There are a couple of good reasons for cycling with a video camera. You might want to record interesting rides — climbing Alpe d’Huez, for example, or descending Sa Calobra — or you might want to collect video that could be used as evidence in the event of a road traffic incident, in the same way that a car’s dashcam does. Here’s our roundup of the best cycling cameras you can buy.
road.cc Near Miss of the Day videos show the potential value of riding with a camera. Many incidents would be a matter of one person’s word against another but for the video evidence.
7 of the best action cameras
- GoPro HERO 9 Black (£329.99) | Read review
- Cycliq Fly12 HD Camera and Front Light (£269) | Read review
- GoPro Hero7 Silver (£199.99)
- Go Pro Hero7 Black (£259.99) | Read review
- DJI Osmo Action (£279.00) | Read review
- Cycliq Fly6 rear light camera (£189) | Read review
- Techalogic DC-1 Dual Lens Helmet Camera (£189.95) | Read review
Here’s what you should look for when deciding what to buy.
Recording quality
Start looking into picture quality and you’ll all of a sudden meet a whole lot of jargon relating to pixels and resolution.
• 720p consists of 1280 x 720 pixels (so over 900,000 pixels)
• 1080p consists of 1920 x 1080 pixels (just over 2 million pixels)
• 4K consists of 3840 x 2160 pixels (over 8 million pixels)
1080p is able to give finer detail than 720p, and 4K offers greater detail again. On the flip side, higher resolution tends to cost more and it takes up more memory for the same amount of time.
You’ll also come up against fps, or frames per second, which is exactly what it sounds like.
The Cycliq Fly12 HD Camera and Front Light (£269) shoots in a maximum resolution of 1080p and 60fps.
It also has electronic 6-axis stabilisation, meaning that the footage doesn’t bounce around when you’re trying to read the number plate of a car that cut you up.
“The footage is very good,” said Dave Atkinson in his review for road.cc. “The 135° angle lens gives a nice wide view and the picture is sharp and clear, making it easy to read car number plates, for example.
“The six-axis image stabilisation does a great job of making the recorded image nice and smooth, although the horizontal stabilisation means that you get a bit of a delay and then a sharp movement when you start a turn. That’s not so much of an issue when you’re turning from one road to another, but it can make the video a bit choppy when you’re out of the saddle, or you’re struggling up a steep climb.”
The £329.99 GoPro Hero9 Black can record 5K video at 30fps and 4K at 60fps, and do lovely slow-motion at 120fps and even 240fps. It’s so powerful and versatile that it could be considered overkill for cycling applications but as reviewer Steve found, it’s nevertheless rather marvellous.
We haven’t yet tested the recently-released GoPro Hero10 Black (£429.99), but on paper it does everything the Hero9 does, only a bit more so, with increased resolution and a reportedly far better hydrophobic lens coating. If you’re quick, GoPro’s offering Black Friday deals of £329.98 for the bare camera or £379.98 with a bunch of accessories.
Of older and more affordable GoPro cameras, the GoPro Hero7 Silver (£199.99) will give you 30fps at 4K, while its big brother, the £259.99 Hero7 Black, will shoot in 4K up to 60fps and as Dave Atkinson found when he reviewed it, do an awful lot more beside.
And if you’re in the market for a camera at the top of the price range you should also look at the £279 DJI Osmo Action, which Dave was also really impressed with.
You can get pretty good standard action cameras for not much money if you don’t feel that you need something like a Cycliq. A QUMOX SJ8 Air, for instance, is very well regarded and you can pick one up online for £110.
It shoots at a maximum resolution of 1296p, records on loops of three, five or ten minutes (see Looping video, below) and has a battery life of 90 minutes.
One other aspect of the recording to consider is the sound.
When reviewing the (now-discontinued) Acer Xplova X5 Evo GPS Cycling Computer, Jez Ash said, “The microphone on the device is just about usable when completely stationary, but at any kind of speed it becomes useless – the combination of road vibration and wind noise (even at low speeds) overwhelms all other sound.”
“When you put cameras of this kind in a mount the sound quality is awful most of the time,” warns road.cc’s resident video guy Matt Howes. “In fact, the sound quality of action cams generally isn’t very high, although that isn’t really the point of them; the quality of the video is much more important to most people.”
Looping video
Looping video allows a camera to record continuously. When it runs out of memory space it starts to overwrite your existing footage. This is a really valuable feature, meaning that you don’t have to delete unneeded footage manually and you’ll never find that the camera has stopped recording because the memory card is full.
If anything notable happens while you’re riding — anything you want to keep as recorded evidence, for example — you can save it before it’s overwritten.
The Cycliq Fly12, for instance, chops the video into 5-, 10- or 15-minute segments (depending on your preference) and when the card is full, it deletes the oldest footage.
It has an incident detection system built in. If the camera detects that it is tilted more than 60° from the horizontal, it triggers an automatic process that locks the current footage, and the segment either side. You can also press a button on the Fly12 to do the same thing.
Size and weight
Chances are that you want a camera that’s small and unobtrusive, especially if you’re planning to mount it on a helmet as opposed to the bike, but you might want to balance that against battery life; a very light weight camera can sometimes have quite a short runtime.
The least obtrusive camera that we’ve reviewed on road.cc is the 62g RoadHawk Ride R+ Cycle Edition Camera, but that’s unfortunately no longer available.
Something like the GoPro Hero7 Silver is considerably larger — 62 x 45 x 28mm and 94g — while the Cycliq Fly12 measures 103 x 59 x 35mm and weighs 195g, but it’s a light as well as a camera.
Battery life
Battery life varies considerably between different cameras and, as mentioned above, there’s often a balancing act between size/weight and runtime, so make sure you choose something that suits your needs.
The Cycliq Fly12 has a battery life of about eight hours with the camera on and the light off, five hours with the light on low, and a couple of hours with the light on full power. With regular recharging, that’ll cover most people’s needs.
Cycliq’s Fly6 rear light camera (£189) gives you up to five hours of continuous recording in camera-only mode and four hours with lights on.
GoPro reckons that you’ll get from 1:20hrs to 2:30hrs of continuous recording from a fully charged battery in its Hero cameras, depending on the video mode.
Mounts
Chances are that you’ll want to mount your camera to either the handlebar or a helmet, or facing backwards on your seatpost. You can get chest mounts too, which are great for mountain bike videos, but we’ve found them a bit cumbersome and not particularly comfortable for long rides. If the mounts you want aren’t included in the package you’ll need to budget for them separately.
A Cycliq Fly6 rear light/camera, for example, comes with a standard mount, but a rear pannier mount costs £22.99.
A GoPro Hero camera comes with adhesive mounts but a vented helmet strap mount costs £19.99 and a handlebar/seatpost mount is £34.99. A Cycling Combo Mount for a Garmin Virb Ultra 30 is £34.99 too.
It’s worth checking what’s in the box before handing over your cash.
Most helmet mounts just point the camera forward, but we were impressed with the Techalogic DC-1 Dual Lens Helmet Camera (£179.95) which, as the name suggests has two lenses, one pointing forward and the other backward. Have a read of our review.
Apps
These days cameras have apps that can make the user experience a whole lot easier.
For example, you can connect your Cycliq Fly12 to your smartphone and have access to all the settings, so you can configure the camera the way you want and control it (if you ride off-road you have to turn the tilt feature and emergency alarm off otherwise it will sound when you lean too far over in a berm or lay your bike down). You can alter the settings via a computer desktop app too, while another desktop app allows you to edit video.
If you simply want to use a camera to record any road traffic incidents that occur, you won’t spend much time editing footage so app capability can afford to be pretty basic. GoPro’s desktop app, on the other hand, is designed for making more impressive action videos. You can add photos and time lapse sequences, for instance, and sync music to your videos — well beyond anything you’d want for everyday footage of riding through traffic.
Apps are also used for firmware updates. Of course, you need to make sure than any app is compatible with your phone and/or computer.
Warranty
Most cameras come with a 12-month warranty. Cycliq, Garmin and GoPro, for example, give you a warranty that says their cameras will be free from defects in workmanship and materials under normal use for a year.
Check out our camera reviews here
We’d really like to know about the cameras road.cc readers are using and whether or not they’re any good. Please tell us in the comments below.
84 thoughts on “Best cycling cameras — capture your ride and relive it later”
They might ahve improved the
They might have improved the Cycliq but I found it was good by day but poor by night. Some day footage from London
Team EPO wrote:
I was certainly disappointed the Cycliq wasnt as good as Id expected it to be at night based on others footage Id seen, though it is streets ahead of the GoPro Hero I had before, but I think that highlights its more than about how to choose a new camera, theres a whole part missing about whats the best configuration,where is best to fit the camera on the bike & whats the best settings for these cameras to get the best out of them in a variety of conditions.
wish they’d make the cycliq
wish they’d make the cycliq cameras with the battery life but without the lights (that is, smaller/more compact).
basically I wish they’d make cameras I could use on my commute without charging once or twice a day (too much faff). Twice a week I could live with. cycling is meant to be simple! 😉
My cycliq fly 6 (older model
My cycliq fly 6 (older model to that shown) has been a reliable friend for 3 years or so. The flashy light modes have recently stopped working, they now stay solid on which is fine by me though.
Only gripe is the lens, being plastic, is prone to micro scratches from the dirt that inevitably gets wiped off, rather than lovingly rinsed in crystal spring water. A little t-cut and half an hour polishing gets the worst out but the lens should be glass or at least a more resilient plastic. Maybe they have improved the design, but it is something I would add to my list of must have features when it does get replaced.
Cycliq video lights are a
Cycliq video lights are a great concept let down by awful reliability. I went through several Fly6/12 models both the old and the new CE models. The kept shutting down on their own and the newer Fly 12 bracket kept breaking. Eventually I gave up returned each and every model under warranty and bought a GoPro Session with battery extender instead.
brianlescargot wrote:
This.
I can’t understand why bike
I can’t understand why bike cameras are so big. You can have really fancy cameras built into your mobile phone which take up very little room and yet all bike cameras are huge in comparison. I’d like to film my bike ride but I don’t want a great big appenditure stuck on top of my helmet which basically says “I am a tw*t”. I would have thought bike helmets would have fancy cameras built into them by now (forward, aft view etc) with a nice battery pack hidden into the polystyrene somewhere and a USB connection to download and charge etc etc?
James Walker wrote:
https://cyclevision.com.au/blogs/news
RM wrote:
That looks interesting, and apparently almost ready for release. I’d be intrigued by any reviews and how any compromises made to get the cameras and batteries included affect its primary function as a helmet.
$450 Aus is apparently about £250. So not as outrageously expensive as I assumed, and not that bad compared to the cost of a helmet + 2x cameras. Assuming it’s actually a half decent helmet and not the equivalent of a £20 Tesco special.
The issue with helmet cams for me is the uneven weight distribution. Even if the camera doesn’t weigh much, it’s sat right on top so makes the helmet feel very top heavy. Distributing the weight more evenly, and lower, could make a huge difference. It seems a bit heavy at (they say) about 490g. I’m sure you’d struggle to have a helmet + 2 cameras weigh much less, but do you need a rear helmet cam?
It also has 2 inbuilt, non-changeable 32GB SD cards. I can understand why having SD card slots and still meeting safety standards would be difficult, but can’t help feeling that a mkII helmet with 2x 64GB cards when SD card prices have nudged down a bit would be a better option.
They also give that limited storage space as the reason for only 30fps at 1080p rather than full 60fps, though I suspect the battery & heat impact of higher frame rates is part of the reasoning too.
Ideally, I’ll be able to catch one of the MkI helmets cheap when the MkII version comes out…
I use a GoPro hero 5 session
I use a GoPro hero 5 session on the rear and a standard hero 6 on the front, both with k-edge mounts, super solid, great quality, both waterproof so no need for cases. Tried a cycliq front light and sent it back after it turned itself off randomly mid ride a number of times.
bike_food wrote:
How do you go with the battery life with the GoPro?
1-2 hours isn’t enough for me which puts me right off these.
ibr17xvii wrote:
I still run an older Gopro hero 3 on the front, with the Bacpac battery box. Gives me 3-4 hrs, for “long” rides I can simply use the USB socket on the side of the bacpac to a battery pack and charge on the go. I’ll run a 32MB card full long before I run out of power (which at 720/30 is just under 6 hrs, then I swapped cards for the final hour or so of the ride… Usually I’d not need the extra card, by was doing one of Norway’s biggest rides with a friend and had agreed to stick together…. plenty time to admire scenery as he slogged up the hills, althoug he left me standing on the gravity assisted bits)
ibr17xvii wrote:
How do you go with the battery life with the GoPro?
1-2 hours isn’t enough for me which puts me right off these.— bike_food
That is the trouble with Go-Pros I find as well. Good footage in the main but battery life won’t last more then 16-18 miles of cycling (just over an hour). From the 5 onwards, they made them waterproof but that meant they couldn’t be connected to external battery pack cases anymore.
Saying that I have two of them. A hero 5 black I won in 2017 and is attached to my handle bars, and a 7 silver I bought from the Amazon Treasure Truck the other month on my helmet. I have a spare battery and charger for the 5 so can just swap the battery over before my commute. The silver is sealed though so I need to remember to charge it at work each day.
I get about 1 1/4 hours out
I get about 1 1/4 hours out of the session and 1 1/2 out of the standard, not a lot but fine for commute, just have to charge at both ends, I use a 64g card which is good for about 3 days worth of commutes, generally there’s nothing worth keeping however so just format after each ride. You can of course hook them up to a battery pack but for my non commutes I want to be light so haven’t explored this too much.
How do you go with the battery life with the GoPro?
1-2 hours isn’t enough for me which puts me right off these.— bike_food
bike_food wrote:
How do you go with the battery life with the GoPro?
1-2 hours isn’t enough for me which puts me right off these.
— ibr17xvii— bike_food
I’ve currently got a GoPro Hero 2018 & on the lowest settings (1080p 25fps) I can just about squeeze of 2 hours before it dies. As most of my rides are under 2 hours this is more of an inconvenience rather than a dealbreaker. In summer when my ride time will increase I guess I’ll just have to carry a spare battery or 2 which I didn’t really want to do but it is what it is.
I have it mounted on a K Edge mount under my GPS which is rock solid & the footage is excellent, car registrations can be read no problem.
I had the Fly12 which I got a & sold within a couple of weeks. The footage itself was pretty good but the software was horrible & the unit itself I wanted to like but it was just too big & clunky.
If anyone can get the balance right between battery life, image quality & size of unit they can take my money.
No point having 4K if your
No point having 4K if your frame rate is only 15fps, that’s just ridiculous, you might as well have 1080 at 30fps, if you want to do slow motion then you’re better off having 720p at 60fps over a poor frame rated 4K.
The Ion Air Pro 3 records 1080p at 60fps and 720p at 120fps.
If you want something cheap but good quality there’s an ebay seller that has a few of the Wi-fi Ion Air Pro at £30 posted for used (bar mount or helmet mount variants) and £50 for new ones, this is exactly what I have been using for a few years now. I bought mine from Staples originally with all the mounts for the same price with a special Black friday deal. There are also some camo versions which are rated down to 49ft water depth.
A rear camera often tells you
A rear camera often tells you more than the front facing one… How quickly they’ve come up behind, left the manoeuvre late and close passed…
alansmurphy wrote:
(assuming this was in response to my comment about needing a rear helmet camera) – I agree on rear cameras, and I had a classic example over the summer: someone tried an overtake, then pulled right into me when they realised a car was coming the other way. They tried to argue there must have been a queue of bikes they were trying to get past (it was a sportive). Rear camera showed a completely empty road…
However, I’m not sure I see the benefit of the rear camera being on the helmet, rather than a fixed position like a Fly6. I just think a rear helmet cam would probably be a bit all over the place, but not following your gaze like a forward facing helmet cam usually does. Head movement would actively take someone coming up behind you out of the camera’s view if you do a shoulder check.
More viewpoints is always going to better, but without being silly I think 1 fixed rear camera, 1 fixed handlebar camera and then a forward helmet camera is going to cover most incidents.
You’re probably right on the
You’re probably right on the movement. I got a rather cheap helmet cam with front and rear in it (think it was more aimed at skiing/snowboarding). I aimed to use it to film dashing overtakes with the bike gang, it’s still in the box 🙂
Resolution and fps is only
Resolution and fps is only part of the equation. Without a discussion of shutter speed you risk ending up with 60 hi-res images per second all marred by motion blur. That’s even before the ravages of noise reduction.
I’ve been using Cycliq’s Fly6
I’ve been using Cycliq’s Fly6 new and old versions. New one has better video quality but is very difficult to use. Basically you need a manual and smartphone app to use it. It is very complicated.
I’ve got the Fly6CE (i.e.
I’ve got the Fly6CE (i.e. newer model) and the date-time stopped working properly – it kept losing hours and then resetting itself to 2018.
I tried contacting Cycliq’s support and they are useless. I got one reply stating that they were extremely busy and then a while later got a reply pointing me to how to change the date-time. I’ve tried responding that I already knew that, but haven’t had a reply from them in months. Are they going out of business or something?
I wouldn’t bother with Cycliq again until they can sort out their support.
hawkinspeter wrote:
Same – mine (now c.18 months old) currently works fine when used as a standalone camera, but the time stamp is wrong, and it will no longer connext to the desktop app so I can change that and other settings and update the firmware. The included seatpost mount was great to start with, but within about 9 months the siliconised lining which gripped the post peeled away, meaning it’s now just a nylon strap which spins around the seatpost.
However, much happier with it than with the entry level GoPro Hero which I bought at the same time to use on the front / for family use. The battery life on that is only about 80 mins, and the recording doesn’t loop, which means I’m forever charging and deleting it (or, more usually, forgetting to).
hawkinspeter wrote:
Cycliq did eventually pick up my support ticket and basically got me to perform master reset a few times which didn’t really help. Then, it stopped working completely and Cycliq got me to send it back to them (they refunded postage) and sent a brand new model as a replacement. So, although their support has some issues, I’m happy with the end result and might well choose Cycliq again if my old front Fly12 stops working.
If you’re after something
If you’re after something fairly basic that isn’t going to break the bank then the Polaroid Cube is pretty good. They’re selling them for £30 (+£4 delivery) on amazon.co.uk
It does 1080p @ 30fps, it’s 35mm x 35mm x 35mm and weighs very little. Quoted battery life is 90 minutes, but if you plug it into a USB powerbank it’ll run for hours on end.
I’ve got two on my bike now – one on the handlebars and one behind the seat. I have a sample clip on YouTube.
Before the Cube I had a
Before the Cube I had a Chameleon. Quite an unusual design with 2 lenses that you can swivel. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a way of mounting this on my bike and getting good front and rear coverage. Also, the video quality wasn’t that great and the camera itself is on the large size.
You can still get them on Amazon.com, wouldn’t really recommend it but it might fill a particular use case for somebody.
I use a Veho Muvi K2 NPNG on
I use a Veho Muvi K2 NPNG on a K-Edge handlebar mount.
Depending on settings, it will do up to 4 hours recording time. I normally get 2.5 hours out of a full charge on highest resolution, but the big advantage of this one is you can easily carry a spare battery (or 2) in a pocket.
Can pick them up for around £100 on eBay, comes with waterproof case and various mounts. Spare battery around £15.
I’ve had some minor issues with reading certain memory cards that were fixed by formatting the card.
Think they’ve updated them a bit since I bought mine. Thinking of getting another one to mount under the saddle pointing backwards.
Currently testing out a
Currently testing out a Chilli Tech bullet camera with the 4 hr battery and swap on the fly spare.
Battery life good, picture quality good and I wanted to mount it rear facing and have a saddle bag, luckily CTechs handlebar mount is good too to mount on the seat tube to face the rear. The reason for rear facing is obviously for close passes as I was spanked by a door mirror in early September. I got this on offer at £49 delivered and and extra £6 for the additional mount which I decided on after the first ride out with it. Battery life is great for the weekend club ride.
The Drift Innovation ‘Ghost X
The Drift Innovation ‘Ghost X’ is reasonably affordable (£130, less with discount codes) and has excellent runtime: up to 8 hours at 1080p 60fps with the extended battery pack. Image quality and dynamic range aren’t a patch on GoPros but good enough to read a number plate in daylight and well lit night conditions. Shower proof without a case and submersible when installed in the dive housing. The Ghost 4K is even better but costs a fair bit more.
Silversurfmonkey wrote:
And unfortunately I’ve now fallen foul of the (seemingly infamous) craptastic Drift customer service. Ordered a universal mount two weeks back that doesn’t fit anything and had two weeks of delays, excuses and ignored requests for refunds on rejected goods. Based on this I’d have to say AVOID. A real shame, as battery life is still the best available. if you do buy from them, pay with Paypal!
Here in the USA I bought mine
Here in the USA I bought mine from B&H Photo, and they have fantastic customer support. They had a person who supported technical questions, and when I discovered that my new battery only held a charge for 10 minutes, they replaced it with one that worked.
There’s a ghost xl now for ~
There’s a ghost xl now for ~ £15 more with a claimed 9 hours run time.
Can anyone comment on their
Can anyone comment on their camera’s ability to read the license plate numbers of cars? I’ve seen lots of videos discussing action cameras for bikes, but I’ve never seen any discussion about whether the license plates are readable and/or what the minimum resolution or frame rate (or shutter speed) needs to be in order to make it useful for those purposes. If your device is able to do this, can you comment and indicate that, and perhaps add if it works at night too?
Thanks!
twoon wrote:
The Cycliq ones (Fly6 rear and Fly12 front) show quite clear number plates when the light is good but can suffer a bit in the dark. I’ve found that at night-time it depends very much on how much vibration there is (i.e. smooth or bumpy road) and wet road spray tends to create a lot of glare that can obscure the details. Maybe I should try reducing the FPS for night-time as that should increase the light/exposure used.
hawkinspeter wrote:
Youd expect it to make a difference doing that,as being the rule of thumb in photography,but I cant say I’ve noticed it helps much,if any.And the Cycliqs the lens cover is plastic and gets minute scratches which increases light flare/glare at night & I’ve found basically unless the number plate is directly in front of you and the car is travelling no more than 30mph, forget it even if you can make it out the police wont pursue it unless it’s clearly visible,I’ve had several night time close passes that were impossible to read due to the vehicles speed or simple being a lane across from me. But the cycliqs are better than the earlier GoPros,which struggled in anything other than perfect sunlight, the more recent GoPros 5 etc seem a lot better,but it always surprises me theres so little setup advice online for this kind of thing.
twoon wrote:
I’ve got a ghost X. If I record at 1080p, then I can get a frame using vlc media player. In the dark it’s a bit hopeless, but it isn’t an expensive camera.
There’s a bunch of videos
There’s a bunch of videos here captured with a go pro session on rear and hero 7 on front, some are in low light, I don’t even turn them on at night as pretty much all my riding is done on unlit country roads, so they’re pretty useless, https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCizrTkVIhvneDQnfWWUkjlA/videos , note I’m not saying they’re all examples of terrible driving, just felt they were worthy of keeping at the time
I’ve got a Fly12 CE on the
I’ve got a Fly12 CE on the front … Image stabilization is great, image quality is pretty good too.
Suffers in low light, but then most cameras will.
The Clycliq software is pretty shite, so I use the Garmin VIRB software which is much, much better.
I’m pretty disappointed that the only way I can view the video is to either pop the card or connect via a USB as a mass storage device.
I carry a small card reader that will plug in to my phone should I need to play video back on route. This is despite the unit having Bluetooth … Which, by the way is always in standby mode, even when powered down.
So always check the power level the night before you want it, as it’ll drain the battery when it’s sitting in the cupboard doing nothing.
I’ve been trying to find a decent rear camera … Without a lot of success.
I wanted to avoid the Fly6 CE as I’ve read mixed reviews on it, and it’s a small shed load of cash to loose if it comes unfastened or you’ve not secured the usb port cover properly.
I tried a cheap action camera, but was dissatisfied with battery life (about 90mins seems to be average, even for expensive units), plus mounting wasn’t as tidy as I wanted.
(The Fly12 doesn’t look like a camera, a GoPro does)
I’ve just acquired an older generation Fly6 (without the Bluetooth) and when the weather gets better, I’m looking forwards to trying it out.
It’ll have it’s limits – no camera will be able to display the front number plate of a car in the dark with the car headlights on – but it’s more for the continuity of the story than anything else.
Oldfatgit wrote:
I got caught out by this, until I discovered it’s got an ‘airplane mode’… Turn off by holding both the power and wireless buttons simultaneously.
(also, using an sd card reader is the way to go for viewing footage. It’s never fun trying to do it over a peer-to-peer wifi link, whatever camera make you have)
That’s a great tip, thanks.
That’s a great tip, thanks.
I fonud it really hard to activate that mode. Seemed to eventually catch after the first beep and then releasing before the little melody plays.
I’m using a Garmin Virb ultra
I’m using a Garmin Virb ultra 30, and it does the job pretty well though I’ve not tried it at night (a tough job for any camera). I bought it mainly for the metrics it records, if there is an incident I get not just the footage but GPS data, my speed (can link to sensors on the bike) and braking G’s. The weakness is battery life, I should have spent the extra for the external powered case but it was quite expensive. It’s cheaper to buy the dual charger and extra battery, which I will probably do. I like that it has a simple mechanical switch to turn on recording.
My rear camera is an el cheapo Aldi unit, essentially a budget Fly6 copy which is better than I expected but cars need to be close to capture number plates. If the speed difference or distance is too high then the rolling shutter and high level of image compression conspires to make it unreadable. The upside is the battery life is quite good and it’s acceptable as a rear light. The thing that betrays its origins is syncing the internal clock – it’s hard coded to China’s UTC, so you have to set your computer to China Timezone and manually set your local time to get the correct time stamp.
A word of warning on Cycliq,
A word of warning on Cycliq, their products are great but either the production is shoddy or the design fundamentally flawed. My Fly6 CE (rear) has packed up after 1 year and 4 weeks. Sadly I was too honest in the email to Cycliq, saying it happened on a wet ride and now they are refusing to help as any water ingress is considered “damage” and voids any warranty – so even if it happens after a single ride of ownership.
Ironically London gets less rain than Perth where they are based, however it seems their position is that any water damage is automatically your fault and is nothing to do with them which, for cameras designed for an outdoor pursuit, is just an absolute joke
lukei1 wrote:
Claim off the retailer; your warranty is a statutory right and can not be “voided” by T&Cs.
Warranties don’t cover damage
Warranties don’t cover damage, only failure to function as intended. My Fly6 suffered same fate. I do think that they are disingenuous in advertising them as IP56 water-resistant and then refusing to refund for water damage. If you take a look at some of the example videos of what something has to withstand to achieve IP56 then it is clear that something is very wrong if the Fly6 sustains damage after a ride in the rain.
The Fly12’s handlebar mount
The Fly12’s handlebar mount is so bad that you did not even secure it for the pictures. A shame at this price point. Only solution is to go for the GoPro adapter and a generic GoPro mount…
Its rubbish isnt it, mine
Its rubbish isnt it, mine doesnt even fit in a Go Pro mount properly,the securing bits are about half a mm too thin,so I have to wedge a bit of paper between them to secure the camera, as otherwise every bump you hit the camera just drops forward all the time as it’s so top heavy.
I still dont think night time quality pictures are good enough on it,number plates arent wholly clear if the vehicle is moving fast,and the lens is showing signs of scratches which just lens flares any source of light.
Tipping forward?
Tipping forward?
are you sure you don’t have the universal adapter (cycliq to GoPro) front back?
I’ve been using fly camras
I’ve been using fly camras for years now and still use a garmin virb.
I have turned off all stablisation ect and run at 30 fpm basicaly to have battery life as long as posible.
FLY12 ce still in good knick after nearly 2 years use inc 2 winters. I do run a 128gb card in it so a whole long ride can be recorded. and it has been relaable. I would recomend
FLY6ce I’ve had my issues with most of my fly 6 ither lense scratches and on the fly6 ce water ingress. 1st one ruturned faulty got a replacment no problem but the cover for the usb socket is not the best and on may ocasions would have water ingress kept poping open for some reason. Eventually it died and it was replaced. the last one seams to say shut better and a bit easer to close (or is it me getting use to it more), the other problem I have is when it connects to the garmin it keeps dropping and reconnecting and this kills the battery and I have never got it to work properly with the fly12ce and a Garmin Varia™ Rearview Bike Radar
How did you get 128gb card to
How did you get 128gb card to work ? I thought Fly12CEs only supported upto 32gb.
I’m using a 64Gb San Disk
I’m using a 64Gb San Disk Extreme in my Fly 12CE with no issues. The camera is using the full space. I actually want to upgrade my Fly 6CE to the same to capture an entire ride.
The rubber cap joiner for my
The rubber cap joiner for my Fly 6 broke (previous model) but thankfully I still have the cover.
Apparently sellers have no more covers.
I put tape over mine each time after I download and charge it.
Is the fly6 the only
Is the fly6 the only realistic option for rear?
I went to submit footage at the w/e but realised I had not captured the reg with the front camera. Although I knew it was them when they subsequently passed me, I realised on playback that I could not prove it. A rear camera would have done the job.
I have a Drift Ghost X
I have a Drift Ghost X mounted facing to the rear. The images are plenty good enough to easily read the license plate. I fabricated my own seatpost mount out of HDPE.
The Ghost camera mount is not terribly secure. I added a screw to my HDPE mount which prevents the camera from sliding out.
Now, if the local PD will actually do something about the images I send them…
Thanks. I have that one as my
Thanks. I have that one as my front camera. i will dig out the brackets if came with and see how feasible a rear mount will be.
Moore Large are importing an
Moore Large are importing an alternative to the fly6, available from a couple of shops. No reviews around at the moment so it would be a bit of a gamble. Perhaps road.cc could get a review sample?
https://www.moorelarge.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/60964/s/etc-watchman-action-camera-with-rear-light/category/1754/
Interesting find, although
Interesting find, although you’d need a sd card too as 8GB won’t do many minutes !
8gb is the size of the card
8gb is the size of the card that came with my fly6. Interestingly, when I checked the largest size card the fly6 could take, they do not recommend using a card of the class they supply as its writes speed is too low! Academic now as the cameras knackered, stuck in get home even though the battery’s fully charged.
That one is really poor. The
That one is really poor. The one they sent me had been used already and had recordings on it from 4 years ago. I would be concerned that any other stock has a battery of that age.
Also when the battery gets to 25% the camera will not work and it is light only.
You have to set the date and time using a exe you install on your pc, only it would not work under w10 64 bit pro.
Sent back
Thanks for the tip-off – was
Thanks for the tip-off – was looking at these just now. I am still surprised there’s so few options available for this, you’d have thought that it would be clear by now there is a market for this type of device.
Contemplating trying one of these now: https://www.amazon.co.uk/TEENTOK-Rear-View-Rechargeable-Bicycle-Flashlight/dp/B089QNLSHM/ref=sr_1_18?dchild=1&keywords=cycliq&qid=1599035833&sr=8-18
I’ve looked at a couple of reviews Youtube – one seems to be by a non-cyclist and is pretty useless in terms of giving any idea of how good it actually is. The other was more helpful, and it looked reasonable, although the image quality wasn’t amazing IMHO – probably on a par with the Chilli bullet cams. I can imagine it not being mega easy to read a numberplate for instance. However .. I have a GoPro at the front that generally does the trick for that.
I have a Fly6 (one back from
I have a Fly6 (one back from the latest model – i.e. the best model).
I read 73% of UK bike hits are from behind and from all the hundreds of close passes I’d agree with that. A the rear means easy to get rego shots so easy to do the hundreds of Police complaints I’ve done.
drift ghost x is my choice.
drift ghost x is my choice. Runs up to 5 hours with the standard battery, up to 8 hours if you buy the bigger pack. I got mine for just over 100 pounds. Thats on my head for riding. I also have a kaiser bass x2 on my motorbike helmet, a kaiser bass x90 on back pack mounts, a random 30 quid dashcam taped to a go pro mount that fits to my backpack with jaw clippers. I’d never spend much above 100 on a camera. Go pro are stupid money when you consider how bad battery life is. To extend battery power i plug the cable into the charge and data port, then tape it securely and plug the lead into my laptop for data or to a usb charging pack when im riding so im never out of power.
I was also a fan of the Ghost
I was also a fan of the Ghost X as despite the mediocre footage quality, the battery life is unrivaled. Then I fell foul of Drift’s infamously bad customer service: weeks of ignored emails, stalling responses and weak excuses eventually led to Paypal giving me my money back. They (Paypal) actually advised me to stop trying to resolve the matter directly with Drift. Decent enough cams with superb battery life, let down by shockingly bad aftersales. Shame.
Silversurfmonkey wrote:
Cycliq don’t seem to be too great at that either so something else to bear in mind.
Word of warning on the new
Word of warning on the new Fly6. It has a downgraded battery and led compared to the older model. Still fine for a commute but borderline for a century or leisurely grand fondo with cake stop.
Seems to be change for changes sake, without checking what their customers actually want.
A few ways they could improve the fly’s that they haven’t bothered to do.
Ability to take stills for Strava uploads.
A remote Q button – reaching around to hit the existing on camera ones can be tricky without stopping. Would be great if it took stills too.
Cheaper mounting kits. Especially for the fly 12 where one doesn’t seem to exist, a pain when you have 2 bikes to mount it on.
“Warranty
“Warranty Most cameras come with a 12-month warranty. Cycliq, TomTom, Garmin and GoPro, for example, give you a warranty that says their cameras will be free from defects in workmanship and materials under normal use for a year.”
The warranties that you mention above are not anything special or a nice bonus, they are the absolute minimum legal standard. Any bike camera (unless you’re paying peanuts) should be of satisfactory quality and fit for purpose, so should last at least 12 months. If not, they are automatically guaranteed under the Customer Rights Act.
My Fly6 is still going OK. I
My Fly6 is still going OK. I think it must have some issues with water ingress as functions and sound come and go. I lost flash mode for a few months but it always seems to dry out and come back eventually.
I saw the review of the updated Fly6 and although I have not used one it seems they have downgraded it functionally, reduced battery life, complicated the attachment and failed to fix a basic issue of scratches on the plastic lens.
I also have a Fly 12. This also seems to have suffered from overcomplicating the device at the expense of getting the basics right. The supplied mounting is sub standard, mine broke recently. I fixed it with glue and wire, the next step is to go to town on it with some glass fibre, they are stupid expensive to replace. It is a 1/8 twist lock so I don’t know if it would work with a Garmin style 1/4 twistlock mount. Maybe someone has tried?
The Fly 12 is also a bit flakey, sometimes it beeps when you turn it on, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it refuses to turn off. I have to reset it frequently and it goes through phases of simply not wanting to communicate with my PC. Although you can always take the SD card out.
I’m sure the marketing people asked all sorts of cyclists what they want from a camera. Personally I record for my own protection against the tiny minority of other road users who are either incompetent around cyclists or who act with naked aggression at the mere sight of a cyclist using the road. I need it to be able to pick up a numberplate clearly in all lighting conditions, be weatherproof, easy to attach to a bicycle and to swap between bicycles. It should be easy to download footage to a computer. The lens needs to be scratch resistant and battery life good enough for a day’s riding.
In 4 years of almost daily use I have recorded a few close shaves and 2 collisions. As a result of camera footage on both occassions there has been no quibbling from the driver’s insurance over paying for damage. The cameras have more than earned their outlay cost. I also run cameras in my cars and motorcycle. In many years of use I have no footage of another driver putting me or my passengers at risk of harm but on the bicycle, at least as far as the Fly6 is concerned, I won’t leave home without it.
Water ingress, flakey
Water ingress, flakey operation, dodgy mounts – Cycliq need some competition. They get away charging top dollar for ropey gear; year after year it’s all one hears about Cycliq.
I liked my Fly6, until it for
I liked my Fly6, until it got a bit of water ingress and died completely. Except for the rubbish mount (velcro strap!?!). And the terrible app.
Just got a Fly12 and had to return it, total junk. Massive struggle just to get out to turn on. Then it wouldn’t generate readable video files – OK for 20s but anything over a few minds just corrupted. Also wouldn’t switch between light modes once is been going for 5 mins. And wouldn’t turn off.
The features and spec are great, but it’s simply not reliable enough to be able to recommend
I should report on the Hero 7
I should report on the Hero 7 Black:
In summary, good. There are a few annoying features like the mounting clip for the helmet strap is made of crap plastic which cracks and breaks, when they could easily make the clip of the same stuff they use on rucksack clips which last for years. Photo quality good with excellent vibration reduction. I used to moan about the GoPro Quik app, but the problem was really with my desktop BIOS. The app is actually OK. You can get cheap glass covers for the screen and lens which really do work. You can clean these without fear- no scratches have appeared. Very occasional hangups with the camera- you have to remove it from the housing and pull the battery out. Not a problem. I tend to switch it on when I need it at offence blackspots- with a helmet mount you soon learn the position of the top start and stop button.
I think my Hero7 is an
I think my Hero7 is an excellent bit of kit, but with one MAJOR fault. Battery life is woefully inadequate for cycling. 1.5 hours at best is just not enough and changing batteries part-way through a ride shouldn’t really be necessary.
Agreed about the reduced
Agreed about the reduced battery, but it doesn’t affect me because I’m mainly filming known offence areas. In summary- software on PC annoying because it won’t start unless online, clip fittings really annoying because they’re designed to fail after a few months. Actual camera performance is good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1GAT_Q0kS0 drift ghost x. 3 hours battery life, up to 5 on lower settings or 8 with extra large battery pack. this is in 1080p 30 fps.
GoPro Hero 7 Black, which is
GoPro Hero 7 Black, which is the one which still has the enclosure which you fit the camera into, has proved completely resistant to water and has been out in some convincing rain
One note about the Cycliq
One note about the Cycliq mounts, they are fairly pricey and are quite often out of stock. There are a number of enterprising Ebayers who sell 3D printed adapter mounts – the 3 pronged camera mount I have is currently doing good. Those owning or who have a mate with a Printer can find the stl files in the usual places.
I’m on my second set of
I’m on my second set of Cycliqs and my experience of the lights and customer service has been mostly good.
My original Fly12 developed a fault and was replaced with a 12ce under warranty.
The mount for the ce is crap (admittedly it worked until I crashed) so I bought a universal adaptor and use the mount of the orginal 12 instead. Cycliq are often out of stock of mounts and adaptors but there are lots of 3D printed third party alternatives.
I had an Aldi Fly copy which kept switching itself off randomly so I returned it and upgraded to a Fly6v. It was good for a couple of years but the microUSB charging socket became a bit flaky (I’ve had this problem with several devices so it seems to be a problem with microUSB).
I upgraded to a 6ce which has been faultless.
There is a noticeable improvement in camera quality from the 6v to the 6ce.
A lot of people complainth they’re prone to water ingress; maybe I’ve been lucky but I commute in rainy Glasgow and have had no issues for the 6 months or so I’ve owned it. Mine’s tucked up under the saddle and protected by mudguards so maybe that helps. I’ve seen some people cut a strip of inner tube to wrap around it covering the USB cover on the top so I might add that.
Some people have complained about the lenses scratching easily. I haven’t experienced this (my 12ce even survived a crash where stupidly I hadn’t attached the lanyward and it went skittering across the road – along with three of my teeth and some blood!).
I bought some stick on lens covers on eBay and put them over both cameras and the light of the 12ce (they won’t fit over the 6ce or 6v light).
A word of warning – do NOT
A word of warning – do NOT buy the new cycliq fly 6 ce version 3 . Mine lasted 5 minutes before it died – after spending £200 pro bike kit and cycliq refuse to replace or refund. It wasn’t even raining, the roads were just damp and withinn 5 minutes water had got inside and killed it , not best on dark lanes at night. Cycliq have blamed me and said I left the charging cover open , it wasn’t, these things leak like a seive. I’ve owned cycliq cameras (front and rear) since they started and they are a great product as no one else makes anything as good but if you get one drop of water on the rear one it will never work again and you’ll never get a replacement. my front fly12ce has lasted years and still works great.
Take it back to you RETAILER,
Take it back to your RETAILER, the statutory warranty is nothing to do with the manufacturer. If the fault occurred in the 1st six months then it’s their problem to[i] prove[/i] you were at fault. So they can’t just [i]say[/i] you were at fault.
I think he did – PBK gets a
I think he did – PBK gets a mention first paragraph.
beercan wrote:
Seconded. I bought a Gen 3 at the end of March, haven’t used it much, even less since since summer… One misty ride (dry roads) in November and it steamed up inside and partially died (seems to have still stored some videos). I got an eVoucher from Sigma Sport after a bit of back-and-forth (felt like I had to prove I’d done nothing wrong!), they don’t sell them any longer. I had heard that they have had serious water ingress failure issues with the Gen 3. My Gen 2 bricked itself when I performed a firmware update, I never got to use it and got no useful support from Cycliq.
I fully concur with the Fly6
I fully concur with the Fly6 being a plastic box of shit. The charging port cover is so poorly designed it’s like they let a primary shool kid design it. I bought both front and read together from Cycliq on a deal, they took months to deliver, yes covid… The camera worked fine until I was out without mudguards and got caught in rain, that was it dead.
An email to Cycliq which pointed out the deficencies that Stevie OWnder could see, got me my money refunded. What pissed me off a bit was that they asked me to post the camera to a postal address in Europe, a couple months later I get the camera back as thye hadn’t picked it up. So I’d paid postage on something, thereby losing a few £ from the refund.
A mate had a Fly6 fail on the first ride from water ingress, so they do seem to be pretty consistent.
It baffles me that after what
It baffles me that after what 4? versions they have not just used the flap from the Fly 12 which works perfectly. A rubber flap – that requires precise alignment – is such a poor solution.
I have a Drift Ghost XL
I have a Drift Ghost XL usually on the helmet & sometimes on the bars. Last year despite being IPX7 and supposedly waterproof, it conked out in heavy rain whilst installed upside-down on the bars, and Drift replaced it under warranty. I bought it direct from them, perhaps that helped.
It’s got superb battery life. I wish it had image stabilisation – GoPro’s last longer & have better quality footage, but I much prefer the way the Ghost fixes to the side of my helmet. I like the way the lens rotates so the image can be kept upright whatever angle you mount the camera at. It’s caught plenty of dodgy drivers and filmed some enjoyable leisure rides along the way.
Worth noting that the Fly6 as
Worth noting that the Fly6 as reviewed here has been discontinued for a year now. The Gen 3 replacement has less battery life, leds and lumens.
Yeah, the page has been
Yeah, the page has been updated; it now caters to the second hand market, ahem.