Documenting your rides (digital equipment, cameras, etc.)

[Crankin]

I don't take pictures or use a GPS for rides when I ride alone. We do have a pocket sized very good digital camera, which occasionally is used on rides. But, every year, I ride the same routes; there's a lot of them and I live in a beautiful area, but, after a point, I don't need pictures of the beauty that surrounds me daily. We do take pictures on vacations or tours when we ride, or when it's some kind of special occasion.
My DH has a GPS, but his sense of direction is so bad, he has actually made wrong turns more than once when we were leading a ride. Since once I do a ride, unless it's very long I have the route committed to memory, I have had to sprint to catch up to him, to re-route the group (I was sweeping).
When I first started riding, we did a lot of exploring of our local area by bike. That's how we found our routes. Occasionally, I will look at a map to plan something. Our friends we ride with plan some of our longer local rides, as he likes to do that with his GPS.
Really, I don't document anything, except vacations. I mean, who cares to read or see what I am doing? I stopped logging my miles on Bike Journal, because it did nothing but make me feel badly, as in not far enough or fast enough. I use my computer(s) on my bikes to tell me how far I have gone, and that's it.
A while ago, after looking in my photo albums from the past, I realized that if someone who didn't know me looked at the pictures, he or she would assume all I ever did was go to the beach or eat. It would be the same now, except the topic would be cycling.,

[shootingstar]

I tend to learn and remember things visually so photography is a natural extension of this. But mine is done with just a pocket Nikon digital I keep it in my pocket or in pannier.

He uses his own plus a helmet cam that he uses occasionally.

I do need photos to remember certain trip details. In the past I have used photos for landscape painting.

While true a local area may not mean much, you never know you may no longer live there. Whenever I go back to visit Toronto, I do specifically cycle to document things I never had digital photos. I lived there for over 20 years...and know of its unique things not available in Vancouver or where I am now.

[lovelygamer]

I GPS track with endomondo and occasionally snap an IPHONE picture but I'm too lazy to carry along a camera. I do love to see ride pictures but I rarely see anything that exciting and/or I am on a roll and don't want to stop.

I know other commuters who use video cameras on their helmets for liability purposes. I've thought of it but haven't gone that far, yet.

[Mel.b]

I keep track of my spins using the runkeeper app on my phone however i've ordered a garmin so i'm looking forward to getting that, if for no other reason that i won't have to worry about my phone going flat on a spin now.

I'm lucky that i live very near some really scenic areas with castles, ruins, amazing landscape etc, so i'll often stop and snap a photo with my phone and upload it to my facebook page to show my friendsa and family who are all in another country. I do have a good pocket camera and if i have a route planned with some particular photos i want to take then i will pop that into my jersery pocket.

I also keep a brief blog/log on another forum but i only update it about once a fortnight it it doesn't go into a lot of depth.

[jessmarimba]

I just take iphone pics, since it's the fastest way to put them straight on facebook anyway. I used to ride with a little point-and-shoot but I mostly mountain bike, and it got pretty banged up in one or two wrecks. The iphone stays in my seat bag until I stop and take it out.

[luv2climb]

I carry a camera at all times because you never know what kind of interesting, random stuff you can get pics of. Also, I live near the Sierra Nevada mountains. We have some beautiful scenery here.

I also use a Garmin Edge 500 for GPS data (elevation gain and loss, percent grade, altitude, distance, time, speed, HR, etc.). For video, I use a GoPro HD Hero 960 on a chest strap mount and a ContourHD on my helmet. I used to post videos and pictures on this forum but I have stopped. One, certain members here assumed that all I did was take long rides by myself because I mainly posted the ride reports with the pictures and videos. Two, I believe in "keeping it real". I refuse to cover up the natural sounds of a real bike ride with music. This means you can hear me breathing hard on climbs, which seemed to upset some people here.

Here's a few examples of ride reports I've posted here.

Road ride on Donner Pass Road in the Sierras

First MTB ride in 15 years with new bike

Climbing the steepest streets in San Francisco with a Bike Friday Pocket Companion folding bike

For those who still enjoy my videos, my YouTube channel is in my profile under "Contact Info".