Tag Archives: GoPro

Videoing London Edinburgh London 2025

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This is the latest in my series of posts about the London Edinburgh London audax event in August 2025. Read part 1 here (my road to LEL), part 2 here (lessons from the 400k London Wales London audax), part 3 here (even harder lessons from the Bryan Chapman Memorial 600k audax), part 4 here (volunteers put together the LEL rider starter packs), part 5 here (packing tips for LEL riders) and part 6 (Surviving Storm Floris on LEL 2025) here.

I enjoyed making my video about riding Britain’s greatest long-distance cycling event, London Edinburgh London 2025. As I have blogged, the organisers rightly cut the ride short because of Storm Floris, and volunteers and riders alike showed tremendous spirit in the face of adversity. Here’s the video:

GoPro or Insta360 camera?

I love making videos of my cycling adventures, and knew I had to do the same for LEL. But how? My go-to camera is a GoPro Hero 13 Black. The latest GoPro devices are very reliable, and I can click to record in an instant with the camera mounted on my handlebars. The resulting footage is incredibly smooth – a contrast to my first action camera in 2013. Another advantage is that I can remove the device in an instant thanks to the magnetic mount, and take it with me, either to keep it safe, or to take video off the bike.

I toyed with the idea of taking my Insta360 X5 on the ride, as it gives so much more flexibility. One clip gives you so many different angles, as I found on the Bryan Chapman Memorial audax in June, and as you can see here:

I thought this could capture some great video of London Edinburgh London, such as a stunning landscape vista and an image of a rider racing past me in one shot. That flexibility is so attractive compared with swivelling the GoPro to get a side view. Audio quality is excellent too, and the low light options better than even the latest GoPro. (GoPro really needs to up its game here.)

But this flexibility is also a disadvantage. It takes me far longer to process each Insta360 clip – deciding which segment of the 360 degree shot to use, edit it as needed, and export it to my video editing app along with all the other clips. I’m sure I’d be quicker with practice, but I feared it would take an enormous amount of time to create a YouTube highlights video from hundreds of Insta360 clips. So … I took the GoPro to LEL. I did see one person using an Insta360 camera on LEL, and would be interested to see the resulting video.

Image from drone video by Fergus Coyle

You can get great views from an action or 360 camera, but aerial shots really make a video stand out, and I wanted to take a drone with me on LEL for this reason. I thought a light drone would be perfect, but saw sense after a moment’s reflection. I was carrying too much stuff already, and wouldn’t have time to set up and fly a drone if I were to have any chance of getting to Edinburgh and back within 128 hours.

As it turned out, Storm Floris would have grounded any drone, so I made the right decision. Happily, Fergus Coyle kindly let me use some of his lovely drone shots of the start in my video. But I still yearn to fly a drone on the stunning Scottish sections of LEL, as seen in the official video created by Darrell Whittle. Perhaps I’ll get the chance if there is an unofficial group ride next year over the LEL northern and Scottish loop that most riders missed because of Floris. (There’s been a lot of chatter about this in the LEL Facebook group.)

In the meantime, I’ll enjoy Darrell’s video below.

A quick win to solve Britain’s productivity crisis

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For years, the media have bemoaned Britain’s productivity crisis. The country hasn’t become significantly more efficient at producing goods and services in the 16 years since the financial crisis. It seems a complex riddle. Why is the UK falling behind our international rivals? is it our newfound love of working from home? Or is a chronic lack of investment to blame?

Three poor customer experiences in the past week make me think we’re overthinking the problem. Too often companies screw up the simplest things – such as an online booking service. As a result, customer and company spend unnecessary time fixing the problem.

Case study 1: Everyman

I’m a big fan of Everyman. I love stretching out on a comfy cinema sofa while watching a great film, nursing a coffee. As a member, I can book a second, free ticket on Mondays. Today’s the first Monday I’ve had the chance to enjoy this 2 for 1 offer. But the website made it impossible to book.

I selected my member’s ticket – one of the six tickets a year under the cheapest membership package. I then chose the 2 for 1 ticket for my wife, and selected our chosen sofa. So far, so good. But the system wouldn’t allow me to check out without choosing a third seat. I tried every variation, but nothing worked. In the end, I phoned Everyman and a helpful person booked the tickets for me.

Solution: Everyman, fix the website bug, so your customer service people don’t have to spend time booking tickets that should be available online. You will also avoid people giving up, and not buying food and drink from your cinemas.

Case study 2: GoPro

I bought a new GoPro 13 action camera earlier this month. (Highly recommended, by the way.) It came with a year’s free GoPro Premium subscription, which includes cloud storage of GoPro footage. But when I tried to set up automatic upload of my videos, it told me to buy a subscription. I called GoPro, and was assured that everything was set up correctly. But 10 days later, I’m still being prompted to buy a subscription. I’m going to have to call again – a complete waste of my time and that of the GoPro customer service team.

Solution: GoPro, fix the glitch that stops my subscription showing up on your system. And make sure your agents look into things more carefully, rather than simply saying everything is set up when it clearly isn’t.

Case study 3: Wales & West Housing

We’ve been trying to sell my late father’s flat in Wales for over a year. It’s part of a block for older people managed by Wales & West Housing. I’ve told the company repeatedly that no one is living in the house, and to send all letters directly to me for a quicker response, given I live 150 miles away in England. Needless to say, this never happens. In July, I received a redirected letter telling me that an engineer would be visiting to carry out the annual gas safety check. I called to tell Wales & West that the engineer should gain access via the estate agent handling the sale. A couple of weeks later, I got another redirected letter – above – saying the engineer called at the flat but couldn’t gain access – having ignored my instruction.

I called Wales & West again, repeating what I’d told them already. Yet again, I got a letter saying an engineer had called and found no one at home, and threatening legal action. This time, I emailed Wales & West chief executive Anne Hinchey, who took the necessary action. (Thanks, Anne.)

As a result of this saga, an engineer wasted time on two fruitless visits – and the chief executive and I also wasted time that could have been used more productively.

Solution: Wales & West, make sure your people act on instructions, sending correspondence to the right address and not sending an engineer to an unoccupied flat.

Get it right, first time

We can all think of similar examples of time wasted because of a faulty website, customer service teams not taking responsibility for an issue – and a host of other reasons why life’s tasks don’t run smoothly. That’s why it’s so important for companies to fix issues when they arise. In my PR career, I often got emails from unhappy customers, and always passed these on promptly to someone who could help. Getting things right first time is essential to being efficient – and makes for happy customers. It’s also a quick win in solving Britain’s productivity crisis.

Beware of GoPro handlebar mount

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Screenshot 2020-06-11 at 11.53.04

The mount in place as I climb to Glenshee, August 2019

I loved my GoPro handlebar mount. I liked the way I could move the camera to film  ahead or to the side. I made good use of it on last August’s Land’s End to John O’Groats bike ride. In bought it after cycling and gadget blogger DC Rainmaker praised it in a review.

But last week, as I was cycling along a suburban street in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, it broke, catastrophically. I heard the sound of something falling off my bike. A light? No, my GoPro 7 Black camera. The metal joining the two parts of the mount had failed, casting my camera and the top part of the mount onto the road. (The bottom bit remained on the handlebar.) Happily, it wasn’t run over by a car.

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The failed mount

You can see here the point of failure – a metal rod connecting the two parts of the mount.

I contacted GoPro customer support to report the problem. I wasn’t necessarily expecting a refund – I had bought the mount in April last year. But I was shocked when the agent essentially accused me of lying when I said there was no impact causing the catastrophic failure. I was simply cycling along a suburban street. I’d never used it off-road. In any case, shouldn’t a GoPro mount be able to cope with something more than a local, tarmac street? Aren’t these meant to be action cameras?

I guess I will have to look for something sturdier, such as a K-Edge’s metal ones. But it’s a shame, as the GoPro mount suited me. Before it broke on a suburban street.

UPDATE, Monday 15 June

I am delighted to say that after I contacted GoPro again (thanks for suggesting that, DC Rainmaker!) Michele Eve contacted me, apologised for my original experience and offered to send me a replacement. Excellent customer service – thank you!

Testing the GoPro jaws clamp mount

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I love my GoPro Hero 3 video camera. It’s made it far easier and safer to video bike rides. (I shudder to think I once cycled at over 20mph holding a camcorder…) I’ve now got an even better way of attaching it to a bike or ICE trike: the GoPro Jaws Flexible Clamp mount.  Continue reading →