Galfromdownunder wins prize in Bike NY's 5-Boro Photo Contest

Any little digi camera these days can be strung to a lanyard, slung around your neck and slipped it into your back jersey pocket. Before long, you'll become very adept at whipping out your little moment-memorizer while still steering with one hand - just be careful on descents - especially on a 3-day descent in Peru.

My 5-boro shot was actually several minutes in the making. I wanted to convey the message of what it would be like if cars and bikes could co-exist, or rather 'co-flow', given that a completely car-free world is probably a while off.

I cannot recall this particular street, but as I rode with members of the Bike Friday Club of NY, I floated the idea of this shot with a comrade. "Nah," he said.

But the idea bugged me like a perennially twisted strap on a helmet, and at the next opportunity I wove away and parked on the median strip. The river of bicycles surged by, and I knew I'd lost my comrades for good - well at least until the next rest stop.

A longish wait ensued to capture the right density of oncoming cars and outgoing bikes. I admit this shot is cropped slightly to make it more symmetrical. The commentary should read ... one day, the road most traveled will look like this ...

For this shot I received a hat, some cash, and a copy of David Herlihy's Bicycle: The History (Yale University Press), with a note from Ed Pino, Bike NY Captain and member of the BF Club of NY - "Congratulations, The street you took this on is Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. It was after you left Central Park and before making a turn on to 135th Street. Enjoy your gift!"

Making movies If you want to fully exploit the movie mode available on most digital cameras, it helps to have a camera that easily lets you switch from movie to still mode and back with one hand. These little switches do wear out, however. I am waiting for a voice-activated camera. "STILL!" "ROLLING!" "CUT!" etc. My Canon Digital Elph has 3 movie resolutions and I usually shoot on the middle one which, at the end of the day, creates quite watchable DVD movies - and a single 256 Mb card seems to capture a day's worth of shots and movies for me. However, with the 1 Gb cards now available, shooting at the more space-hungry, higher resolution would give even clearer results - and take longer to download, no doubt.  Read more: Making handlebar movies on a Friday