Transcription
Hey friend, it's been a minute. I've got three important problems to solve and one thing that I would really like your input on. Also, uh, this is my new studio behind me. Let me show you.
[Music]
Inside my new studio is in a bike shop, and not my bike shop. It is Dave's Bike Shop, and Dave's Bike Shop is not just any bike shop. It is the bike shop that I used to work at a decade and a half ago. I still have my name tag, just a label printed on on top of whoever I replaced before me. But this is a new building, a new shop, one that was just finished, in fact. And my studio isn't here on the shop floor with all the bicycles. It is up there on the top floor.
[Music]
This story here is a wild full circle moment in my life. Going to go into the backyard to test out some of my new, uh, my cable cam and, uh, my steady cam. So I got my start making videos about mountain biking. Many of my first pieces of camera gear and my DIY rigs were dreamed up and paid for while wrenching on bikes here. So this feels like a really appropriate start to this next chapter for me.
So this new space is awesome. I want to give you a tour of all the awesome things. Over here in this corner, this is the most important piece. This is the space station. This is where I edit all the videos. And on that note, there is a bunch of YouTube videos coming. So there's only one thing you take from this video: just know I'm going to be cranking out the videos again.
I need to ask for your input. So I plan to do more teaching. If you have input for my teaching, I've got a link for you where I just want to know what direction you feel I should take. Because there's two big questions I'm going to talk about that at the end. But if you just want to know about what's cool about this place, let me show you.
We have lockers. This one's mine. We have the single nicest kitchen I've ever seen in a bike shop with a massive fridge, coffee maker, and believe it or not, a dishwasher. Super practical. We have a stainless steel bike wash station, which is great for keeping the bike running smoothly year-round. Cycle commuting, I can bring the bike inside the shop during the day so it's extra super secure and doesn't get stolen. There's a roof hatch so I can come up here and take time lapses of the mountains. 100m down the road is my favorite Dutch import store so I can feed my addiction for stroopwafels. We have a super spiffy remote blind system. You can close the exact blinds you want, or if you like daylight. There's security cameras everywhere that can be remotely accessed. There's a high-tech alarm system on every single point of entry, and people actually lock the doors.
I've got a dual monitor combo, my widescreen for my timelines and program feeding color grading up top. Trackpad gang for life. I have my favorite timer. Got my CNC cut production company logo into a nice piece of wood. Very nice. I've got space for my camera bags so I can load up my gear here. I've got a water jug with an electric spigot. I've got a nice fan. I've got my hardware RAID set up with 96 terabytes of storage, so I think we're good. I've got my great aunt's old Polaroid camera. I've got some of my books here, most notably books on artwork from Lord of the Rings. These are our personal favorites. Have my coffee making station. Stay caffeinated. I've got a dwindling supply of my favorite riding utensils, most notably the Papermate Sharpwriter Number Two pencil. I've got an entire surface dedicated to laying out my different to-do lists so I can stay on top of my different projects and I can put the most important one for the day. I have these fake tiny plants from Ikea that I definitely thought were bigger than this when I ordered them. I've got my teleprompter set up ready to go at all times that way I can just record stuff quickly and have whatever this aesthetic is behind me.
There is, uh, a lot of awesome stuff about this space. But I still have my first big problem, and that is I still don't have internet. After weeks and weeks, I've been trying to get it transferred over and it's been a disaster. And some installers came over the other day and they just, let's just say the work fiber cable comes down. They put it through here. Normal, normal, normal. What, what's going on here? So it comes down through here, down through there. But the problem is to get this hooked up to something, but it's not correct over there.
[Music]
Pull this. Start here.
[Music]
Nice. That is a massive success. Oh, that's such a relief. I think that's a little bit of an improvement. And now hopefully I can actually get the internet hooked up.
Hopefully, as a prelude to my second problem, I should tell you how this came about. So Dave bought this shop long after I worked here, and Dave had been working hard on plans to build this new location. And I would walk by and see it being worked on all the time. The old shop was down the road, and I'd walk by it all the time on the way, just up and down the street, mainly so I would have people to say hi to, also just get distracted for a little bit. I swear you were making a joke and you said, "Oh, you should move into the shop." And I was like, "Ah, haha, that's funny." And then you brought it up again, and I was like, "Wait, Dave's not kidding." Like, why did you think this was a good idea? You know, when you get in a flow state, it just, it comes to you. Um, I didn't think you'd go for it. Kind of threw it out there, and I thought you were going to come back with, "Oh no, you know, thanks for the offer, Dave. I really need some quiet space where I can sit at my computer and, you know, really think about the world and create art." And I thought he was joking and kind of let it go. But then the more I thought about it, the more I realized that that could actually be amazing.
Hey girl, can you see you? And so the idea about both being in a healthy environment because it's exciting and stimulating and there's work happening here and there's people that I'm excited to see and it feels like I have co-workers, which is awesome. It's also a space where there is space. Okay, M. Mr. White House? Yes, sir. How good was Magic the other [Music] day? Bikes. It was one of the best rides I've ever had on that trail. I really enjoyed that ride. Just that 30 degrees is amazing to go down at that speed. It's so good. Oh, that's fun.
[Music]
Dave, you see me hanging? Me too. No, quick, quick, quick. Wait, uh, on a scale of one to like, super distracting, how distracting is it having a YouTuber wander around the shop while you're working? You can be honest. There's no, it's definitely something getting used to because there's, uh, there's all these cameras around. I'm glad to have them. I'm paying him to say that. With with pizza, beer, and good [Music] rides.
There's a big problem of being here, which is a problem that I ran into in high school, which is as I'm supposed to be working, the your the desire to spend money on bike parts has not gone away at all. And in this environment, there's no shortage of exciting bicycles to look at and also parts to buy. Surrounded by temptation. Just look at all the bikes. Yeah. I will say I have only responded to your request so far. You know, I'm not coming upstairs every day being like, "You come to me with a broken bike or, you know, some problem to be solved." Sure, yeah. I'm going to offer a solution. What I love is that, uh, the stand that you work on is the same stand that I wrenched on in high school. So you've like, just a stand of greatness is what it feels like. It is. It is absolutely. Scott, the lead mechanic here, always startles me by jumping around the corners. I think I just heard him arrive with [Music] pizza. I got you.
A decade and a half ago, I made a really challenging decision, and that was to sell my mountain bike to help fuel and fund the idea of going into making videos. This camera, the Canon Rebel T2i, was the first tool that I used to record my first 100 or so videos. This is actually version two. Version one [Music] broke. I smashed the screen. I was devastated, and I replaced it with a check that was from Pedal Sport Bike Shop that I had earned while working after school and on weekends. And I had a really challenging decision to make, which was, do I want to go all in on making videos? Do I want to give that a [Music] shot? And then, and in order to make that happen, I had to tell my boss Dan at the time that I was going to quit so I could go film mountain biking and make nothing. No one was going to pay me to do it, but I wanted to do it. I loved the energy of being at a mountain bike event. It was what I made some of my first videos about that I was actually excited about the visuals. And today, sitting here, I can remember the feeling, just like it was yesterday, of jumping into the deep end of this pursuit. And more so than the fear of failure, of the fear of it not working as a business idea, or the fear of other people thinking it was ridiculous, or the YouTube channel having no people that would follow it, more than those fears was the deeper one behind that, which is, what happens if I can't actually make something that I'm proud of? And, uh, I think that's one of the scariest questions people who have the desire to make things face is when they look in the mirror, they go, "Can I actually show up for myself?" And it turns out that's actually really hard to do.
So I was trying to ask myself while recording this video, why this all felt so emotional for me. And I think most of it can be rooted in just the nostalgia that seems to drip from the old tools that are still around. Seeing the old bike stand that I used to use, the same set of Allen keys with the ball end, the truing stand, the small red container of miscellaneous drill bits. I think the teenager version of me that used these tools had no idea how hard this was all going to [Music] be.
I feel proud to be back in Pedal Sport Bike Shop as a person, a father, a dad that I think 16-year-old version of me would look up to. Um, I just got a text. Some very important stat holders are here. Um, they liked my last studio, especially because it had an elevator. So I'm not quite sure if this studio will win them over. You actually haven't seen these people for a little bit, so I'm very excited they've stopped by. The rule in the shop is we can't touch the bicycles. Okay. Yeah. And the other one rule is not hitting. Not hitting. You're right. No, Ohio. I've got a little surprise for you too. Do you know what it is? Pizza. Put it right [Music] under. Oh, I want that piece. You want this piece here? Here you go, buddy. Oh my goodness, it's as big as your face. Look in my mouth. Yeah. What do you think of the space? I love it. I really love it. I imagine you working here and getting so much done. So many screens, so many things. It's so nice. You can like breathe in here. So much space as opposed to the van or the hallway or, yeah, your last work spaces. I don't know if you've ever had, you've never had a space you with like, you can stretch and, yeah, this is great. People have missed the family stuff. Family stuff. The family stuff. They've missed you and I going on big trips and making videos. Um, it's happening. It's just not on the camera. It's just not on the camera. Every time. One, two, three.
So here we are in my new studio space, and I have a new fear, a new project that I'm worried about failing at. But when I think about on the creator side on YouTube, what I've been most satisfied by over the last 10 years, it's so cool to me the connection that I get to have with the people who actually engage with the videos I make. And what's come along with that is a lot of people have had questions for me about how to do different aspects of this process and actually finish things that they themselves are proud of. And so I have lists and lists and lists of different things that I want to do. I want to share. I want to get into. And I really need your insight. So there's two pathways that I need to decide on, at least for now, uh, to focus on. And that is, do you think you would like for me to more teach the work side of things, making documentaries about other subject matter? You could think of my film "Untethered" as a good example of that. Or would you rather hear from me how to do the creator style documentaries I do here on YouTube where I self-film myself out doing some adventure and create a film out of that experience? Or I go and visit, uh, someone that I find interesting and do kind of this hybrid format? But I've been so overthinking it. I want to do this well. I want it to be helpful.
I have got some fantastic news for you, and my workstation is now connected to the internet. This is a big step. This is a big deal. He makes sure to go subscribe to The Adventure Film Academy channel. That's where I'm going to be uploading, uh, more tutorials, long-form stuff, education stuff, technical stuff. All things adventure filmmaking are going to be going there. What's on your cup? A sticker. Show it to me. Whose sticker is it? Daddy's. Okay. Let's, let's take a look. What does it say? You know what it says? Daddy. Life's better when you grow up. Grow up. It says, "Life's better when you make stuff."