Fish Creek Park Videography

To be clear, these are not my video’s. 

Following up on my New Years Day 2014 Bicycling Ride post, my friend Ian reported he was able to find my winter biking video on YouTube directly by searching for “fish creek park calgary”, and then filtering for the most recent upload (at the time, it was at the bottom of the first page – with 14 views!).

Trying the search myself, I was amazed at the variety of fish creek videography being produced – and how many local videographers there are!

Here’s an “Ice Cave” exploration, reminiscent of Gerry Anderson’s Supermarionation.

 

Watch these snow boats fly east along a frozen Fish Creek towards the Ranch. Amazing that a propeller works in snow!

 

I don’t think I’ve ever encountered an RC plane flying in FCPP before.

 

This last one seems inspired by Wayne’s World and Home Improvement.

New Year’s Day 2014 Bicycle Ride

I’ve gone for a bike ride on New Year’s Day for about 5 years now, and this year was no different – except this time I’ve got video to show, my first YouTube video!

Video in 720p format was captured by a Contour Roam2, a really nice HD-quality video Action Camera. Editing and rendering was done using Microsoft’s free Movie Maker 2012, a very satisfactory experience. The transitions and most of the titles were added automatically using a Smart Theme, and the Add music button conveniently linked to free content (legally free!). The edited project was rendered and uploaded to YouTube using the Movie Maker YouTube plugin. After uploading, YouTube suggested video stabilization – which I agreed to.

FWIW, Contour has an interesting back story. They unfortunately closed doors August 2013, and remind me a lot of IVL Technologies, a similar sized tech company I had the pleasure of working  for 1993 to 1997. BloombergBusinessWeek had an interesting post mortem article on Contour , with a few tips for all tech entrepreneurs.

New brakes for the Fusion (only a 55km ride to get them)

I lost rear braking on my Rocky Mountain Fusion last week. Biking pathways wasn’t bad, but I didn’t want to ride off-road with only a front brake, so the next day I biked downtown to The Bike Shop on my way home after work (not only did I buy my Fusion there, they also do great drop-in service so long as the job won’t take too long). Adding the 3 legs up in my head as I pedalled home, I was sure I would be close to 100Km. However, Google Maps calculated my route to be 55km, which I trust because my it was pretty straight, and I’ve found Google knows all about Calgary pathways (just make sure you select Bicycling for the navigation mode).

I really liked this route. On the way downtown, I was up and close with one of Calgary’s oldest industrial areas. After my rear brake pads were changed and brake fluid topped up, I left downtown and rode through one of Calgary’s oldest affluent residential areas. I also noticed an unfortunate casulty of this year’s flooding – a missing pedestrian suspension bridge over the Elbow River. I can sympathize with local users and commuters through the area; loosing the pedestrian bridges over the Bow River at both Mackenzie and Southland Park has meant changes to my own travel routes.

Marker “D” is my home, “B” is work, and “C” is The Bike Shop (I was travelling counter-clockwise).