Candid Camera

Fruit 'n' Barley bought me a gift last month, he bought me a Veho Muvi micro camcorder, it was unexpected but nonetheless very welcome.

The camcorder is absolutely tiny, it's about the same size as your thumb, but the picture quality is a pleasant surprise despite it's miniscule dimensions.

So, what to do with said gift. Let me think, I've got a fast motorcycle, a free weekend, a yearning for over brewed chuck wagon tea and a willing accomplice (Papa Phallus) who also happens to have the same little camcorder (also a gift from Fruit 'n 'Barley, hmm).

Whitby was to be our chosen destination for our 'road movie' debut.

With a bit of jiggery pokery the camera hardware was fitted into the cheek pads of our helmets (I said they were small) a few last minute checks and adjustments and we were on our way.

The run to Whitby is an 'ouch!' favourite, it's fun and fast with great scenery. For us North East lads it's a short (35 miles) blast down the A174 moors road with a short stop at the Scaling Dam chuck wagon followed by a long descent into Whitby itself.

If you have never been to Whitby by bike, then please give it a go, there are 3 or 4 routes into the town and all of them are great rides. The number of bikers who congregate in the Whistlestop Cafe in town depends upon time of the day but there is almost always a healthy smattering of bikes in the car park.

And so to the homeward journey and check out our camera footage.

Papa Phallus popped the kettle on while we connected his camcorder to his Mac. The picture quality from behind a visor was great and the view of the road ahead (including some fat git on a Blackbird) was perfect. We watched our trip to Whitby again from the comfort of an armchair with coffee in hand, nice.

Of course I would like to say the footage was brilliant and that it showed the sublime riding talents of Messrs Bungle and Phallus, but, alas, when it came to the Birk Brow section we showed ourselves to be anything but sublime.

Birk Brow is the steep road that leads up to the moors, it consists of a hairpin at the bottom a long uphill straight and a hairpin at the top. During our ride to Whitby the section was taken with a little gusto, we thought, as we hit the top hairpin, 'wow we are really on the limits of adhesion here' .We thought we were close to knee down territory and had it pinned. Hmmm. During playback we watched the hairpin section eagerly and were gutted to see a wobbling fat bloke taking the corner with a lean no more than 10 degrees off the vertical.

Busted.

Of course my footage only showed an empty road ahead and therefore flattered us slightly. Well it was only the first ride of the year. When the summer is in full swing we will have 4 (count them) mini camcorders out on our runs, bloody hell this could be an embarassing year.

Cheers Fruit 'n ' Barley. (tut)

Bungle