Tag

GoPro

Browsing

Do you bleed neon yellow? Then we have got the Valentino Rossi video for you. A production by the folks at GoPro (who sponsor Rossi), this 11-minute short film tries to capture Rossi’s tumultuous 2017 season.

It’s not really a documentary though…more like a VR46 love-fest, featuring The Doctor, his ranch, and his hometown. Still, if you are a fan of the nine-time world champion, this video will brighten your day.

If you are a MotoGP fanatic who is equally excited for the 2018 season, which is already off to a good start, this video will hit your joy button.

…But if you are part of the Catalan MotoGP Mafia and wear ants on your helmet…well, you might just want to move along. There’s nothing for you to see here.

Episode 51 of the Two Enthusiasts Podcast is out, and covers a variety of interesting subjects for your two-wheeled lifestyle. First up, we talk shop about going to track days, such as the benefits of using tire-warmers and how to slide a motorcycle in and out of a corner.

The conversation then gets more serious, and focuses on the recent financial news about Dorna Sports (media rights holder to MotoGP and WorldSBK), and how its investors are using the media company as a piggy bank.

We finish the show discussing some movements by GoPro in the action camera sector, as the behemoth video company tries to deal with its product increasingly becoming a commodity.

It’s worth pointing out that this show was recorded before our trip to the Circuit of the Americas, so we will be trickling out that content going forward…there’s a lot of it.

You can listen to the show via the embedded SoundCloud player, after the jump, or you can find the show on iTunes (please leave a review) or this RSS feed. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well. Enjoy the show!

We know many of you ride with video cameras on your bikes or person, and that many of those cameras are made by GoPro. So, we thought this news from the action camera brand would interest you a bit, as GoPro is starting a “trade-up” program for GoPro owners.

Starting this week, and for a limited time, existing GoPro owners can receive $100 off a new HERO5 Black, or $50 off a HERO5 Session when they trade-in any previous-generation GoPro Hero camera. Boom goes the dynamite.

GoPro has some fine print about how the trade-in program works, but essentially you sign-up for the trade-in, ship them your camera, and then they send you your new Hero5 ($300) or Hero5 Session ($250).

The name GoPro has become synonymous with action cameras. As such, we are sure that there are quite a few GoPro owners amongst the Asphalt & Rubber readership.

Talk of a GoPro drone has been circulating for some time now, and today the GoPro Karma drone has finally debuted, along with the Hero5 series of the action camera.

The GoPro Karma drone is of course compatible with the latest generation of cameras, as well as the Hero4 Black and Hero4 Silver. The cost is $799 for the GoPro Karma, though you can buy a camera/drone bundle for $999.

I know what you are already thinking, everyone and their mom already has an action camera. To make matters worse, GoPro (the leader in this realm) has seen its stock price drop in what can only be described as a complete free fall for the past month, thanks mostly to lagging sales.

So, how can action cameras be the next, next big thing in the motorcycle industry? The answer is a simple one, if you will allow me to explain.

The next, next big thing for motorcycles isn’t the cameras themselves – those are basically already at commodity status for consumers – but instead the future for action cameras resides in integrated camera platforms for motorcycles, and other action sports.

There is a lot of business school “bullshit bingo” in that last statement, so let me break it down to you in human-speak.

Motorcycle brands need to realize how consumers are using their vehicles, and adapt to meet those needs directly. In this case, it means offering an integrated video recording solution with their motorcycles.

GoPro continues to find ways to take our hard-earned money, and today the action-sport video camera company has a new model for us: the GoPro Hero4 Session. The concept here is simple, take GoPro’s Hero4 video camera, and make it smaller in a form-factor.

This sort of progress should surprise no one with a basic understanding of Moore’s law, as we can expect company’s like GoPro to continue to make strives in making their products smaller and more powerful.

In the case of the GoPro Hero4 Session, the gains in size come with trade-offs in performance, as early reviewers suggest that the Hero4 Session has video capabilities just shy of the GoPro Hero4 Silver. All things considered though, that’s still a lot of power, now in a smaller footprint.

In what will surely encourage squids around the world to push the limits on public roads, the now infamous RNickeyMouse brings us another video from Mulholland.

Our protagonist brings his Yamaha R1 around, and while dragging his knee on the J-Turn corner, grabs a GoPro camera that has been placed on the double-yellow line.

As the video description advises, do not try this…you will crash.

Small affordable video cameras are changing the way motorcycle enthusiasts record their two-wheeling adventures, and one name has dominated the market: GoPro. The San Francisco Bay Area company is looking now to continue that growth; and to help achieve that goal, GoPro is searching for $100 million in capital.

According to documents filed on Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), GoPro will look for that money with an initial public offering (IPO).

Planning to be listed at GPRO on the NASDAQ exchange, GoPro disclosed $985 million in revenue last year, up 87% from 2012; while net income topped $61 million, nearly double the $32 million GoPro earned in 2012.

Asphalt & Rubber was recently up on Pikes Peak to watch the 89th Annual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and one of the things we notice there was the proliferation for digital video cameras on the race vehicles. Part of it had to do with the mountain’s fastest man, Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima being sponsored by GoPro HD cameras, but the reality is that affordable high quality consumer video recorders are readily available and come in pint-sized packages. The Contour HD GPS cameras, which shot the great on-board video of the two MotoCzysz motorcycles that we brought to you yesterday, are smaller than your fist, while the GoPro units are even smaller.

With these tools, videographers are getting some great footage from places we never thought possible, and in ways we’ve never seen before. So when we saw footage of the RotoR system, a helmet-mounted, counter-balanaced, camera mount for GoPro cameras, we knew that the bar on how motorcycle videos got shot was just raised significantly higher. Creating what appears to be an exceptionally light rig, we’re still not entirely sure how RotoR achieves its sweeping shots, but the “right over your shoulder” perspective looks fantastic in the skiing and motocross videos that are waiting for you after the jump.

The videos are a bit surreal, and now all we have to do is wait for someone to mount this camera system to the top of a sport bike helmet while having some fun in the canyons. More videos after the jump.