alexm

In January Lewis came down to Canberra from Brisbane to compete in a trials comp. He stayed in Canberra for a few extra days which gave me the chance to show him some of the street riding spots that we have. He dominated everything - things I've been looking at for years but never had the skill or the power to execute. Unfortunately I ditched the fisheye for this video because after dropping my camera a strange vignetting started to appear in the shots using the fisheye. As a result some of the lines that Lewis pulls off don't look as huge as they really are. I hope you enjoy it all the same. http://vimeo.com/3593701

Joe - just for you markwartmod2.mpg. You must have a strange memory of that video because I just struggled to watch through from start to fin. I have no idea how many years ago I filmed that. Ben - good to hear. I'll keep an eye out for your future vids.

Thanks for all of the comments. I'm glad you enjoyed it so much for what it was. I will definitely try and make a full length video, but don't hold your breath. I do also aim to put out some more shorter videos if I feel the riding/filming isn't worthy of a full length web video. The song I used was by the Crookers, titled Embrace the Martian. I believe the Koxx is a MkII - the first of the frames with the big black sticker (after the first frame with green stickers). My new frame is going to be a second hand BT 8.0. I think I'll like the BB rise because I struggle to lift the front end on my current bike.

I've been riding the Koxx frame shown in this video for over 5 years. I love the bike despite how ill it makes others feel when they ride it. Unfortunately a crack in the headtube region, which occurred approx 18 months ago, has come to the point where it is of concern and I no longer feel entirely comfortable riding the frame. I'm purchasing a new frame that should complement my riding style and any future media I generate will be on the new bike. Because of this I thought it was worth putting out a 30 second clip of me riding the Koxx. This was filmed last weekend. Anyway, please stream or download (much better quality) from http://www.vimeo.com/2893599 Have a look at http://canberratrials.com if you want to look at a few photos I like of other people I know. I hope to be adding to this in the not too distant future.

I thought the days were gone where there was actually a good feel to trials videos. I think a lot of it has to do with the bikes as much as the style of riding and the editing. That looked like a really fun ride, and thanks for keeping it real and having some creativity. Good to see you weren't all riding the same wall in the same way. Bring back nailseatrials. They were the good old days for me.

Thanks for all the encouraging comments everyone. Makes the effort worth while! If I can find some other good places to ride I will try and film some more. mad_gavo: A lot of the other guys from the old videos have stopped riding. Various reasons for that, most have got to University and are too busy and others have more important things to do. I'm far more busy these days than I used to be but I am trying to get out each weekend to have a spin. Partz: The titles were reasonably easy to do using premiere pro. It was time consuming but I probably didn't do it the most efficient way. I exported a frame from Premiere into Photoshop and lined up the titles - then imported them back into Premiere on a transparent background. Where I ride in front of the text, I had to edit each title frame by frame. It was a pain in the arse, probably why no other trials rider bothers. I don't know what garbage matte is, but I'll have to look into it. If it makes my job easier then that would be great! Biker_Watson: Had my levelboss for about 3 and a half years probably. I don't want any other frame, it's perfect for me, but it has a crack under the headtube and was making funny noises on this ride. It might have a short life. I don't know what I would get though, if it does break.

MarkwartStock5 - Right Click and Save Target Canberratrials.com Went for one of the best solo rides ever last Sunday. I rode well and learnt to hook, a move that I have wanted for about 2 years. The secret to my success came from netto's tutorial. I had everything sorted except for approaching on an angle. Anyway, I'm pretty stoked on riding at the moment and although this video doesn't have a lot of the creative kind of riding I'm trying to do at the moment, it does have plenty I'm happy with. I do hope my frame lasts for another video, it was making some wack sounds before I did the hooks, and they can't have been good for it?

Downloading the video now. Looking forward to seeing Phil Williams! Haven't seen/heard anything from him in ages. Excellent.

I know this is old by now but for anyone that liked the video but noticed that it was too light or that the editing was dodgy with part of the tire getting chopped off at 29 seconds (Thanks Joe, I hadn't noticed that!), then there is a new version up. I bought a new monitor which can actually distinguish grey from black so editing should be better from now on.

Thanks Spacemunkee, those are very kind words, really encouraging! I'd love an HD camera but I don't see the point for the web at this stage, since it still has to be compressed. I would invest in one now if I filmed enough to gather copious amounts of footage that I could use for a DVD or something but I can't even make a 4 minute video these days. I am slightly interested in a camera with more functions though, so if I do get a new camera at some stage it would most likely be HD so in a few years...we'll see. Thanks again for all the comments everyone, it's great!

The reason there hasn't been a number 14 is because my computer has stuffed up multiple times - there was sime very good shit going down. I now have a new one that seems reliable so hopefully I won't encounter any more problems. I need to get everyone back into riding as well, and I find it really hard to save up footage for one really good video, it takes ages and I probably wouldn't want to put out videos of the bits that didn't make it. I'm not making any promises but I would like to put it out as much as you would like to see it, I'm just not making any promises at this stage. Thanks for the comments everyone! It looks like this kind of editing is the way to go for the future.

Thanks for the quick reply! I know short videos are less tempting to download. I made the cars go backwards the same way I made the two riders appear on the screen at once (at around 14 seconds (They were not riding at the same time but I didn't want to use the same angle twice so I edited them together.) and at 31 seconds how I made the shadow go backwards. I don't think I did too many other things worth noting in the video. To do most of the effects I used the crop function in Premiere Pro. I don't know if this tool was in 6.5 but I seem to be able to do a lot more in Pro than I used to be able to do when using 6.5.

Some of you may have seen this over at OT.net but it's getting a good response so I thought I'd share it with the peopel who don't venture over to that forum. Adam and a whole bunch of other guys came down last weekend for a competition. This footage is just of us two riding in to the city before meeting up with everyone else. I should have continued filming but didn't, no good excuses. It is short, 57 seconds long but only 5mb so probably worth the download. I enjoyed editing it and tried to do interesting things without distracting from the riding. Tell me if it stinks. It will hopefully be worth a few views to pick up everything I've done. Go to http://canberratrials.com - the link can be found on the home page or in the videos section. You may need VLC player.

Both the banners could be reduced to a much more reasonable size as gifs, even at 256 colours.

Not too bad at all, my biggest suggestion would be to compress the images better. The one on the opening page could be compressed down to probably 30-40kb instead of 149. The nav buttons could be changed into .gifs and reduced to probably 2-3kb at full quality instead of 13ish. All of this may seem pointless but it makes the site load faster and reduce the amount of bandwidth you go through.