Fly12, a great safety camera or just a gimmick?

Update 5/05/2017

K-Edge are warning K-Edge XL Combo mounts to not be used with the Fly12. I had one of the original designs snap on me. As the Cycliq supplied handlebar mount is useless (does not position the camera out the front or in the middle) I now have a serious problem. I am trying to find an alternate but it looks as though I will have to use two K-Edge mounts, one for the Garmin and one for the Fly12. 

TL;DR buggy, heavy and expensive but solidly built and worth purchasing. 

As a cyclist who has tried a lot of cameras, given a lot of footage to police to report close shaves and near accidents, I was intrigued with the Fly12. I have tried other cameras but have always come back to the GoPro. Recently one of my GoPros died, so I looked at the Fly12. My first shock was the price. You can buy a GoPro 5 Black for the same price. (10/01/2017 Fly12 - cycliq.com.au AUD$499 and GoPro5 Black - digitalcamerawarehouse.com.au AUD$498). However the reported long life of the battery (claimed up to 10 hours of recording) swayed me. So I purchased it (from Pushys on special for $479). I purchased the SanDisk 64GB Ultra MicroSDXC Memory Card from Officeworks. Currently (22/02/2017) they are AUD$29.99. To me, anything less than a 64GB card in a camera is not sufficient. The Fly12 comes with a 16GB memory card.

Once I received the camera, I had to do a double take. It is a lot bigger than I expected it to be. It is also quite heavy (244g) but fantastic quality in the build. Having the light built into the camera frees up handlebar real estate so you’ll forgive the weight.

It comes with an assortment of accessories such as cables, a lanyard and a mount. I would strongly suggest using an XL K-Edge combo instead. Even if you do not have a Garmin 1000, you’ll need the space as this camera pushes your cables.

 

Charging the Fly12, do not charge the Fly12 from your computer. It takes about 20 hours to charge. Use a universal USB power point charger (not supplied). Any of them will do. This cuts the charge time down to a few hours if fully flat. Take note, look carefully at the microUSB port and you’ll see the charge light. Red for charging and green for fully charged. I first assumed the LED on top of the camera also related to charging. Not the case. As a side note, if you mount the Fly12 on a K-Edge type Garmin/GoPro mount, the LED is on the bottom so you have no notifications as to whether the camera is working or not, more on that later.

So, you have it mounted, charged and want to go for a ride. Well, if you are using the default settings (which are pretty good settings), just press the power button in and wait for the power on chime and then let the power button go. If at any stage you want to change which light setting is being used (solid, pulsing and flashing and brightness variants of each) just a quick press on the power button and the light setting will change. Now this sounds easy but I refer you back to the photo of how close the back of the Fly12 is tucked into the cables. Not so easy. As the power and wifi buttons are both black, remembering which is which takes a while, since you can’t see them anyway.

So what is the footage like? The footage is really crisp and you can easily see registration plates on cars. A must for a safety camera on a bike. 

The ability to overlay “tram lines” is a must for a safety camera. The main complaint I consistently get from police when I send in footage with my statements regarding an incident is how can they easily tell a lawyer whether a car is less than a metre or not? You can set the distance to 1m or 1.5m (about 3 foot or 5 foot). It works really well. However, you can only apply tramlines if you use the Cycliq Plus smartphone app (available for Android and iPhone).

Notice the registration plate on the parked car? The footage really does enhance rego plates nicely. The car on the left is parked and the truck is passing me. The tram lines clearly show the driver has given me sufficient room. I have the tram lines set to 1 metre.

A note about the app. Firstly, it takes some getting used to. There is a vast amount of configuring you can do, you can also review footage, connect it to Strava and use overlays (which work brilliantly) and a number of other things. The one thing you should not do, even though you can, is to start recording from the app. All sorts of problems ensue however I believe this is due to the bugs you will discover. I do not know why but this camera has been out for quite a while now yet it is still prone to bugs. By this I mean the camera does strange things including configuration corruption, not powering off properly and not able to connect via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. You will very quickly get used to the Master Reset button. A configuration text file is kept on the memory card and with a reset it wipes everything in memory (not the contents of the memory card) and reconfigures the Fly12 after reading in the text file with your preferred settings. The reason I have taken so long to write this review is the amount of times I have had to use the reset button. The first time I had to use it, the camera ran flat and would not charge at all until the reset was performed. The second time I had to do it, the camera decided to go into “race mode” (all LEDs disabled) without any changes made by me. I had simply tried to power it off. Instead, the next morning I picked the Fly12 up to go riding, it was unusually warm and wouldn’t power on. A reset fixed it, of course I had to recharge it and could not use it on my ride that morning. Other times I have had to use the reset button as I could not connect via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to the camera. 

However, here is a major bugbear of mine. If you are going to place a small hole to place something in to reset a device, for the love of every deity, make it big enough to fit a paperclip in the hole. I ended up using the clip which comes with iPhones to remove a SIM as a straightened paperclip would not fit.

So some more of my complaints about the Fly12:

• Everyone talks about the lack of LED to indicate the camera is recording. I agree. Having to use your smartphone to check it is recording is ridiculous and dangerous. I understand the reasons but do not agree with them.

• No idea what level your battery charge is at, not even on the app.

• Surely the app should have the ability to turn on and off the light?

• With the light flashing (not pulsing or on full), you only get 6 hrs 40 mins of battery life. This sounds a lot but when the claim on the box is 10 hours, it is disappointing. With the light on pulse, I only got just over 4 hours of battery life.

• From the manual: "Capture/Incident protection: If you witness an event that you want to capture and retain when riding, simply press the WiFi button briefly. This will lock the current and previous file and prevent overwriting." Again, I refer you to the photo of the Fly12 mounted with the cables against the back of it. Not well thought out.

Overall though, I really quite like the Fly12 and would be happy to suggest purchasing it over a GoPro. Unless of course GoPro reverses its decision and once again allows third party external batteries like the Brunton All Day external battery.

Greatest GoPro accessory ever?

We all love our GoPro cameras. They are the camera all other sport cameras are measured against. I have a number of GoPro cameras, including the GoPro Hero and the GoPro Hero 3. I have a vast amount of mounts as I use them in many different situations. This includes under the sea, in a car and on my bike. However, as every GoPro owner can testify to, I also have a large number of batteries. For the GoPro Hero and the GoPro Hero 2, this was fine. The internal and external batteries were the same battery. Taking extra batteries with you on long trips wasn't a problem. With the GoPro Hero 3, everything changed. The battery usage far exceeded the previous models and the different internal battery just played havoc. Officially, the new external batteries were no longer battery compartments with a battery slotting in. So the new external batteries became incredibly expensive. Unless you had a previous model external battery compartment and batteries. They were compatible. However, the internal batteries still had a problem, they were useless. 

I put up with the problem of battery charge being useless for quite a while. After a while, due to age and the number of charges, some of my external (and internal) batteries started swelling. Never a good sign with rechargeable batteries. So I started looking online for some replacements. I was stunned. If you could find batteries for the Hero 1&2, the cost was ridiculous. It was even worse for the external batteries for the 3. I would not be deterred. Then I stumbled across a game changer. The Brunton All Day Battery. It claimed to run your GoPro for about 10 hours. Yet the cost was the same as an external battery for a GoPro 3 which only added an extra hour (total 2.5 hours) if you're lucky. Yes, fine tuning the settings could get me close to 4 hours runtime with existing batteries. This is nowhere near 10 hours though. I had to have one. 

I bought mine from AbSafe (Australia) http://shop.absafe.com.au/products/Brunton-all-day-battery

As of the date of this write up, it is being listed as AUD$69.95 plus shipping. 

Now, the first thing that is not obvious. I have a GoPro 3, not a GoPro 3+. The camera sizing is identical. The housing is not. So I purchased a cheap GoPro 3+ copy housing. It will not fit the the 3 housing but the 3 camera will fit into the required 3+ housing. 

I have a 64GB card in this camera. So testing the battery was not going to be a problem. The largest ride I went on (including coffee shop breaks) was six hours. I left the camera running the whole time and I still had to power it off when I got home. With all of the settings tuned for minimum battery usage (720, 30fps, etc) I managed to just reach 10 hours non-stop recording. This is not a real test as I left it inside a window recording. I say it's not a real test as there was not 10 hours of daylight and it was recording night time. Recording at 1080p, I get about 8 hours of recording in the same environment. 

As I said, this is possibly the greatest GoPro accessory ever. I now have a problem though. My GoPro3 has developed a fault, it can no longer record audio. So I am looking at the GoPro4. This accessory is obviously not compatible as GoPro in their wisdom changed the internal battery yet again. From everything I am reading, it appears as though Brunton will release a 4 version but it may require a cable from the outlet to the GoPro charging input. I am not thrilled with this idea as water ingress becomes an issue. The GoPro 4 Session looks great but 1 hour of battery life? I no longer have to put up with it now I have the Brunton All Day Battery. If you have a GoPro 3/3+, you need this accessory. 

Indigo5 bicycle light

I first came across this light as a Kickstarter project. I was sick and tired of the cheap plastic lights shorting out when I rode in the rain. Those that didn't short out (designed well with charging point not pooling water) were simply not bright enough. So I became a backer. 

I opened the box, when it arrived. I was not prepared for how good this light looked. This light is "manufactured from machined aircraft grade aluminium and finished with military spec anodising". Whatever. It looks really good and really expensive. It is the Maglite of bicycle lights and I haven't even turned it on yet. 

The first thing to do is read the manual. Everything really just fits into place and is very logical. However, be warned, it does state not to use the Max light setting without travelling at least 10kph as it heats up very quickly. Fair enough. Max setting is 1800 lumen. 

A quick check to make sure it is charged. Here is the first thing you'll notice. It is not charged by a USB charger. So yet another charger in the bike shed. At first I thought this was a negative. However, as the company explained, a standard charger simply couldn't output enough power to the light to charge it in a reasonable time frame. 

So more spaghetti at the charging station :-) Take note of the red LED on the charger (one on the left). The manual states the light will turn green when charging is complete. It doesn't specify where the light is. So I was worried none of the three lights on the Indigo5 were lighting up during charging. Then I noticed the LED on the charger itself had gone from red to green and the penny dropped. 

As mentioned, the charge input connector is not a mini/micro/USB connector. The LEDs above the power connector are the power on light and indicator as to how much charge is left in the battery. 

Mounted on my bike. Make sure you mount it correctly as the first time I mounted it, my knee kept hitting it when I was out of the saddle. User error only. 

So. How bright is it? Holy Moley! It's bright. 

http://youtu.be/A_Mha8uC-48

Video I took of the four different solid light settings. 

So what do I think? The Indigo5 is to bicycle lights as GoPro is to portable sports cameras. This light looks and feels top quality and as can be seen from the video, 1800 lumen lights the whole street up. I thankfully purchased the bezel so I only light the road in front of me and don't blind oncoming traffic. I have used this in the dark and while it was raining. Even though it was covered in road grime and dripping wet, it did not feel like it was ever going to be a problem. Great for mountain bikes. 

Have a look at http://indigo.lighting for further details including the latest price. They are now selling for $249 with free shipping. In my opinion, it is well worth the price. I've even been looking forward to early morning rides so I can use the light :-)

Oh and it is an Australian company based in Adelaide. 

RidEye (black box) camera review

I heard about the RidEye camera through social media quite a long time ago. I then backed it through Kick Starter. This camera had a lot of promise so why has it taken me so long to write a review?

I have two GoPros, one for the front (Hero 3 Silver) and one for the rear (Hero 1). To be honest, when I finally received the camera, I wasn't sure if I wanted it anymore. 

However, I installed it. 

To give a fair comparison, I had them pretty much side by side. Here is some video of the comparison:

http://youtu.be/v_bUX8fbvA8

The first two things you notice are the blue hue and the vibration in the RidEye. It was raining, hence the crash. Yet the RidEye shows the sky as being blue. The mount is horrible. I did receive the newer mount but did not ever get a chance to test it. 

The RidEye was then mounted on the rear of the bike. I removed the existing mount. As I had not ordered a GoPro mount (pretty silly on my behalf) I used a K-Edge mount instead. 

Now, you may ask, why the zip tie? It is to secure the camera to the saddle in case the mount breaks (I almost lost a GoPro once when the mount broke). Just use fishing line or something similar (lanyard from a USB stick works wonderfully). 

It is mounted upside down, however the RidEye is smart enough to record upside down so the footage appears the right way up when viewing it on your computer. Pretty damn cool!!

The RidEye is designed to be like a video "black box". If it detects a knock, it will save the footage. The camera records and will not stop when the internal memory card (not replaceable or able to upgrade) is full. It simply overwrites the oldest footage. The detection of a knock (or pressing the on/off button) changes the file name so it will not ever be overwritten. As I had a 32GB model, this was never really a problem for me. 

It also has fantastic battery life. My tests (at 720) gave me a consistent 8.5 hours recording time. My GoPro 3 is lucky to last 4 hours with the extra battery attached. 

So why is the RidEye no longer being used? I certainly love the camera. However, my camera died. I had finished a group ride and wanted to use the footage to create a video but discovered the camera refused to "power" on. There is power as the blue LED works but you need it to turn red to access footage, etc. I have contacted Cedric and he is happy to replace it. I will be shipping it back to him. However I feel this camera works wonderfully as long as it never rains. The microphone holes above the lens appear to be a poor design. I have heard quite a few reports of water ingression and I believe water has killed my camera. 

So I'll be sticking with the GoPros unless I can work out a way to waterproof the RidEye.

www.rideye.com for more information or to purchase. 

iOS8 and why you should be concerned

So you've managed to finally upgrade your iPhone so it is running iOS8 and you've managed to escape or fix, the bugs. If like me, you've then set the restrictions on your iPhone so if it gets misplaced or "borrowed", you should still be able to track it down without Find My Phone being disabled. Once all of your customisations are in place, you're pretty happy, aren't you?

Then for the love of your deity, do not look at the new waste of space apps included with the system. I decided to look through the Health app. I thought it looked nifty but useless to me. Then I realised, what you too will realise. This app constantly works in the background working out how many steps you take every day and records it, without your permission! It also records how far you walk/run! Fark that!

No problem you think to yourself. I'll just disable it! Well no, you can't. This is why the picture shows no data. You can clear the data but you cannot stop it from recording, constantly, your motions. Forget all of the privacy issues here for a second (WHAT? Are you kidding me???). No, just for one second. Just think of the battery usage. Even if you couldn't care less who knows about every detail of your life, I bet you are going to get peeved off when you realise there is a useless app installed on your iPhone, which sucks on the battery and you cannot do a thing about it. Am I right? This is worse than the compulsory inclusion of the U2 album!

Yes, I am mighty peeved about the privacy problem this presents. Heck, I disabled Siri and the finger print recognition. 

Swiss Side Hadron 625 review

There has been a lot of hype about this wheel set. There has been a lot of talk about aerodynamic testing in wind tunnels and Formula 1 experience. So how does this hype relate to the experience on real bikes, on real roads?

When you first see these wheels, you can't help but admire them. They look good. Picking them up, they feel light. Taking a closer look at the carbon, it feels flimsy. It buckles when you push it. However, it is not there for strength, rather aerodynamics. Then I found something else, the holes around the spokes were not closed. Swiss Side states there is no aerodynamic benefit, so they left them as is. However, when you are paying about AUD$1000, you expect the work to look a little more polished. I was disappointed. 

I read the documentation which accompanies the wheels. Swiss Side have acknowledged there is a noise problem with the tube valve knocking against the wheel. They suggest you place some electrical tape (not supplied) around the valve. I am normally pretty good with electrical tape. I don't know if it was the anticipation of just riding these wheels or not but the gap was just too small for the tape to fit. I talked to my LBS mechanic (an absolute wiz who rides in a QRTS team). His suggestion made me laugh at first but I tried it and it worked. Use the elastic band which came with the new tube. 

It worked wonderfully. As you can see, I had to use the Swiss Side supplied valve extenders which are very easy to use and install. Just make sure your presta valve allows the inner parts to be removed. 

With the wheels on, I took my bike for a ride. I could not believe how noisy these things are. I walked my bike out to the road over some grass. I could hear the grass crunching. As I started riding, the road noise was being amplified. It was driving me nuts. I met up with some friends and they could not believe how noisy they were. Even pedestrians could hear me. I thought I had made a mistake. 

Then I reached my first "fast" corner. I went through it faster than I ever had. I was amazed. I got out of the saddle and tried sprinting. My bike suddenly came to life. I found myself yearning for a hill. Flying down the hill did not disappoint. These wheels are fast. I then reached a corner which I have had some "issues" with and I am not confident with. I attacked the corner and the bike was unbelievable stable. 

Above all else, I realised these wheels are a lot of fun. I have been testing them for two weeks now. I had a bunch of guys push past me this morning so I jumped on their wheel. I was hardly pedalling and we were flying. I am not sure I will ever get over the noise but you cannot wipe the grin off my face when I am riding now. Surely that is what cycling is about?

They are a great wheelset. When you consider what is available under AUD$1000, you realise these wheels are great value. If you are after a carbon clincher wheelset, with alloy braking surface, then take a long hard look at this wheelset. They are great value for money and really have no comparisons in this price bracket. Now if they could just do something about the noise. 

More details can be found on their website www.swissside.com

RearViz mirror review

I have been reading quite a bit about the RearViz mirror. Safe Cycling Australia (www.safecyclingaustralia.org) has been pushing it and there have been a number of reviews online. I recently received a letter from my local council which included some information about the RearViz, including a discount coupon number. 

So I decided to buy one. I went to their website (www.rearviz.com). Firstly, I suggest you get a measuring tape and measure around where you plan to wear the mirror. For me, this is on my right arm, just below the elbow. I make mention of this as the website is confusing. I have been assured by the company they are changing the sizing of the arm bands supplied and the wording on the website to stop any confusion. 

RearViz are an Australian company. They are very easy to contact and answer any questions you have. 

With the ordering out of the way, I received my parcel quite quickly. The packaging is minimal (thankfully). 

As you can see, I went for the black model. There are a number of other colours and I believe yellow will also be available soon. 

Unpacking the mirror and the armband, it becomes pretty obvious how it is all put together and how to wear it. There are instructions if needed. 

It was 5.40am on a winter morning when I set out. Before I left my property, I sat on my bike and moved the mirror until I thought it was positioned correctly. This is done by rotating the mirror and then opening or closing the mirror to adjust the angle. Very clever.

I got out on the road and it was pitch black. I decided to close the mirror and wait for daylight. After the first car passed with headlights, I decided to open the mirror while riding. A good enough test I thought. After opening it, I realised the angle wasn't quite right. So with my right hand still on the handle bar, I used my left hand to rotate the mirror and open and close it slightly until the mirror was correctly adjusted. Doing this while riding is actually pretty easy. 

From that point on I was amazed. Suddenly I could see cars (headlights) and bikes (front lights) from quite a distance before they reached me. I was so impressed I almost forgot I was joining a group for a group ride. Once in the group I then realised I could not only see cars before I could hear them but I could also keep an eye on the other group riders behind me. Daylight came and I was even more impressed. 

You know something is good when you realise you can't do without it. I realised by the end of my ride, I had been checking my mirror before deviating to the right and I was doing it without consciously doing it. It was an automatic reaction as it is when you are driving a car. 

One thing I must make mention of is the view in the mirror. Other reviews I read mentioned as soon as you changed your view angle by placing hands in the drops (as an example), you could only see the sky. I found none of these problems. I could see the road and cars regardless of whether my hands were in the drops or on top of the hoods. I even had a quick look when I got out of the saddle for a sprint with my hands in the drops. Even though I was throwing the bike side to side, I could still get quick glimpses of the road. It was hard to see anything in the mirror, however whilst in this sprinting position I did suddenly see a car very close on my right. I veered slightly to the left and the car which was going to shave me became a safe distance again. I doubt it was the car's fault but the RearViz certainly helped me out. 

Well done RearViz. This piece of equipment should be on every commuters arm. I ride a road bike for fun and it will be on my arm for every ride from now on.