such devices as "safety cameras", as I don't believe that they contribute to increased safety in any way.  For every driver who might spot your camera and think twice about pulling out in front of you, there will be another one for whom it triggers a "bl00dy cyclists wouldn't need a camera if they didn't ride dangerously all the time*" rage.  I regard mine simply as a means for collecting evidence to establish fault in the event of an incident.  Much like the dashcam in my car, in fact.

* Which often seems to mean having the temerity to ride on the same road that they want to drive on (usually illegally fast and with significant lack of consideration towards other road users).

I got doored once (ouch, you have my sympathy) in 5+ years of the various daily hazards but no other collisions so two collisions (doored & clobbered?) and one near miss (pedestrian?) in one commute is shocking and has to be incredibly rare. Multiple hazards (mostly human) encountered but dodged daily is closer to the norm.   

Victim blaming alert. Sorry.

"a pedestrian eased her way through buses to step out in right in front of me" - would I be right in thinking pedestrian legally crossing road through stationary buses and you were legally overtaking stationary buses and/or legally filtering through heavy slow/stationary traffic? If that's the case then pedestrian (bus passenger?) is an obvious hazard to anticipate.

I got doored (extremely painful) filtering between parked cars on my left and stationary traffic jam to my right from which a kid opened rear passenger door. If moving in the "door zone" all you can do is slow down for a less painful impact. I doubt there is time to react.  

Left hook, like the other two examples above, not your fault as somebody turning left is supposed to look. However, was there anything you could have done differently?

What was different about this day? Were you distracted or in a hurry? Why did your hazard perception and defensive riding skills that normally keep you safe fail you two or three times on this special day? 

Alternatively this day was just statistically incredibly rare bad luck as otherwise you would already be an ex-commuter due to injury or worse.

I think elsewhere has a good point really. Something wasn't going well. Perhaps it was more than bad luck? It is always really important to think what contribution might come from yourself. That's regardless of whether or not you were sticking to the highway code- a camera won't keep you out of AED, nor will you following the rules if others don't. Getting from A to B safely is the point, not being right. Although I don't cycle so much my wife does, everyday 13 miles each way and one of her colleagues has a similar commute. Her colleague has had about 5 crashes. These have more or less all occurred on quite specific days- usually with poor weather- fog, rain and ice. I suspect that some also when she might have been a bit worse for wear. Wife's colleague also takes a very different and much less bike friendly route and tends to cycle with headphones. What could possibly go wrong? (Wife won't cycle to work with her anymore- but they do go out regularly on their road bikes).

Please don't take any of this as negative, I know everyone on the thread wants you to be safe, I certainly do.

My wife has a front and rear camera for her horse riding, I was a bit skeptical at £180 or so but the quality is brilliant, it’ll convert it to 360 degree for VR too if you want to relive anything ‘in person’ 😅 I can’t remember the brand name off the top of my head but can find out if you’re interested.

Can you find out please?

I'm in this market, and reviewed of all products are mixed, or have significant compromises of pros&cons..

Was keen for cycliqs fly 12 & 6's but they seem unavailable / out of stock anywhere. 

I've just had a look and it's a Techalogic DC-1.

Ta Philip

Oh, I've checked out that one before: it's the one like a huge bent telescope on a tall stand on top of the helmet! But cumbersome looking and conspicuous for my liking, but goo to know the quality's good. Cheers. Not crossed off entirely!

My wife just has hers on an elasticised strap around her helmet.. no stand to speak of! The entire camera (just) fits on the palm of my (small-ish) hand so far from massive, essentially it's two GoPros back to back so you're always going to have a small amount of give if you need front and back camera in one unit

Oh ok, looks much bigger on the pics I've seen! Sounds good actually, but Anyway, not sure I want to stand out that much, as there's a certain type of driver on my commute ( not if I head in the opposite directions, out to the countryside,.. in fact, only when I leave Saddleworth and cross into Lees/Oldham , and then getting progressively worse through each neighborhood towards north Manchester) who seem to target cyclists with deliberate intent to intimidate at the very least, if not provoke into conflict..

I'm fancying the Techalogic CF-1 and CR-1 as a combo, which have (puny) lights incorporated like the Cycliq fly's, but about a third of the price. (and available). I wouldn't be using the lights, got decent ones anyway, but they seem amongst the best pick for value loop recording cameras. Any experience of them, anyone?

Or of the cheap chilli bullet cams I see advertised everywhere?