*K1300S CA/NV/UT Hi-Speed Run + Images & Videos

[Ed F K]

Shiva, It was a pleasure meeting you, Andy, Erin, fellow forum riders & friends as well.

Thanks for hosting the get together!

[Deans BMW]

Shiva, I see no luggage in your pics. How did you carry your gear?

[Bernardo]

Shiva, I see no luggage in your pics. How did you carry your gear?

Support vehicle....

[Rocketier]

[SHIVA]

STAGE 5 - SAN FRANCISCO to LA via PCH - 450 MILES

Today I finished basically the last stage of this ride. Rode from San Francisco to LA via Pacific Coast Highway, 450 miles (725km) in about 8 hours. It was misty, damp and cold this morning on the PCH and I have some great videos to share from this ride as well. But for now, enjoy these images:




to see larger: http://bmwsuperbikes.com/K13S/PCH-2.jpg

[Drifter1]

This picture captures the essence of riding in Nevada. The roads are perfect for K bikes and not all are this straight. But you can go as fast as you want, however on this road there is 157 miles between gas stations. meaning if you go too fast and not mind your range, you'll be out of fuel with no help or cell coverage in sight. so, you need to constantly mind your range in such situations, and alternate between fast, faster and fastest and be mindful of mileage you put in what speed. If you get too close to be out of fuel, drop speed to 60 - 70mph in 6th and maintain speed and hope you can make it to the next town.

Thats why you carry one of these filled with your favorite petrol, however they are a biatch to fill at the pump once you use it

[SHIVA]

I have organized the main images from my trip in several albums on BMWSuperBikes Facebook Profile. To view go here:

http://www.facebook.com/bmwsuperbikes?v ... s?v=photos

Although this profile is public, you still need to Friend us, before you can view albums.

or just visit our WALL for easy access to images:

http://www.facebook.com/bmwsuperbikes?v=wall

[SHIVA]

The Press bike was returned with 5550 miles on it. I put almost exactly 2500 miles (4000 KM) on the bike in about 10 days of actual riding.

[Graemsay]

I helped sail a boat from SF to LA last summer, and saw a fair amount of the PCH from on the water.

Wouldn't mind riding it sometime. Thanks for the pictures Shiva.

[ciliaris]

man, y this is going to be a ride of a lifetime.........wish i was there..... how is it so far....

[SHIVA]

Back in New York. With some great memories from this trip and lots to report and specially very excited to start work on the videos and share those as well.

[Bernardo]

Welcome home!

healthy, safe and happy

[SHIVA]

Back in New York, with great memories from this trip and lots to report. I have been posting images from the ride on daily basis on both my BMWSuperBikes.com community and Facebook page. However, I am very excited to start work on the videos and share those as well. I have two special video interviews. One is with the master K bike customizer Larry Romestant in Los Angeles area and the other is an extensive interview with Chris and Willie Hodgson of San Jose BMW about the first ever race of the S 1000 RR on Salt at the famed Bonneville. In addition to a large selection of onboard HD videos.

The trip overall covered 2600 miles (4200 km) in 10 days of spirited riding. I traveled through some of the best roads in the world such as, Malibu canyons, Death Valley, Pacific Coast Highway, Nevada’s truly awesome and flawless backroads, central California’s desolate farm roads and Yosemite’s scenic and twisty mountainous roads. I rode in elevation from sea level to 10,000 feet (3050 meters) and temperatures ranging from 40 to 119 deg f (4 to 48 c).

The K1300S performed flawlessly. With so much power on tap and at the ready even at near idle RPM mated to powerful brakes and long wheelbase, the K13 was always poised no matter the speed, or the condition of the road. It performed as beautifully in Malibu’s famed canyons to Nevada’s middle-of-nowhere ruler-prefect with 20-mile visibility blacktops.

I have already started work on the videos and should have some to share in about a week.

[scrannel]

Shiva,

Thanks for stopping by the "Bu", glad you made it home safe. Catch up with you next time we're in NY.

Dave

[SHIVA]

Dave, thanks for the comment. Look forward to it.

Guys, I am working on the videos, can't wait to share them with you. S

[SHIVA]

1st VIDEO
A VIDEO PROFILE OF MASTER K BIKE CUSTOMIZER LARRY ROMESTANT

I like Larry Romestant's work. He is an extremely detailed oriented bike builder who focuses only on K bikes. I met Larry at the BMW MOA Rally in Oregon and paid him a visit at his workshop in LA area for a video interview. I wanted this video to only focus on Larry's work and have him explain why he is so driven to customize K bikes.

BMWSuperBikes.com Interviews Master K Bike Customizer Larry Romestant of http://www.SpecialKs.net. This Video is Produced, Photographed and Edited by Shiva and it is shot in Cinema grade HD on Lumix GH1, make sure to watch in 720P and full screen.



To watch in HD, visit this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_aOUYLNG_s&hd=1

.

[sundog]

Interesting interview and some great HD video footage.
Look forward to the other videos !

[SHIVA]

2nd VIDEO
A VIDEO PROFILE OF SAN JOSE BMW RACING THE S1000RR AT BONNEVILLE SALT FLATS

My video profile of San Jose BMW racing the S1000RR on Salt. I am very excited to share this video with you. San Jose BMW ran 4 bikes at this year's BUB Speed Trials, including the first ever race of the S1000RR for the record.



make sure to watch in full screen and keep the resolution at 720P.
Here's a direct link to the HD version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0lYDRIyzo8&hd=1

Now that I have edited and released both of these videos, I can start work on the footage from my run...

[Deans BMW]

Shiva, great film, thanks.

Gave me goose bumps.

I ran a R1200ST there in '05 (147 MPH). We (SJBMW) set a record on our K1200 Power Cup bike, something in the low 160's. The salt was perfect that year. Chris said it was very greasy this year.

Bonneville is a Other Worldy place for sure.

[SHIVA]

Thanks very much Dean. Your comment is much appreciated. I spent two days with the SJBMW team to get the right footage.

This was my second time on Salt and I can totally see the lure of it. When you are on salt nothing else exists. Just bring good shades...

[SHIVA]

RIDE VIDEO UPDATE

With the two video projects released and out of the way, I am going to start editing video or videos from my run. I have a couple of dozen clips just of onboard stuff from every segment of my ride, plus some with my Lumix HD. I haven't decided how to edit it, as the onboard stuff poses some challenge, first off the sound from the Contour HD is unusable for the most part. meaning it's just wind noise. So, I may do narration or put music behind it or both. since I like to do as professional of a job as possible I can't use random music, meaning, I'd need to either use rights-free music, or some tracks from my own albums. All this I need to figure. But normally when I start to edit, things come together quickly.

[SHIVA]

CONTOUR HD - 720P HELMET CAM REVIEW

It's time to cover the single most disappointing aspect of my otherwise very awesome 10-day run, the Contour HD. I hadn't used the units prior to this run and mainly selected this product based on features, promise of durability, light weight, decent image quality and some online reviews.

I went on this trip with 3 Contour HD 720P cameras and 4 mounts. The mounts included a suction cup mount from RAM, which performed without a hitch. I personally tested it at 162 MPH (GPS verified) mounted on the front shield. When you place the suction cup mount properly on the shield or the body panel, it will not come off, until you release the air pressure. See images for location.

So, this the RAM suction cup mount became the default mount and it was on the bike at all times. It was only taken off at nights and during photo shoots.





The Contour HD 720P cameras have a serious problem with vibration. During a shoot a slight bump or vibration may cause the battery to become disconnected for a fraction of a second and that's enough for the camera to stop running and for the footage to be lost.

This helmet cam will give you no indication that this has happened, meaning you are going around some amazing road, such as the hyper twisty canyons around Malibu and are having a great time and are excited to know that you are capturing the ride on this "cool" camera. And then when you get back to your hotel room and look up the files, you'll see that the damn camera not only stopped recording along the way, but it has captured none of the ride, due to the battery connection issue I mentioned above.

I lost some of my best footage in this way. For me this is a very sad statement. The helmet cam was the single and only point of frustration through out the trip. It's good that I had 3 cameras with me. Because one of them stopped working all together. The other needed to be reset often. Meaning you take out the battery, take out the Micro SD card, wait a couple of seconds and then put them back and hope that it would work. Only one camera turned on consistently. 1 out of 3.



The Contour HD, has no LCD and allows you no way whatsoever, to check your work in the field.

Unless you want to turn your laptop on after every shot. Meaning you'd need to pull over, dismount, open laptop, turn on, connect camera to lap top, open file list, click on each file to make sure they are good, because sometimes the camera captures the file, but the file is corrupt due to vibration issue. Basically you are totally blind to what the camera has done until it's too late. To me, this is totally and utterly bogus.

The Contour HD 720P is purely an amateur tool and is not recommended for any serious project.

The list of lost files, included a truly awesome ride in LA canyons that would put the Dragon to shame; all the footage that was shot of my riding with camera being mounted on Andy's bike. Which I think was a conspiracy. Every time I mounted the camera on Andy's bike, during his 4 days of joining me on this ride, the file was no good. I am kidding of course about the conspiracy, it's the damn camera that is utterly unreliable. Any shot on LA's freeways, cutting through traffic, splitting lanes, and such, which would be interesting to our members in Europe and other countries to see. Most of my all out acceleration footage in Nevada, meaning if in the process you hit a little bump the footage is lost. and more... However, there is still a couple of dozen clips representing every aspect of the ride.

Due to my frustration with Contour HD and talking with their tech support on a few occasions, I have now become an expert on this camera. And if you have a 720P Contour HD, and if you want to get reliable footage, don't let the camera run for more than 4 minutes. 3 min would even be better. Any footage longer than 5 minutes will take a chance of being lost. because the longer the camera is recording the more chance of something going wrong.

RANT OVER>>>

[Alpinebiker]

Nice report and pics, and sorry to hear of your ContourHD problems, losing any films on any trip is bound to be a major downer.

I was however surprised to hear you had any problems at all, as I have the same camera and have at least 20 films, shot on less than perfect Alpine roads, all longer than 10 minutes, and many in excess of 30 minutes. The only issue I found was that there is an auto shut off after 15 minutes, and a couple of times when I downloaded that days films I thought I'd shot, they were missing, but only because I hand't restarted filming.

I don't have any affiliation to Contour but just wanted to offer a balanced viewpoint on a camera system which has exceeded all my expectations in delivering excellent quality HD films. Mounting position is however critical, to avoid vibration affecting the image excessively.

[Eka]

The more and more i like live videos.

[SHIVA]

Hi Alpine, I tried different mount positions as well. for example I mounted the camera on Andy's K13 right on the body panel and not the shield and none of the footage made it. Also I have a camera C-clamp that I used to mount the Contour HD to the passenger foot bracket to show low view shots, those didn't make it either.

I am glad to hear that you have had good luck with them. S