Online bike videos

In this age of easily accessible online videos, we bikers can take advantage of a wide selection of videos to cover nearly all of our biking interests. Sometimes, reading about something isn’t enough. We have to see it to learn from it.

A simple search for bike videos will connect you with all sorts of videos. But there’s a built-in caveat when accessing them: their quality varies widely. Some are pretty well done. Some are pretty useless. Some are so poorly shot and edited that even if the information is good, they’re not much fun to watch.

So, what’s out there?

Here’s one from Expert Village.com on YouTube. Judge for yourself:

Lots of YouTube videos can be accessed in “high quality,” which means your video fills a larger window in your web browser. Some videos are shot in high definition, which makes them nice and sharp.

If you’re interested in doing your own maintenance, search for videos on that topic. You’ll find plenty. If you want tips on improving your riding technique, try going to Chris Carmichael’s Nissan-sponsored site, “Master the Shift.” His stuff isn’t bad, as one would hope. Try this link for starters:

http://www.mastertheshift.com/masters/carmichael/videos/index.asp?videoID=cc8

It’s easy to kill a lot of time watching biking videos, but I’ve found that if I do a good search, I’m paid off in good results. Most video posters realize that people don’t like to watch long clips, so you’ll find a lot of videos of less than three minutes.

If you’ve already been watch bike videos online, maybe you’d like to recommend some clips — or entire sites — for the rest of us.