Dutchblog

I’m always looking for new places to explore in Scotland and yesterday I decided to head to Glen Clova amongst the Angus Glens as part of a 260 odd mile trip around eastern Scotland.

The weather here has been dire over the past few days but I spotted a window of opportunity that suggested I’d not get much more than a light shower or two and was pleasantly surprised when the day continued in dry if not overcast conditions.

The day started before nine as I headed north over the Forth and then east around Fife before heading north around Dundee to stop for photo’s at Glamis Castle, which I’d never seen before.

This was followed by a gentle run through Kirriemuir and up Glen Clova to a decent lunch at the Glen Clova Hotel.

Unusually for me I had no pre-planned route for the day but as I re-traced my route as far as Kirriemuir, I was in no mood to take the most direct route back to Edinburgh.

Instead I headed west through Blairgowrie, Dunkeld & Amulree before turning for home through Auchterarder, past Knockhill & over the Forth Bridge once more.

Having lived in Scotland for 9 years or so it’s becoming increasingly difficult to discover new routes & destinantions but yesterday proved there are still lots of pleasant surprises to be had.

• Images may be found here.
• Track logs may be found here.

During my recent trip to Germany I had the use of a small ATC3K Action Cam made by Oregon Scientific.

I fitted it to the bike by means of a camera mount I made 6 years ago to fit a stills camera via the left hand vacant mirror mount on the handlebars of my previous BMW R1150RT.

I’ve never used a small video camera on the bike before so didn’t really know what results to expect.

Using two 4GB SD Video cards I managed to shoot about 4 hours of video but because of the lack of a screen or viewfinder I had no way of reviewing the video until I got back home.

My observations are as follows:

I found it quite difficult to aim the camera correctly without a viewfinder.  The bike was on the centre stand when I set it all up on the second morning in Germany and it was a matter of guesswork to capture the right proportions of road, scenery and sky. I also had to allow for the different attitude of the bike once off the stand and on it’s suspension. In the event it seems I aimed a little too low and the road surface dominates most views.

The ATC3K does not have a remote recording button and although the unit was well within my reach whilst riding, pressing the record button when wearing lightweight summer gloves proved almost impossible. Knowing that I had 2 hours of recording time per card I set it to record and then continued on my journey. When the card runs out of memory the unit simply turns itself off.

The quality of the recordings leaves a lot to be desired although in all fairness this was almost exclusively due to my mounting of the unit, where handlebar vibration coupled with my choice of bumpy German back roads had a severely detrimental effect on the overall quality. Supplied in the camera kit were the means to secure it to a helmet but I could not make use of this as the flip up chin bar of my BMW System 5 precluded this.

I arrived home with around 4 hours of video, without a clue of how I was going to edit it or make use of it in any way. I experimented with Windows Movie Maker which I already had installed on my PC and discovered that video editing can be an extremely time consuming process. I soon discovered the very shaky quality of my video and decided that spending vast amounts of time mastering the editing software would not improve the quality very much and would be wasted on such disappointing footage.

This was my first trial of such a camera and I’m sure much better results could be achieved with better mounting to either the bike or a helmet but I have to say that I’m not inclined to pursue the trial preferring instead to continue with a digital stills camera to record my bike trips.

Any video camera used for this purpose would also benefit from a remote record button so that only ‘interesting’ footage was recorded in the first instance, which would make the final editing much more straightforward.

Using the stills capturing software in Windows Movie Maker I managed to save about 60 still images which give an idea of the quality potential given a better vibration free mount.

These images may be found here.

I’m building up an online archive of my more interesting bike trips so that others can view and share them as required.

All routes were planned using the latest Garmin Mapsource version on my PC and the track logs created by Garmin Zumo 550 using Garmin City Navigator Europe NT

You’ll need Garmin MapSource installed on your computer to view these  routes and track logs.

The most recent trips are listed first:

• 2009::September::Lakes, Dales & Passes

Our first overseas ‘bike trip together in over 2 years saw Gina & I take a leisurely 1282 mile tour to the Vosges region of north eastern France.

A combination of great biking roads, mostly decent weather and interesting overnight stops made this, my 59th overseas bike trip, one of our very best and certainly one to remember.

• Images may be found here.

Day One::Edinburgh to DFDS North Shields 121miles

Day Two::DFDS Ijmuiden (NL) to Pont Sur Sambre (F) 209 miles

We used mainly motorways to clear the Netherlands & Belgium before finding minor roads to end the day at a really nice Logis in Pont Sur Sambre in the Nord department of France. The accommodation itself was situated in a 19th century townhouse made all the more interesting by the current owner’s hand-painted murals and decoration which obviously took many hundreds of hours to complete. The excellent restaurant was a 200 yard stroll to the centre of the village.

Day Three::Pont Sur Sambre (F) to Andelot-Blancheville (F) 192 miles

Our planned route today relied almost totally on local back roads and took us through great scenery & picturesque French towns & villages. Despite deviating more than once due to somewhat dodgy GPS instructions (and operator error!) we arrived at our next pre-booked Logis at Andelot-Blancheville in plenty of time for cold beers on the terrace before having to take shelter from the most torrential downpour we’ve seen for a while.

Day Four::Andelot-Blancheville (F) to Ban De Laveline (F) 221 miles

Having passed through the Vosges region on previous trips to France I remembered that there were loads of great biking roads over numerous Cols. An early start today ensured we had plenty of time to get to tonight’s Logis at Ban De Laveline.

We headed east on local roads, through some great open countryside and picturesque valley towns before ascending Col du Ballon from north to south. This was followed in fairly slow succession by Col du Hunsdruck, Col de Herrenflun & Col du Silberloch before ascending Grand Ballon. The road linking all these peaks together is known as Route des Cretes (road of the peaks).  We then passed over Col de la Schlucht, Col du Wettstein & Col du Bonhomme before descending a little through Ste. Marie Aux Mines before heading westwards to our overnight stop.

Travelling today’s roads was really the purpose of the whole trip & we were not disappointed. The roads were steep & twisty, the views breathtaking and the weather warm and sunny. The bike handled brilliantly under all conditions despite being two-up and fully laden. We stopped a few times for photo’s but none really do justice to the panoramic views and we’ll have to rely on our memories to relive the best of today’s experiences.

Day Five::Ban De Laveline (F) to Givet (F) 207 miles

We began the homeward leg of the trip in heavy rain which eased as we headed through St Die and gave way to warm sunshine as we wound our way along minor roads through the towns and villages en-route to our last night’s Logis in Givet, only a mile or so from the Belgian border. We’d pre-booked Hotel Val St Hillaire right on the banks of the Meuse which proved to be a particularly nice location to spend our last night in France.

We sat on the riverside terrace sampling the Kriek cherry beer (NOT to our taste it has to be said!) before wandering into the town square for dinner.

Day Six::Givet (F) to DFDS Ijmuiden (NL) 210 miles

We’d originally planned to simply return to Ijmuiden by the quickest routes but an early start to the day meant we had about eight hours to get back to catch the ferry home. I devised a route which excluded all but about 20 miles of motorway and took us through Belgium & the Netherlands on the more interesting minor roads.

We crossed the Lek at Schoonhoven via the ferry before stopping at the excellent riverside restaurant for lunch.

We stayed on back roads for the last leg of the trip which ensured we arrived at Ijmuiden just as we were required to board the ferry home.

Day Seven::DFDS North Shields (NL) to Edinburgh 122 miles