Tricking out the Bike IV: Camera Mount

Last Tuesday, Make: Blog featured a link to a set of simple instructions (that appear to be written by Chieh Cheng) to make a camera mount for a bicycle.

I've got to have one, I said to myself.

I bought the things I needed at Home Hardware Thursday afternoon (before going to the Buck or Two) and made one Thursday night.

The camera mount is the gizmo with the wingnuts (aka thumbscrews).

[Oh, notice the headlight? For some reason they designed it so that a cyclist will see the top of the light when it is on. I made a cowl with foil tape on the top to keep it from distracting me and wrecking my night vision. ]

Back to the camera mount, one of the best parts of the instructions is that they require going to a dollar store for a light from which you take the mounting clamp. (He went to a 99 cent store, but if you want me to be technical about it, we'd also have to go into currency conversions.) I didn't have to go to a dollar store for the clamp because I've got a bunch of them already kicking around. (I keep losing lights and not losing the clamps that go with them.)

Here's my first real bike cam shot. Gladstone Avenue, Friday morning.

On my way to Elgin Street Friday afternoon I took my first vigilante shot. This guy has stopped in a no-stopping zone, which is a bike lane, on a busy bridge. My bike lane! But, you ask, does that inexpensive Kodak of yours have the resolution to get the plate number?

Yes, it does.

My second vigilante shot is a car going through a very red light. For this one the plate was pretty blurry. You'd need one of those CSI guys to bring it out.

But I didn't put the camera mount on the bike to enforce the traffic code. I got it to make art.