Flying Camera vs Italian Mountains…Did It Crash?

The Hoverair X1 Pro Max is a flying camera drone that’s perfect for capturing your road bike rides and gravel bike rides. In this video we look at some of the features of the Hoverair X1 Pro Max drone whilst exploring the incredible Bormio region in Italy which includes pro cycling climbs such as the Stelvio, Mortirolo and Gavia.

Let us know any questions that you have about the Hoverair X1 Pro Max in the comments below…

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This is Boro and it’s potentially one of the prettiest places that I’ve ever had the pleasure of riding my bike in. I’ve done the likes of Delvio, the Motorola, the Gabia, and the Concano. And the only issue is I would love to share that with you, but so far my pictures look a bit like this. If only there was a better way. Well, in this video, I’m going to show you that there might well be. So, come with me. Right, let’s see if it follows. This is the latest Hover Air X1 Pro Max, and you can think of it as a pocket-sized flying camera. Now, you might have heard of Hover Air before. I first came across one of their drones a few years ago and was amazed by how easy it was to use and how good it was at not crashing. So, what’s changed with this new one? Well, firstly, and this is an important bit for us cyclists, it’s faster. A lot faster. The latest model can now follow at speeds of up to 42 km/h and even short bursts of up to 60 km/h. That’s obviously handy if you’re riding on the flat. And I even had a go at trying to outrun it on some descents. I think this one is the top section of the Gavia. And this hidden gem is the Monte Mountain. It is safe to say though that if you ride around Northern Italy being chased around by a drone, then you can expect plenty of inquisitive cyclists to ask you just how it works or who’s controlling it. Well, no one. It follows all by itself. Here’s me trying my best to talk through some of the features whilst ticking off the magnificent Kungano climb. Yeah, it’s got loads of different modes. So, it’s in follow mode now. I think it was on the high setting. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas, but you can set like how high it is. So, yesterday I had it in mid um like a bird’s eye view as well. And Yeah. Yeah. So, it can go bird’s eye. I can do dolly track as well. So, it comes alongside you. So, that’s really good if I want to show off the bike or something. Yeah. And then, yeah, the biggest thing with this one is that it can it’s now a lot faster. So, even on the descent. Yeah. Yeah. So, recording up to 8K. It’s got a proper wide angle lens on it as well, which is good. And then because it’s so high quality, you can obviously crop into that shot. So, all right. So, the next corner. Yeah. I reckon we should try and drop it. Yeah. To have a race. See if we can drop the drone. Ready? Yeah. Go, go, go. [Music] Ah, it’s still there. Hey, no. I think there’s no chance to No, not on the uphill. Yes. I think the main thing is the the obstacle avoidance and it’s just so easy to set up. Like you click one button. It’s up in the air and it’s following me. I can go past other riders and it follows me around them. It doesn’t just fly into the back of them. I’ve even taken it mountain biking and hike through the trees and it’s really good. So, I’ve just popped it into side track and now as you can see it’s flying alongside me. So, you check out my higher bianke in full celeste of course. Very Italian. This is kind of like a little little racetrack here. It’s also got this dolly track mode which means that it will fly in front of me flying backwards and record me talking to the camera which is really rather clever and I don’t know how it does that. I wish I was that good at reversing. So yeah, this is obviously really useful if you want to talk to the camera. So let me run you through a few more stats. Although I’m running out of road so I might have to do that back at base. The model that we’ve been using is the flagship X1 Pro Max and ours came as part of the cycling bundle. Now, this includes the drone itself, which is in this box here, and that’s got a battery fitted to it. We’ll get on to that in a moment. Also in the box, you get a USB C to C cable, a carry pouch, protective pouch, and then the your info guides and all of that is in there, too. But as part of the cycling bundle, you also get two additional batteries, a charging hub and power adapter, the beacon for your bars. Um, and that goes on using the supplied mount. So, that one just wraps around your bars. Or there’s this little uh magnetic adapter mount, so it can go on a on a GoPro style mount basically. And then you also get a carry bag which has this sort of clever design so it zips up in the middle or you can put it over your top tube if you want to carry your drone like that. It’s got a carry strap for when you’re not on the bike. And then the last thing in the box is these ND filters which are basically sunglasses for your camera. So the camera in question, well that’s obviously here. It’s on a gimbal. It can record in 8K with a 1 over 1.3 in CMOS sensor. What that means is it lets loads of light in. It’s also got 14 stops of dynamic range. And apparently this lens is a custom seven layer a fair. Now I I don’t know much about that, but I do know that the ultra wide 107° field of view has helped me to get lots of mountains into my shots. All the controls are on here. So, if I just press and hold this middle one, then it will start up. [Music] There we go. It’s chirped into life. Current mode, hover. So, as it’s just told us, it’s in hover mode at the moment. And then you just use these two buttons here to go through the different modes. So, hover, zoom out, zoom out. So, that’s pretty self-explanatory. Follow. So, that’s one that I’ve been using a lot of the time. Orbit is when it will go around you. bird eye. Pretty self-explanatory. Dolly track. Dolly track is when it’s in front of you. Ski mode. Ski mode. I I don’t need ski mode because I lie on the floor a lot when I go skiing. Cycling. Um, so cycling mode. I will explain that one. So, basically, it’s designed to be more precise and stable for when you’re on the bike. And you can use it in two different modes which you can choose in the app. So, narrow roots where it will track your path. Uh, so it will literally follow the route that you take or you can have it in open areas mode where it will basically take some shortcuts to save power. Now, I mentioned earlier that it’s really good at avoiding crashing. And so, how does it do that? Well, it’s got this big camera on the front, so it’s looking where it’s going and then avoiding any obstacles. It’s also got a sensor underneath here so it knows how high off the floor it is and also a sensor on the rear for when it’s flying backwards. Now, you will notice that there’s no side sensors. So, when you’re doing 360 spins, use a bit of caution because, for example, if there’s a big rock, then you might want to avoid that. Because the rotors are in this cage, though, it is surprisingly robust. And if the worst does happen, then repair kits are available over on the Hover Air website. All right. Well, it’s worked on the mountains. Let’s see if it’ll work in a tunnel. [Music] I hope it didn’t just catch me crosschaining then. Cool tunnel. I think the other good thing is I don’t have the beacon today on my bars. I do have my phone in my pocket, but I don’t need it. You can just use it like out without the phone as well. Yeah. No signal, no, you don’t need to take anything with you. However, you can go into a lot more detail in the app to fine-tune all those settings. Choose your aspect ratios, choose how far away you want it to follow you, uh, choose the resolution, the portrait or landscape, you can do in the app. And then to actually capture the footage, all you’re going to do is hold the drone out in front of you, click the middle button, and then when the light goes red, it’s recording straight onto the 64 GB internal storage. Or you can pop in a micro SD card to expand that until your heart’s content. So, how long can you record for? Well, Hover says 16 minutes, but let’s see how I got on. [Music] Hey, do you Well, that is seven climbs in Borneo completed. Uh, more of them shot on the Holl Air X1 Pro Max. Let me know what you think of this footage down in the comments below. If you want to get hold of one, then we’ll pop a link down in the description. Thank you very much for watching and we’ll see you next