North Carolina & Tennessee Mountain Riding

[Zebraranger]

My trip was actually back in June, with the holidays and time off from work, I finally have had time to go thru the video and get it edited down to a reasonable amount of viewable footage. I'm shooting the video with my camera mounted to a 1" ram ball on the left side mirror hole. I'm using a 6" ram arm to extend it out a little. In this video I'm riding with a buddy, he's on his 2014 Goldwing. We're running the gauntlet and Its amazing how he slings that 900 pound Beast thru the twisties, it starts getting really twisty around the 4.5 minute mark. Here's the link.

[atrophy]

Well done!  Must have been a weekday.

The trophy loves that place.  just select third gear and "let'er rip"
 

[Verdun95]

Great Video, thank you for posting.
Obvsiously 6 cylinders do not offer same engine braking as we are used to on the Trophy
How did you manage to get such light traffic?

[GarminDave]

That looks a mighty fine road to ride.  Did you put the soundtrack on so we could not hear scraping floor boards?

Thanks for sharing.

Love, light and peace,

Dave

[twowheeladdict]

Nice video.  I notice your buddy hangs near the yellow line a lot on left hand curves.  That can lead to trouble on blind turns.  I notice that a lot when I am up in the mountains.

[Zebraranger]

Well done!  Must have been a weekday.

How did you manage to get such light traffic?

That's it. It was a Tuesday morning, light traffic during the week in the AM. My buddy lives there and knows when its a good time and when its not, so I rely on him for that.

Did you put the soundtrack on so we could not hear scraping floor boards?

Actually the sound quality on the JVC Adixxion Video Camera is poor because its waterproof without the need for a waterproof housing, it uses a waterproof mic, which affects its sound quality a lot. Also, because it was sticking out beyond the protection of the windscreen, the wind noise was awful. I didn't scrape anything on the Trophy, but he definitely did, I saw sparks a few times coming off the back of his bike and heard the scrapes on some of the turns.

I notice your buddy hangs near the yellow line a lot on left hand curves.  That can lead to trouble on blind turns.

Yeah, you're correct, I did myself a few times too. We were pushing it pretty hard, it was all downhill. With the lanes being so narrow, you really have too at times to give yourself room to set up for the next turn without running off the road coming out of the previous turn. I go up there once or twice a year just to ride those roads a week at a time. Since he lives up there, he's been riding those mountain roads for almost 30 years, I'm not nowhere near as seasoned as he is. Me, being from Florida, all flat roads that go north/south east and west with hardly any curves, I've picked up a couple of pointers from watching him on how to go down hill fast on curvy roads. Not a lot of room for error there with solid rock walls on one side and trees and cliffs on the other, lanes were pretty narrow compared to normal roads. In the beginning I was running the Trophy as hard as I safely could and was really struggling to keep up with him. Cold tires not griping in the turns as well as his, and my experience not as deep as his on these kind of roads probably contributed a little too.  But, after a few minutes, I was able to run him down and actually make it thru the turns much quicker than his wing. But, coming out of the last quarter of each turn, he had more torque, we'd both hit the throttle and it was like he had hit a turbo button or something. But either way, the TTSE was able to hold its own, catch him, and stay with him, even thou he had 3 more cylinders and 400 more cc's. I was very impressed and proud of the ole TTSE, He liked the TTSE too. I did have to replace my tires and worn out brake pads when I got back home. I've owned two Goldwings in the past, that 6 cylinder 1800cc engine has to be one of the greatest all time factory production engines ever made. Most Goldwing engines will easily go 200,000 miles without any problems with just regular oil and filter changes, there are many out there with more miles than that.

This is the JVC camera that I use, it shoots good quality video, but sound quality sucks. It was half the cost of a GoPro though. This is the first generation JVC Adixxion camera, the latest version (model # GC-XA2) is suppose to be much improved.

[Pearl]

Would you be willing to post pics of how you mounted your camera and where you got the ram mount equipment.  I am looking into getting a mount that will do this.  I do not know where to start.  Thanks. 

Pearl.https://www.triumph-trophy.com/Smileys/light/821.gif

[Zebraranger]

I used the long 5.25" Ram arm (they come in different lengths, 1.75", 3" & 5.25") and two (2) 1" threaded Ram balls. One ball has a standard 1/4" camera thread and one ball has a 10m x 1.25 thread that screws into the spare mirror hole on the handlebars. I have one screwed into each of the mirror holes, the mirror hole on the left I use to mount my camera and cell phone holder, the one on the right handlebar holds my drink holder. This is the link for the 10m x 1.25 ball that fits the Trophy's spare mirror holes http://www.expressmounts.com/ram-mount-m10-x-1.25-pitch-male-thread-on-1-inch-ball.html . This is the link for the standard camera thread ball which is 0.25-20 x 0.25 http://www.expressmounts.com/ram-mount-tough-ball-0.25-20-x-0.25-inch-male-threaded-post-with-b-ball.html . The same company also sells the 5.25" aluminum Ram arm. Here's the link for the long 5.25" aluminum Ram arm http://www.expressmounts.com/ram-mount-long-arm-b-socket-ram-b-201u-c.html . You want the metal (Aluminum) arm. They are also made of polymer, but they heat up in the sun and do not grip as well as the metal arms once the sun gets to them. I have all three arm lengths because I mount various items depending on what's needed. Here's the photos of the camera as how I had it mounted when shooting the video that's posted earlier in this thread. Hope this helps you.

Video camera, 1" Ram ball with the standard camera thread that screws into the video camera, and the 5.25" Ram arm. The 1" Trophy balls always stay threaded in each of my mirror holes.


1" Ram ball 10m thread screwed into the left mirror hole


Fully adjustable, mounts and dismounts in seconds


Standing behind the bike