Mike's Blog

Mike Calvert: microlight pilot, BMAA aircraft inspector, motorcyclist, home brewer and all round tinkerer!

The mind boggles!

While trawling the weird and wonderful world of YouTube, I came across this little gem. Now, seriously, I suppose we aren’t meant to laugh at the afflicted, but this woman holds a driving licence (I assume!) – and has the right to vote – and the right to buy guns – as many guns as…

December 30, 2012
RUBBISH road surface!!

Filmed on Boxing day 2012 – this is the start of the Lugton to Dunlop road, and what an appalling road surface! Shake the fillings out of you!!

December 27, 2012
Stepping Stone overtaking

Stepping Stone overtaking – done carefully on a wet road! Didn’t want to use my brakes, so was ultra careful with the throttle, and the cars were nicely spaced, so the only way to make progress here was to take them one at a time.

December 27, 2012
Mad Pedestrian

Filmed this today – I ask you, on a dark night, where would you choose to cross the road? Certainly not at a spot like this I hope!!

December 27, 2012
Finally! A ride in daylight :-)

Thanks to an early finish – well, it IS Christmas Eve! – I finally get to ride and film in daylight – yee ha!! Also testing a separate mic – think it works a bit better, but still room for improvement… Grabbed far more footage than was really necessary, such was the novelty of riding…

December 24, 2012
Queue busting – one of the best reasons to commute by bike!

This is why I love commuting on the motorbike – big queue on the M9 because of an accident, but it didn’t hold me up too much. In fact to avoid being TOO boring I cut out 4 minutes of filtering footage, the queue was that long!

December 23, 2012
An overtake in the dark

Unfortunately the VIO camera isn’t sensitive enough to see as well as the human eye, but this was a typical dark night on the road.

December 23, 2012
A Vlog while riding through Linlithgow – rather slowly!

I’m still getting to grips with the VIO camera. The sound is the biggest problem – my crash helmet isn’t the quietest, and with my ear plugs in I barely notice the wind noise, but the microphone captures it all, and anything I’m saying simply can’t compete with that. The only time it does pick…

December 22, 2012
Truck Tyre blowout

Sound quality isn’t great – my first play with the helmet camera – but listen hard at around 10 seconds into the video… Happened this morning on my ride into work – a rear tyre on a mobile crane exploded – the video doesn’t show the cloud of dust that spread up from it like…

December 19, 2012
0 centigrade

That was the temperature this morning for my ride into work, 0 centigrade. Still, the road outside the house looked dry and clear of frost, and the cars in the street all had clear windscreens, not a frosty window in sight, so I was 99% certain it’d be fine to take the bike. Apart from…

December 14, 2012