Ride London 2013
In July of 2013, we were part of the crew providing live television coverage for the Ride London cycling event.
On major cycling events, most of the actual event coverage comes from camera operators riding on the back of powerful motorcycles, alongside the competing cyclists. Usually this is transmitted via a helicopter back to an Outside Broadcast, but there are limitations with regards to the range the cameras can be transmitted, due in part to the maximum height a helicopter is capable of flying at.
On this occasion, we did it a little differently: the transmitter on each bike was linked up to a fixed wing aircraft flying above the city at an altitude of around 20,000 feet. The advantage of using this system is that the area of coverage can be immense, depending on the location of nearby tall buildings and mountains of course, and can stretch up to 120km away from the main receive site.
In this case, we actually achieved complete coverage from the start line in Stratford, through London, out into deepest, darkest Surrey, and back again to the finish line on The Mall.
