I was down shooting at bonds last friday, i don't think i've once used the tripod for mountain biking, mind you i hate tripods full stop haha. There's a lot of flexibility in handheld, but i guess that's easy to say because my cameras built for it and i've used it that much that it feels like an arm extension..

Happy to help dude. The 7D is a fantastic camera capable of wonderful stuff. It's more of a tool for the short/ feature filmmaker, though i'd say. With all the decent controls being manual and the speed of mountain biking it's hard to work fast with the 7D for sports (unless your taking stills obviously). Canon has done a great job but the video side of things was really an afterthought for them tbh. Photography seems like your drive though, so i'm guessing having the video capability is just a nice plus :)

If your using the 7D your best to get a shoulder rig or an equivalent for body contact. For video anyway, it has a rolling shutter so your going to get Jelly wobble, from the cmos chip as well as your hands. As far as editing goes, if your using windows like you said, get premiere pro for the 30 day trial, transcribe your video files with something like MPEGstream clip before you use them in the edit. Forums like this can help you if you have more issues http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/forumdisplay.php?f=187

The cameras were an anamorphic DVX100 and a HVX200

The cameras were an anamorphic DVX100 and a HVX200

Scary to think it's the first time i've filmed MTB in nearly 5 years...