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Stund is a lifestyle mountain biking series that usually puts out about five episodes per year. They feature a different location in each episode, spending only a few days shooting at each location. The result: some absolutely crazy riding and usually some nearly-as-crazy shenanigans.
Episode 1 of Season 3 brings you some insane riding from Nelson, BC. Sit back and enjoy!
While most of us in the Northern Hemisphere are waiting out the snow and the rain and hoping for an early spring, it’s smack in the middle of the summer mountain biking season in the Southern Hemisphere!
Diaries Down Under is a new lifestyle mountain biking video series based in Queenstown, New Zealand that features the absolutely epic singletrack and scenery of the region. Their second episode this season showcases some incredible heli-biking opportunities on remote, high-alpine singletrack. Check it out:
If you dig what you’ve seen, be sure to check out Episode 1, and if you’re really yearning for dirt under your tires, start planning your New Zealand trip now! (And be sure to bring me with you! 
)
This is a beautifully edited video of Kevin Aiello shredding some sick DH trails in SoCal, courtesy of Mountain Bike Action.
I have heard tales of an incredible ride in Moab by the name of “The Whole Enchilada,” but I haven’t truly been able to grasp its epicness… until now.
The Whole Enchilada drops over 7,000 vertical feet from Burro Pass down to the town of Moab, Utah over the course of 26 glorious miles.
This nicely-edited helmet cam video gives you a feel for the entire descent, but trims it down to just the best 11 minutes. Sit back and enjoy, and start dreaming about a Moab trip now!
Grab a coffee (or another beverage of your choice) and sit down and enjoy this free feature-length (25 minute) mountain bike movie from British Columbia.
When we talk about riding trails with “exposure,” places like Moab and other great Rocky Mountain destinations come to mind. But often, our brushes with “the edge” are very brief. The precipice is here, and then gone.
After watching this video, I think I have gained a whole new appreciation for the term “exposure.” This trail doesn’t briefly skirt the edge of a massive cliff. No, the riders have a chance of serious injury or death every pedal stroke of the way!
Would you try to ride this trail?
Check out this beautifully shot and edited riding video by Petr Slavik from the Czech Republic. The trails featured in this vid were old hunting trails built centuries ago that have been re-purposed as mountain bike trails.
Who’s up for a trip to the Czech Republic? 
If you’ve watched this video once, you’ve probably seen it a half-dozen times, and know how insane Danny Hart’s mud-riding skills are and how hilarious the announcers are. If you haven’t already seen this video, then you are in for a real treat:
One question in closing: “How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?”
Check out this video of a head-to-head race between a downhill mountain bike and a snowboard. They’ve even got massive jumps and berms thrown in:
I want to know what kind of tires he’s running…
There has never really been a mountain bike movie like this before. And it may be a long time before anyone else can capture a wisp of the feeling Life Cycles has captured. Derek Frankowski and Ryan Gibb, the creators of this masterpiece, have my respect.
Life Cycles exhibits a paradigm shift in the way mountain bike movies are made. Every scene offers an explosion of color, a lack of color, a thought provoking idea, and then it’s visually stunning again. The cinematography is truly awesome.
But that’s not all that Life Cycles is about. Depending upon your stage in life and what experiences you have had, you relate to the movie in different ways. Growing up around bikes my entire life, I totally get the story–almost as if the movie was playing what someone had read in my mind.
After watching it, all of a sudden a few doors in my mind opened up. Things from the past that were buried under cobwebs and day-to-day life started to emerge again–a purer way of thinking. Getting back to the day when things were simpler, less tech-oriented. As of late, people (myself included) are/were all about the latest and greatest, all about what’s new, what new technology we’re exploiting. It gets to the point where you’re not satisfied unless you have the latest and greatest between your legs when you’re riding… like the lack of a boostvalve or tapered bore piston is going to diminish your ride for whatever reason.
Well, Life Cycles brings you back. Remember that time when you first learned to jump as a kid? That moment when your bike left the earth behind for the first time, that first fleeting second off that rickety soap-box-and-plank jump? Remember that? How about those tracks you left behind in the black earth of the berm you just railed. Other words like “ebb” and “flow” come to mind as well.
Life Cycles provides new ways of looking at that trail: who created it and what they were thinking when they cut the path. Look at the care that was taken to not disturb most of the landscape so that they and you could enjoy the countryside. Appreciate the immensity of the outdoors and some of the epic visages that await you.
All this lies in store for you when you watch Life Cycles. The list of featured riders is impressive as well. Icons in their own niches of riding styles are here: riders like Hunter, McCaul, and Semenuk, to name just a few, will blow you away. Just seeing how big they are and at the same time how small we all are as we ride along the landscape before us is almost indescribable.
Check out Life Cycles: get yourself a copy. It sells for about $35.50 for your Blu-ray player, or you can download it on iTunes for less than $10. Either way, you’re getting something special.
(here’s the link for those who can’t see the embedded video above)
If you have already watched Life Cycles, what are your thoughts?
The vast majority of mountain biking videos shot with point-of-view cameras really aren’t worth the time it takes to watch them. Despite the access to excellent equipment, there are 2 main reasons for this poor video quality:
1) Unimaginative camera angles.
2) Poor editing.
Hopefully in my last post I was able to provide you with enough camera mounting ideas to get your creative juices flowing, helping you leave behind the same old overused camera mounts.
In this post, I will address the second point, “poor editing,” and will hopefully help you add a little zest to your trail videos.
Whenever I mention to people that I just uploaded a new video or I’m in the process of making a new video, the first question is always: “What program did you use to edit it?” The thing of it is, I just use Windows Movie Maker to edit my videos, and it comes standard on most Windows computers. Even with this basic program I am able to produce decent mountain bike videos that I think are actually enjoyable to watch. iMovie works even better.
Sure, a fancy video editing package has more options and might be able to do a slightly better job. But as Jeremy Hazard, pro-level photographer and accomplished videographer, commented on the last post: “I think some people miss the point a bit – POV cams are for just that – they’re not intended to capture high quality footage for use in major motion pictures ” This is all about having fun and creating entertaining videos, and that can definitely be done with an inexpensive editing program.
As with any production that borders on the artistic, you must first identify your purpose before you begin. Are you trying to showcase the trail? Are you trying to showcase the rider’s abilities? Or are you just attempting to create an entertaining bike video that’s sort of original? Your purpose will determine how you cut the video.
In my opinion, the major editing error that most helmet cam vids make is the absolute lack of editing. Those long, continuous 10 minute shots bore me to death! The only time one really long shot for the entire length of the video works is if your sole purpose is to showcase the trail. Even then, if the trail is boring and has some climbs in it, that might still be a bad idea!
Here is a video where I used one long clip, and my purpose was to just show how sweet this entire downhill is:
As a general rule of thumb, when I’m editing, I begin by cutting out all of the climbing. People only want to watch the really interesting parts of your ride, and if you’re grinding uphill for 10 minutes (or even 15 seconds), they are going to get bored. Clip out the climbing.
Since the whole shot (above) is downhill and it’s pretty fast-paced and only a couple of minutes long, I think it still works pretty well. However, bear in mind that if you create a video showcasing a single section of a trail like this, the number of people that will want to watch the video is probably less than if you created a vid featuring cool riding and shooting, unless the trail is truly outstanding.
Yes, I know that I’ve already spent about a thousand words talking about camera angles. Now’s the time to take what you’ve learned, and apply it. Take all of those different camera angles and incorporate at least 2 or 3 different ones into your next video. And don’t just use one, switch to the second, and then switch to the third at the end. Try varying them throughout the video, utilizing multiple short clips instead of just a few long ones.
Check out this video for a little idea of what the finished product could look like:
One thing that annoys the heck out of me when I am watching a mountain bike vid is a large number of cheesy, overdone transitions. A few key transition effects can really make a video pop, but when someone tries to incorporate every single feature that their software package has into one 3 minute video…. it looks cheesy, and distracts from the riding.
Personally, I generally stick with fade in/fade out transitions (black and white), and a simple dissolve. Sometimes, I even incorporate hard cuts from one clip to another. Break the thinking that you need a different transition whenever there’s a new video clip, and you will be well on your way to editing success.
Nothing spells “boring” like a music-less sports video. Music should almost be considered mandatory, unless you’re just posting a raw 30-60 second clip. Music keeps the viewer entertained and engaged, and can add real life to your movie!
When selecting the song that you want to use, trying to choose music that you think your target audience will enjoy may help boost the popularity of your video. However, in my personal experience, there is no way that you can ever satisfy everyone. So instead, I suggest that you choose something that you enjoy. As long as you like your video and are proud of your work, that’s mission accomplished in my book!
Your Turn:
What editing tactics do you think really make a mountain bike video come to life?
With the advent of the many affordable HD helmet camera options on the market (especially the GoPro), the number of point of view (POV) mountain bike videos on the internet has exploded! To be brutally honest, the vast majority of the POV videos uploaded every day aren’t worth the time that it takes to watch them.
There are 2 main reasons for this poor video quality, despite the access to excellent equipment:
1) The camera angle never changes, many shots are shaky, and/or the only perspective used is boring.
2) Poor editing.
In the first half of this two part series, I will analyze a number of popular camera mounting options for mountain biking. Hopefully this will help you add a little extra zest to your next trail video.
Photo Credit: Contour.com
The default camera mounting option for most people seems to be on the top of the helmet, facing forward. This is expected, as these types of point of view cameras are commonly referred to collectively as “helmet cams.”
Unfortunately, this perspective can sometimes be the absolute worst choice for an interesting video. If you are riding solo, this shot tends to create a flag pole-type perspective with nothing in the frame to add depth to the picture. It’s almost impossible to tell how steep the trail actually is or how large the obstacles are as there is nothing else to compare them to. Also, the bike is not in the picture at all, so the viewer has no idea how exactly the rider is handling his bike.
However, if you are filming a chase scene with another rider in front of you, this angle does an excellent job of capturing what the other rider is doing on the trail. This is the only instance when I’d personally recommend this mount.
Again, this angle is really only useful if you are shooting a chase scene. Obviously, it would capture the performance of the rider behind you.
This is a pretty popular mount with gravity riders wearing full face helmets. The angle inevitably captures part of the helmet in the picture, and that little section of helmet is usually enough to lend a little bit of perspective to the image. Also, you can usually see the bike a little bit in the bottom of the frame, which is especially cool on jump lines.
Here’s an actual video to give you an idea of what this perspective looks like:
Photo Credit: GoPro.com
After the forward helmet mount, this is probably the second most common mounting option… unfortunately. Because of the fact that the camera is mounted directly to the bars, it is constantly being jolted and shaken by the smallest bumps in the trail. When I watch videos shot from this perspective I can rarely make out what is going on, and most of the time my head starts hurting and I turn it off. It’s also impossible to see how the rider is working the bike.
The one thing that a bar mount does well is provide a good view of the trail surface, if it is relatively smooth.
Photo Credit: GoPro.com
While at first glance you might think that the camera would suffer a lot of shaking mounted in this position, the truth is that this is actually a very stable mount, especially on a full suspension bike. This is a very unique perspective that I find is a lot of fun to watch. When you are riding a bike, you never get to see the trail disappearing behind your tires. But with your camera mounted like this, you can when you get home to your computer!
Also, the rear wheel provides a focal point for viewers to keep things interesting and to provide a little bit of depth to the picture. I also find it fun to watch how the suspension responds to changes in the terrain.
When I’m riding solo, the chest mount is hands-down my favorite choice! Mounting the camera on your chest avoids the flag pole effect by providing close-up objects in the frame (arms and handlebars) that create perspective.
But the number one reason I enjoy this perspective so much is that the viewer can see exactly what the rider is doing, and how he manipulates the bike. Everything from shifting to braking to steering is visible to the viewer, making for a much more interesting video, especially if there are no other riders present.
One word of caution: make sure that your camera is aimed high enough to catch the trail out in front, because we don’t want to be staring at the top tube of your bike the entire time!
From ground placements for ride-by shots to having a camera spin around your head, your creativity is really the only limit when it comes to creating a unique perspective for your next trail video!
Coming Up
In the next installment, I’ll cover a few tips to help you edit your videos so they don’t end up in the expansive vault of neglected YouTube videos.
Based on the videos that you’ve watched or created, what is your favorite video camera mounting option?
