Oh WOW! I’m in trouble now for I’m thinking I need a GoPro camera and a trip to Germany. But alas!, if I could roll back the years a bit (well, more like a whole lot,) I would ship one of my bikes to Heidelberg and store it at Stefan Knopf’s headquarters. I rented my R1200RT from him in 2008 and rode solo. Prior to that, my first trip was an Edelweiss tour in the Alps in 2005. The pictures of your1998 trip are of places that I visited such as Rothenburg. My main purpose in going was to attend the BMW Biker Meeting held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. I really appreciate your detailed explanation of the GoPro9. I know a response like that takes a great deal of time and effort. How does the GoPro mount to your C400?
Edelweiss trips:
1998 - That Best of Europe tour, two-up (on a '98 R 850 R, not to be confused with the '97 R 850 R that I owned at the time), with my wife (well, she wasn't my wife yet, but I digress)
...
(Big gap: cruises mostly, for trips)
...
2019 - Alps Touring Center, one-up (on a Niken), with my local riding buddy (on a GS). Gallery -- videos and stills -- at
https://www.billanddot.com/Edelweiss-Touring-Center-Alps/
2022 - Tuscany By Scooter, two-up (on a C 400 X), with my wife. Videos and stills at
https://www.billanddot.com/2022-05-Tuscany/
2022 - Vienna By Scooter, two-up (on another C 400 X), with my wife. Videos and stills at
https://www.billanddot.com/2022-05-Vienna/
? 2023 - Ultimate Alps Tour, solo. I'm currently in discussion with the powers-that-be at Edelweiss, and last week got special dispensation to do this tour on a C 400 X (as that scoot is not among the 30 motorcycles listed for the tour), so it's looking likely, assuming I stay healthy, etc.
Regarding the mount, it's a PanaVise 13101 Shorty Suction Cup Camera Mount; see
https://www.panavise.com/index.html?pageID=1&page=full&--eqskudatarq=250 and
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N9PPOAY/
I've had this mount for, oh, maybe half a dozen years, and it works wonderfully. The keys to using these mounts are:
- Clean the windscreen and the rubber with alcohol.
- Tighten them up every few weeks, because air gets in anyway (by osmosis, or magic, or something).
- Use a tether, anyway.
And the key to tightening them -- the PanaVise and other good suction mounts -- is to:
- Flip the locking lever down, i.e., off.
- Forcefully press down on the button (no need to lift the suction cup's tab).
- While still holding the button down, flip the locking lever up.
I took out the 1/4" screw included in that mount, and then put it back in place, right were it was, but with red, i.e., "permanent," threadlocker.
And attached to the mount I have an Ulanzi Quick Release Set:
https://www.ulanzi.com/products/claw-quick-release . This facilitates easy camera removal for lunch stops, downloading when I get home, etc.
And I have an Ulanzi GoPro-compatible ball-head mount, which they no longer make (but there are a few similar mounts out there).
And of course I have a 3BR Powersports Panel TAPP rainproof USB setup that I added.
Here's what all of this looks like:
This is the exact same setup (well, without the 3BR port installed -- I had different USB-port adapters) I used this year for the scooter tours (except for the first day on the first tour, when I tried a rubberized clip-on mount ... but that didn't work out well, wasn't rock-solid, etc.).
And it is also the same setup that I put on the windscreen of the Niken, three years ago, in the Alps. Not to put too fine a point on this, but here's an example -- one of two(!) -- where you can, say, drop a bike, and the mount stays in place just fine: vimeo.com/355951636 (just paste that into a brower's URL field -- I would've left the HTTP in there, like a real link, except that the video has language that is NSFW).
You can see pics of the USB port mod, the pics above, etc., in my 400 gallery:
https://www.billanddot.com/C400GT/
And I have a long write-up on the mounts I've used, some decent GoPro software, etc., but I'm in the middle of getting that back up to date. I was working on it just this morning.