Recently I added an extra video camera to the video arsenal. My workhorse is a standard def Sony VX2100. These babies are the ducks' nuts of SD video cameras, the documentary film makers camera of choice up 'til HD took over, thank you Nick Bird for the recommendation!  I got myself a little GoPro "Hero HD" for a bit of novelty value after seeing some really good kayaking videos shot with one.  If you're into whitewater 'yaking, this is brilliant, these guys have done some good videos but this one's their best ... 

Anyway .. To cut a long story short, I've used the little thing a few times at DISC and at Blackburn to record some tutorial-ish video, flying 200 lines mainly, from a rider/handlebar PoV.  Today I did some rear-facing stuff on the motorbike at DISC so I could see what the guys in the squad were doing while at speed.  My editing is very crude, rough and ready using PowerDirector and I don't spend much time making it pretty, but it's still handy stuff, I reckon.

The lens is a very wide angle (170 degrees in most modes including the default 960p/30fps) so there's some distortion when the subject is close (as they should be when being motorpaced, but SOME OF YOU SIT WAY TOO FAR OFF THE DAMN BIKE! The roller is there for a reason, YOU CAN TOUCH IT!) but even so, it's been quite revealing.  We don't often get to look closely at sprinters under load at speed and everything happens pretty quickly.  The video I'm getting isn't going to make our coaching service 107.65% better, make you 30-40% faster or any of that other marketing bull, but it's a pretty handy thing to have and I'm going to use it quite a bit, I think.