Bikes, Open Roads, and Great Friends!

[dustyrains]

Do you have many roads there that you can really exercise the fjr on. I mean, like 80 mph sweepers and such?

 

[nik.hisham]

Very cool posts. I'll watch for more from you. Nice to see some Kuala Lumpur-style lane splitting. Maybe soon it'll catch on for some more of these poor US suckers. Good job, great scenery. Thanks.

Thanks Mike. The lane splitting is kind of scary actually, but is legal here, and its a way of life for all bikers in KL.

Very nice job Nik!!! You're getting the feel of the FJR down real well. :yahoo:

Thanks Bigbeavk. Yep, I get more comfortable with it the more I ride it. I still struggle with slow and tight u-turns. And, riding in the wet is absolutely terrifying for me.

Also, the locals tend to over-simplify things. Like this one place we stopped at for drinks. The guy told us that there's a nice place to drink about 300 yards in - just follow the road. So we did. It was a huge mistake. The "road" became a dirt path with loose gravel on it and had a really steep incline. I even have it on video below. It doesn't look it from the video, but that climb up was really, REALLY steep.
Here's the vid. ==>

Cool! With the right lenses, I'm sure she'll get great pics. And you can do wonders with lightroom. Looking forward to seeing some of the pics from your death valley trip.

 

[nik.hisham]

Do you have many roads there that you can really exercise the fjr on. I mean, like 80 mph sweepers and such?

Yes, we have plenty of them. I'll put up some more videos from the same trip when I get off from work this evening. I had approximately 100 GB of video from this trip and I've yet to sort them out.

 

[nik.hisham]

Do you have many roads there that you can really exercise the fjr on. I mean, like 80 mph sweepers and such?

Yes, we have plenty of them. I'll put up some more videos from the same trip when I get off from work this evening. I had approximately 100 GB of video from this trip and I've yet to sort them out.

dustyrains,

Here's a short clip on some sweepers we went through. They're pretty nice. Few other cars on the road. My only complaint was that the road surface was bumpy in some parts.

Unfortunately, during this clip, I had the lens zoomed in to the max, and as I found out later, this magnified the effects of any bumps on the road. So the clip is not very smooth.

Here's the clip =>



Nik

 

[Good2Go]

The camera I used was a Canon 5D Mark II with either a 17-40L or 35L lenses. I also mounted it to my bike for the videos.

Nice photos/video, thanks for sharing. I'd be interested to see how you mounted that full sized DSLR to your bike?

 

[nik.hisham]

Thanks Good2go. Here's what my rig looks like. Its a mantis mount which I just got about 2 weeks or so ago. After using it a few times, I find that it is best used with ultra wide lenses like the 17-40 or 16-35 or even the sigma 12-24. Reason is that the wider the lens, the less vibration - or actually, the opposite is true - the longer the focal length, the more amplified the vibration. The downside to this thing is that it is cumbersome, at least for me, to attach and detach the camera. Otherwise, its great.

The red piece you see between the mount and the camera is just some rubber cut out I DIY'ed. Without it, the camera would not sit still as there is no grip between the camera base and the metal surface.

I didn't quite get the right angle on this shot but if you have the camera mounted, you won't be able to see the speedometer or the turn indicators when you're riding.

To fix the mount to the bike, you have to unscrew at least one of the fuel tank screws and use it to secure the mount to the bike.

In case you're wondering, I got this from sportbiketrackgear.com

 

[BadPigg]

Great shots nik

Great videos too. I dont think I would have the balls to mount such expensive equipment to my bike.

The vibration is killer on sensitive electronics. But you seem to have a professional flare and know how to use your gear.

I would love to see your part of the world someday.

Great Job