Bike Mounted Cameras Front and Rear

CrankyHaus

Hi all,


I'm looking to get cameras to record incidents that I may have to report to An Garda.


I'm looking for something that can simply record incidents and number plates, no need for anything more fancy or more capable.

I'd favour handlebar mounted over helmet mounted.
Good battery life, ruggedness and reliability are a must.



The combination light and camera setup of the Cycliq 6 and 12 seems to suit my needs. I've seen them recommended here on similar threads.


However the current generation (as opposed to the older ones) seem to have a poor reputation. On Amazon there are a lot of reliability complaints in particular. The rest of the market that I've seen is either low-cost stuff of dubious reliability or high-end Active Camera Go-Pro stuff that is too bulky, expensive or (in the case of the Yi 4K) short on battery life for my needs.


Any recommendations or advice are much appreciated.

Utter Consternation

I've the gopro hero sessions 4 on my handlebars. I've a mount that has my garmin 520 on the top and the gopro on the bottom.

The battery life isn't that great on it though. It'll last about an hour and a half.

I got a refurbished one for around eighty quid. It's an option for you, but probably won't suit due to the battery.

Here's a video i posted here yesterday:

https://streamable.com/0k8lk

Borderfox

Hero session on the front and a FLY 6 (previous gen) on the back

I've a FLY 6 on the rear also the older one. On the plus it's also a rear light and on the negative it's image quality isn't great.

Borderfox

Borderfox wrote: »

Hero session on the front and a FLY 6 (previous gen) on the back

As an aside to that I also have a Gamin Varia radar on a saddle rail mount that I find very handy out in the countryside for advance warning of fast moving traffic

CramCycle

Cycliq 12 on the front (old gen), great quality, bright light, bulky as f*ck but then so is every camera if you have the light seperate. Drift Sleath HD on the back, meant to be a helmet camera but I Jimmy rigged a holder for between the rails of my saddle. It's small, neat and good quality, no one would even notice it, downside is you need a separate camera but far better quality than the Fly 6 or others like it.

If I done it again, I'd probably go for the Sleath front and back, but you do need to charge every day.

cromcruach

Can't speak for image quality of anything else, but Cycliq are good about replacing stuff if it fails. I was just given a 3rd gen Fly6 after asking if they could repair my 2nd gen.

On image quality the older one was good enough for PSNI to get a conviction a few years ago.

BrianHenryIE

Hero Session 5 back and front. Hesitant to recommend.

• I need to return one of them because it's temperamental about turning on after charging.
• Battery life, as mentioned above, is about 1.5 hours, so need to be charged every night.
• There is no true dashcam mode. There is a 'loop' mode which loops the current recording in the space available when the recording is started. e.g. you've 28GB free on your 128GB card and press record, it will preserve the 100GB of earlier recorded content and only record in the 28GB free, deleting the beginning of today's journey to continue recording.
• Software is crap – it needs to connect to the camera via WiFi to make changes that I know can be done via Bluetooth. I even wrote my own.
• Even using one of their recommended SD cards, I've had sections of video missing.

OTOH, the form factor is amazing.





The "combination light and camera setup of the Cycliq" sounds like a bad idea. Odds that you want the light and camera both pointed in the same direction seem low. I often change the angle of my light.

ED E

Ill echo most of what Brian has said, its a real shame GoPro never refreshed the session. Also they're very anti dashcam features so you'll never get timestamps which is a bit dud.

Drift Ghost X might just get my vote, but I really would want a pair of Sessions with a newer chipset to increase runtime and a timestamp feature. They're super neat and image quality is good during the daytime. Also real 60fps (60fps is 30fps when not in super bright sunlight) would be good. One can dream.

thekooman

cromcruach wrote: »

Can't speak for image quality of anything else, but Cycliq are good about replacing stuff if it fails. I was just given a 3rd gen Fly6 after asking if they could repair my 2nd gen.

On image quality the older one was good enough for PSNI to get a conviction a few years ago.

I had the original fly 6... 6 weeks out of warranty and not working.now they wont replace it but are offering 25% off the new version. so in other words the camera would cost me 220 euro because I would have bought the original and new one. no thanks. bad support.

What Username Guidelines

I’d echo the sentiment on session cameras. They have such potential, but fall down as described. Also, not sure where you lads are getting the hour and a half, I’d be lucky if mine made it to an hour. Size, weight and image quality are great tho.

I upgraded to a hero 7 black recently for the front, but they’re eye wateringly expensive (about €400) so would be hard to justify purely as a cycling cam. I managed to get it cheap in the states and use it for lots of other things too.

I use a first gen fly6 on the back and while the image quality could be a little better, the light is great. I consider this as more of a backup to the front cam, to catch context if needed, where the front cam will hopefully catch a clearer image of the reg. Got it for £50 on amazon when the newer model came out.

On mounting, I flipped between helmet (kinda look like a knob) and handlebars (points in one direction and stays with the bike in event of collision). I ended up buying a strap mount from amazon from about €10, it’s like a chest mount but far handier. Catches a good wide view.

CrankyHaus

Thanks a lot for all the responses everyone. It seems I may be expecting too much. I might just raise the price point I'm looking at.