"I'm Riding Places" Josh Seiden #459
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Brand
Kabuto
Kabuto makes motorcycle helmets. The host likes theirs because it’s designed for riding and feels sporty even on the street.
Term
adrenaline
Adrenaline is the body’s “get ready” chemical that can make you feel more alert. The speaker is saying that after late nights, your body can feel wired even the next day.
Concept
drone footage
They’re talking about using a small flying camera to get overhead or sweeping shots. It makes the video look more cinematic and helps show where they went.
Concept
motorcycle
They’re talking about riding a motorcycle to see the country. It’s a different kind of experience than driving a car.
Term
air compressor
An air compressor is a device that squeezes air into a tank or line under pressure. Some setups also use it to power tools, and they often need to keep the air dry so moisture doesn’t cause problems.
Term
S-Log 3
S-Log 3 is a camera setting that records a “flat” image so you can adjust the look later. It usually takes editing to make the colors and contrast look right.
Term
three-quarter helmet
A three-quarter helmet is a helmet that covers most of your head, but not your whole face. It’s usually cooler and more comfortable, but it doesn’t protect your face as well as a full-face helmet.
Concept
influencer
An influencer is a person who has a big audience online. They usually make money by working with brands—like getting paid to promote products—rather than only relying on views.
Company
YouTube
YouTube is a video website where creators can make money from ads. The point here is that lots of views don’t automatically mean you’ll earn enough to pay your bills.
Concept
brand deals
Brand deals are paid partnerships where a company sponsors content to reach the influencer’s audience. For creators, these deals often matter more than ad revenue because they can be negotiated and tied to specific deliverables.
Term
algorithm
The algorithm is basically the platform’s “what should I show you?” system. If it thinks your post will get people to watch and interact, it shows it to more people.
Term
bars risers
Bars and risers are parts that change your handlebar position. They can make the bike feel more comfortable and easier to control.
Brand
Indian
Indian is a motorcycle brand. The point is that the aftermarket parts being advertised can work on Indian touring bikes too.
Term
touring models
Touring models are motorcycles built for long trips. They’re set up for comfort, and aftermarket parts often focus on making them nicer to ride for hours.
Brand
Porsche
Porsche is a well-known German car brand that makes sports cars. Here it’s mentioned as part of the kind of car-history content these channels cover.
Term
carbureted bikes
A carbureted bike uses a carburetor to mix fuel and air before it goes into the engine. Compared to newer fuel-injected bikes, it can require more tuning and attention.
Term
death wobble
“Death wobble” is when a bike or vehicle starts shaking violently and can feel uncontrollable. It’s often caused by worn or loose parts in the steering or suspension and should be fixed immediately.
Term
Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson is a famous motorcycle brand with a big fan base. The dealership is talking about selling their bikes and parts.
Term
TPMS
TPMS is the system that tells you if your tires aren’t at the right pressure. If it turns on after the car sits, it can be because the tire pressure dropped a little.
Term
tire pressure sensor
This is a sensor that checks how much air is in your tires. If the pressure is low (or the sensor is acting up), it tells you so you can fix it before it becomes a problem.
Concept
road trip
A road trip is when you drive somewhere far and make stops along the way. The fun is in the journey—seeing different places and meeting people—not just the destination.
Concept
dive bars
A dive bar is a casual bar that feels local and relaxed. It’s usually not fancy, and people go there for the vibe and the regular crowd.
Term
wrench on the bike
“Wrench on the bike” means doing hands-on mechanical work—adjustments, repairs, or maintenance—during the trip. It highlights that motorcycle road trips often include basic roadside or campsite troubleshooting.
Term
choppers
“Choppers” are custom motorcycles. They usually look very distinctive and are often associated with a big, loud group ride.
Concept
light pollution
Light pollution is the glow from streetlights and cities that makes it harder to see stars. Less light pollution means a darker sky and better stargazing.
Concept
helmet time
“Helmet time” just means the time you spend riding your bike. People like it because it’s the most relaxing part of a trip—less planning, more just riding.
Term
point shoot
A point-and-shoot camera is a simple camera you can use right away. You don’t have to learn a bunch of settings to take decent pictures.
LIVE
What is up everyone and welcome back to the fast life podcast on today's episode I'm sitting
down with my good buddy Josh from I'm riding places YouTube and Instagram he is a videographer
photographer a creative somebody I've known for many years in this episode he's sitting
down with us because he just quit his job of six years bought a motorcycle on Facebook
marketplace on the other side of the country flew out there and rode it back home it's a great
motivational kind of story I'm glad we got to capture it right in the middle of it and I got
to spend some time with him and yeah you're gonna hear all about it in this episode but first please
guys take a moment to check out our sponsors Arlen S motorcycles they got to get you covered with
some really great high quality custom motorcycle parts for your bike and if you use offer code
fast like 10 at checkout you're gonna save 10% off also my guys down at cowboy Harley-Davidson
Austin these guys are the leaders in Texas hell in the America in my opinion at getting you the
best deals on motorcycles new and used out the door hit them up tell them Jason you those are
my guys 1 800 law tigers if you or somebody you know has been in an accident they're gonna get you
on the right path on the road to recovery and they're gonna fight for you against those nasty
insurance companies so keep them in your back pocket make sure it's the first phone call you
make and you're gonna be safe also last but not least my guys at Kabuto the helmet that I wear
my new joint I love them they're great their high quality designed on the track and I'm not on the
track riding with mine but you know it feels kind of cool riding on the streets ripping and running
in a MotoGP inspired helmet so check them out links in description now let's get into this episode
hey guys you ready to let the dogs out
all right where do we begin it's a deep one I think we're already in so deep I'm in deep in
my trip we're in deep in the past three a couple of days I've been here in Dallas I've been in
Texas for shit mommy maybe four or five days now uh I was pretty hyped up first couple of
days in my trip and now I'm like man it's going downhill energy wise I'll be back to it tomorrow
when I'm on the road but yeah you know it's kind of like you do need to settle down and kind of
like chill for a minute get your bearings because I feel like on a trip like that if you don't have
a couple layovers every once in a while you'll kind of like start pushing destination mindset more
than like travel mindset yeah I was definitely pretty present for a little backstory for those
that are new I'm doing a solo cross country trip on a Facebook marketplace bike I just kind of last
minute found it it's a little more to the story professionally some life changes but yeah I found
this dyna defender in st. Petersburg Florida and I'm just kind of bugging across the country
visiting friends along the way jace is one of them but yeah I don't it's it's weird because when
you're on a trip and you're always on the move your body kind of adapts in a way that you
like at home if I get a shit night's sleep which is more often than I'd like I just I feel it the
next day yeah but on a trip you're kind of always getting not so good night's sleep if you're either
up late working or maybe you're going to a bar having a late night whatever and sure as shit the
next morning you're just on the bike jamming have you don't even you're not maybe you're not
thinking it's almost like your your your nervous system goes into more like maybe not fight or
flight but it's like ready for it oh you're running off adrenaline yeah in some regard you know
but no it's cool but I when you hit me up about doing this you're like hey you going to day tone
I'm like no this time my jammy goes cool I think I'm gonna come by and see you I'm like what so
how this is all unfolded it's all it's it's it's unique and it's um I think it's cool you know
you've been you've been you know growing I mean you've been with Tulane life for six years right
yeah and like you said so like he just stated you know you're you're stepping away from that
the secure job to go out and fucking spread your wings basically yeah all boiled down you know and
no uh no hate whatsoever those guys in my family they always will be and they've been they have
been supportive of my choice and I've been supportive of their goal and mission in helping them be
prepared for their next chapter as well as my own and it's exciting to uh you know I saw them do their
first uh livestream the other day and uh Paul's killing it behind the the scenes and they're they're
dropping videos and I'm dropping videos and everyone's doing our thing uh but yeah definitely a
different change of pace and a lot of regards that what came to mind when you were talking about
you know my trip is that over the years I have friends all over the country you know people that
I've yes industry folks and people that I've met through this but a lot of my own friends from back
home and they'll see me in Wyoming and they'll see me in Texas so hey come on by yeah and there's
just never been time for that because I am working I am producing uh capturing whatever it may be and
running everything to where we don't ever really have downtime yeah yeah actually when we came and
saw you in man it probably was 2020 yeah it's like that was one of the first trips in I guess a year
I guess we were still pretty new at that point that we did like actually chill in one place yeah
whereas normally it's like point A to point B have an amazing ride but you know you're documenting
on the phone for social you're documenting on the still camera for social print and uh product
photography and you know lifestyle yeah and then you're using the cameras for the YouTube and then
late you know check into the hotel whatever then it's editing then it's and it was just
non-stop and I want to there's nothing bad about that yeah it was a very good experience a lot of
learning um I just think there was always a misconception with people seeing it online
being like oh hey come on by let's ride you know there wasn't always times for that but we were
able to produce some some amazing stuff and capture some awesome memories yeah and uh the
production quality was just through the roof and that's kind of like and being you know knowing
you guys and spending the time I did in 2020 when you were still kind of I wouldn't say green in it
you were definitely already know how to do it but how you continued to polish it over the years
yeah with the drone footage with this with the interview styles with how that the the tooling
live channel is just kind of constantly uh morphed or evolved or you know grown in the way
that it tells the story yeah Jay Leno's garage and stuff I mean yeah and just all kinds of different
things I mean we we obviously focused on mostly travel oriented um which was great you know as a
especially as a young guy first couple years that's my way of seeing the country on motorcycle
a lot of times for the first time like there's no there's no beating that and when it's still new
either way I mean like you said I'm I'm learning how to tell the story how to document it and along
the way learning new skills in the camera world whatever you want to call it got my compressors
on yeah perfect how much do you think the I had a question and then that thing went off
air compressor yeah yeah I might it I'm gonna leave it on for this podcast it should be 15
minutes on every 15 minutes what it's doing is it's dumping all the water out of the uh out of
the uh I don't know the trap or whatever you would say human texas yeah yeah gotta kind of
clean air dry air whatever but well you know would you look I'm asking this for more of like a
creative what would you say that editing makes you a better shooter or shooting you know what I mean
kind of like like creating these videos like it's the I personally feel but maybe I'm not
trying to answer for you but like I do feel like editing helps me become a better shooter because
I see what it looks like on that side I think so you know if you're if you're like us and many
people who care about their craft when you're in the editing process and your pixel beeping and
really paying attention to the details that's the moment where you're like damn I really messed up
or I missed out and I didn't get that shot or I wish I framed that differently or okay I really
need to get some like focus pulling down to a science or shoot more 60 frame for b-roll or
whatever it may be or man my white belt like I think that's when you notice or even like storytelling
I wish I had more context in this moment yeah and that that's a skill that just gets sharpened and
the more practice you get the more consistent you do it the more opportunities you get to
to learn you know like if you're like film has been something that has taught me so much yeah
about cinematography film photography you know still photography because you're more intentional
you got 36 shots I have studied up on color science and the psychology of that through
different film stocks and that has taught me about a lot about how I want to color you know that
s-log three footage that has no color in it um I was going somewhere with that but like I said
it's been a long yeah it's been a long weekend yeah we just had the uh lone star swap meet this
past weekend and some of us didn't go to bed so eight this morning uh you got a good night's
rest this old guy you know I had a couple two three drinks or whatever made my way out of there
and buggy and said yo I made a little irish I'll see in the morning I was in bed by probably midnight
midnight yeah I'm an old guy now I think and a lot of it too I'm just I'm on the road I'm trying
to stay focused well rested really be present the whole the whole point of this trip was to have
a mental reset before I start this next chapter of life and you know like I said most of my
motorcycle motorcycle trips in the past six years have been for work very fun obviously still but
all day you're in the helm it's communicating directing planning shots having conversations
with your buddies it's great you know taking phone calls got the cardio if you need to whatever
but this trip I just threw on a three-quarter helmet not answering texts really not answering a whole
lot of phone calls just jamming out to some music and really doing my best to stay present and truly
enjoy the ride instead of trying to have that destination mindset and you know you want to
boil it all down and get philosophical that's just kind of the goal of falling into that mindset
in general throughout this next process because it's not going to be some night and day boom
I'm doing it like it's there is going to be a lot of challenge and I want to be excited about that
not be down so in that with that in the trip I'm trying to do the same thing you know as you've
like been a part of like the YouTube motorcycle space all these last six years does it do you
really feel or I mean trying to figure out how to ask this question but is that a viable career
do you think is there potential there or is it already you know what I mean I think the way I would
phrase it and it's something I like kind of ask myself or someone might ask me a couple years ago
if I were to have known what it would have actually been comprised of when I started
I would have had a lot harder of a time start I don't know that I would have done it yeah
but now that I've done it for so long and I have some of the recipes and I know these processes
and again the psychology behind them okay why is this video gonna do well how can we optimize it
for people to enjoy to learn something from whether it's about life or about traveling
or where to go or what to see I think if you're interested enough in something
you can always find a way to make it happen and whether it's with a team or by yourself
I've always had a hard time wrapping my head around trying to
make you know I think what the average person thinks of is like an influencer like
just posting on social media you can have millions of followers and millions of views
you won't make a dollar if that's the only thing you're doing yeah you know that's all leverage
to get people to a product to a website to a service whether that's yours or someone else's
it's a funnel I guess for me I try to I like doing a lot of different things I don't like
stagnation I don't like repetitiveness and my goal with a lot of this is
yeah I'm going to be sharing some travel some experiences and some stuff on social
but it's great marketing for me as a creative it's great marketing it's great networking you
know the people I've been able to meet not only because of like maybe some of my skills and I'm
better at but because of I'm putting myself out there having these experiences and now it
connects you to people doing the same thing and even last night I'm chatting up with a dude
that I just met and he had just sold his business he's starting this new business and guess what
a project that I had planned for 2026 really aligns with what he's doing and if I wasn't
out here traveling and I wasn't out here trying to learn from other people being a constant student
of those around me then that that wouldn't happen and all that's because of social in a way
yeah whether it's media on the phone or just being social with people yeah back to the question
yeah I think it's I think it is but it's you impact the layered system I think that I think
the service value they go if I make YouTube videos YouTube's gonna pay all my bills and it
it's I don't know if it's that way or yeah I've seen numbers and back ends of channels
bigger than my own bigger than channels I've worked for the views alone are not going to pay
your bills you know and let unless you're just always hitting it big but if you can partner
with brands and you can get brand deals I think the more and more that that side of industry
not even the industry not the motorcycle industry but social media in general
evolves the more people are trying to get into it and the more complicated it becomes
whether it's the algorithm or just the systems that are in place yeah so yes absolutely you can
do it but you just have to get creative and realize that what you thought about that system
a year ago is no longer true and we've had this conversation we probably had the conversation
last time we chatted on the podcast is there's a couple ways of thinking about it you can be like
yeah I am adjusting myself to the algorithm or am I fine tuning my skills to be a better
storyteller to communicate things better in a more concise way that inspires people that gets
people excited so that your reach does grow you know I've always found the psychology of business
and marketing and everything very interesting and when I kind of switch my mindset from you know
trying to do this for the algorithm to how can I be more effective I learned a lot and it has
paid dividends yeah but to go in and just you got to enjoy it you got to have fun you actually
have to want to have the outcome that you know if you want to sell a product you want to have to
solve it you want to be so yeah you kind of want to solve it a problem yeah yeah yeah it's uh
your point on the algorithm stuff because I mean I feel like I watched you build your
your Instagram channel the uh you know I'm writing places or yep how many you have you have like the
the what's the other one um I got my personal one that I try to keep you know low key and then
um writing places one um it's growing you know a little bit because of this but it seems like
like to what you were saying though it seems like you very like me I have this constant like I want
to fight the algorithm I want to fight how I fit into it and your approach seems to be
I want to understand it to figure out how I can be creative within it and and even though like
that does contradict my kind of view of wanting to just make the art the way I want to make it
yeah there is still kind of like a a constraint to like creative things you know what I mean like
a song is is made a certain there's certain things that have to happen for it to be a song yeah you
can play with all these things but there is still that I don't know that that that lane that you're in
and maybe that maybe the algorithm is the lane in in this analogy that I'm trying to paint I think
so it's also an opportunity to again get creative but work a little smarter and and it's not always
an effort thing like I remember when before when when I started with Tulane I didn't really use
social I didn't really do theirs I captured the photography I sent them videos that they could
post and Lance senior was doing the Instagram for a little while then when I started Instagram
my own for that stuff um because I didn't want to blow up you know my friends from high school with
my daily motorcycle stuff I once again forgot where I was going with that but uh damn yeah I
really really blanked out on that the algorithm stuff like figuring out how back in the early
times of doing stuff you know yeah so like I I didn't quite always understand why this edit
that I put all this time to with layers of sound effects and some a little a little attention to
detail with coloring and something that was produced wouldn't translate into growth when
something simple filmed on a phone would so I doubled down on production instead of double
down doubling down on storytelling which doesn't have to be well produced yeah you gotta have
good audio it's gotta can be filmed on a flip phone can't be annoying yeah it can't be annoying it's
gotta be easy to digest or watch you know like if you have a podcast it has really shitty audio
people don't have a hard time getting that message yeah and it took me years to
come to an internal solution about how to navigate that that I'm now you know all again
whether it was my own personal when I started my personal youtube channel like maybe nine months
ago it wasn't to try and do youtube like yeah of course I had thoughts about wanting to live my
own life on my own terms and and find a business model that can support that but a lot of it was
to try things without you know experiment without causing any negative effect to the brand's channel
yeah okay I can try some stupid thumbnail or title or weird concept and the only thing that
happens is it's on my channel it doesn't matter yeah and the same thing kind of went with instagram
and then when my instagram that started working then I started doing two lanes and we all you know
reap the benefit of that um and it's you know it's it's not a get with the times or get left behind
but all boiled down it kind of is because things are changing and younger guys are coming in and
you know you look at these kids and whether it's high school or early 20s that are hopping on
I don't really use tiktok or anything but just an example and they're learning how to
use that platform to their benefit yeah um a lot of them right now are just picking up the phone
telling a little story and it's getting people again is it inspiring is it educational and that's
it's a cool tool we all have it at our fingertips we got AI and all this wild stuff now that you
can pull knowledge out of an entire database instead of searching for it and uh it's not a if
you can't beat them join them but you know you just you got to always be a student if you're ready
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helmets and find out more information at kabutoamericas.com and don't forget to give my friends a follow
at kabuto underscore americas on instagram it's definitely something i'm i you know the listeners
podcast knows i've struggled with that shit for years you know like i it's almost like i want to
just be able to take a nice picture post it and it does well but i understand that there's so many
people making content there's so much on youtube there's so much on instagram and now you add all
the ai stuff that's coming out like all the you know the generated stuff that's just kind of popping
out it's like it is there is like a necessary you do need an algorithm to sift through this shit
you know yeah or 10 years ago or not 10 yeah maybe 10 years ago jumping on youtube it was kind of
hard to navigate you know you remember the term youtube rabbit hole that that doesn't really get
said anymore that much it's really curated as opposed to like you know like i'll watch a harley
video but i'm getting kind of the same stuff over and over and over again just i watch a thrashing
video and then next i'm on a fucking you know a cruisy and then bam then your pop up and then
two lane and then you know it's like it's not like it's going from you guys to then now i'm getting
a law-abiding biker you know jump in there it it's almost like it's segregated a little bit but
it's kind of easy to navigate youtube now you know i mean it personally yeah and i and maybe this is
a little off topic and more you know we're just diving deep into the whole social thing but it
used to be that it was really important that you had a very specific niche yeah that you focused on
you're a painter or build custom bikes or you're a photographer but with a few exceptions most
people are interested in a lot of things i like food i like cooking i like running and lifting and
i'm weighing to health science and all that type of stuff now the way the systems are because that
data is being collected you know for example you could have a channel or or base your social about
more than just one thing and it'll still get picked up if you know how to do that that's
what i was telling you about that channel last night that i'm in love with it it's speed with
like three or four e's in the middle and it's just like it's like a men's magazine for youtube and it's
like they're car guys but yet they're talking about like the cameras and the history of car heart
and the history of Porsche and then they're talking about like what's a cool guy car for
ten thousand dollar budget this budget that you know what i mean like it's it i
that that's a channel that when when they pop videos i'm like fuck i ring those bells you
know what i'm saying yeah and i feel like it's something outside of my world so i feel like
i'm stepping out of like this constant inundation of motorcycle stuff to kind of get connected to
something else yeah don't get me wrong i love motorcycles but i i prefer to ride them yeah
but there is a lot of stuff i'll watch i don't watch i'll probably start watching a little more
youtube and you know haven't been watching a whole lot of tv just been trying to build stuff on the
side while i had a job and now i'm you know trying to just spend my time wisely and stay
engaged and not disconnected by just you know watching stuff i'd rather make and create and
go shoot and be inspired because the byproduct of that is you can share that with other people
yeah one of the you and i we've always nerded out about photography and the camera stuff and
things like that but both of us are big fans of the grainy days and you know it it was always like
i know we've talked about it and i'm so glad that you actually implemented it in your channel that
i'm it's i'm riding places channel right yeah so when you started doing those rips to the canyon
and and you're shooting film and it and i think you were telling me the night's like some of the
the people that are watching like you know i'm not super into photography but i'd love watching
you do something that you love to do it's like yeah you know that's kind of cool that that's
like a universal law you know when you talk to anyone that's passionate about something you receive
some of that energy and it gets you inspired to do that thing i got a message from this guy chris
today and uh he's based out of nashville he rides and he shoots some film and stuff and he saw my
i quit my job video which wasn't about again it wasn't about throwing shader i quit blah blah
it was just about turning over into a new chapter of life and taking matters into my own hands of
changes that i want to see made in my life yeah because i'm young and this is the chapter for
risk and i shouldn't be scared to take risks anyway he shot me a message today hey dude just
want to let you know you got me fired up and i pulled the trigger on signing a lease to start
my own barbershop and i've wanted to do that for years so for me to hear that and for me to read
comments of dudes saying or women whoever you know when i was your age or 10 years after i was your
age i decided to do the same thing and died and bet on myself and it was the best decision i could
have ever made so for someone like me that's outwardly showing a lot of confidence and i do
feel confident in my ability to uh make some stuff happen there's obviously a lot of
fear involved you're taking a risk you know i don't i like the beach but i'm not going homeless
i don't want to go homeless and uh not that i'm worried about it being that bad but you know you're
leaving the comfort of something that you know and diving into this whole new world and just
like people think starting a business is going to be easy breezy there's just like a road trip
something is always going to come up that you did not expect and like they say the only guarantee
is that there's no guarantee or yeah there's 10 versions of that saying yeah well i mean
like like i was saying like you you were telling me that you had went to college for business
did all this stuff the next thing you know you get out of college and you're
your youtube channel like producer basically yeah and but that skill set that i think that you've
honed over these last six years is very valuable in this world that we live in now you know what i mean
yeah without a doubt and you know the only yeah i learned to calculus and always random business
classes and whatnot but i learned more in two years of business i'm starting from the ground up
these guys um lancengale and who had both had various experiences in business themselves in
very different realms i learned more in a year or two years than i did in five years of business
school now the one term that stuck with me through business school was opportunity cost and that
opportunity cost is the opportunity lost when choosing an alternative so the opportunity cost
of deciding to work as like a marketing guy and youtube producer and photographer and this and that
that opportunity cost is the initial stability of being able to climb a corporate ladder at a job
which is great for some people but it's not what i wanted and when i started there it was
i'm doing i'm going to be doing my own thing i'm still in school but i would love to be doing
this for you guys and with you guys it sounds great and then after a year i'm like all right i'll
commit to a year after that i said i'll commit to five you know and that was a that was a big
commitment but i knew at that point that we were all committed to the end goal and you know so i stuck
around and after five years i gave it another year to see you know things would go where where i had
a envisioned and you know things change so but again i would have i would i would i would have
done it the same way again because you know our relationship grew we got to meet so many people
i got to see the country i got to sharpen my skills and whenever people are asking about
you know editing questions or production or storytelling you know my my best answer to
pretty much any of the questions is just go out and do it because i edited full full length you
30 minute episodes every week 52 weeks out of the year for six years we never missed a week until
i think year five we decided to you know one drop lined up on christmas and then new years so we're
like yeah whatever um but it was that repetitive nature in a good way of like you're getting consistent
practice that's a 10 000 hours doing yeah and that it really did come down to that and then
that 10 000 hours is is not even to like master anything but that's to get your foot in the door
to be able to call yourself a professional you know i still don't really call myself a photographer
but i do practice photography yeah and i'm always a student and because more enjoyable that way yeah
when you come to learn more about film or optics or cameras or focal length or composition or color
that's what keeps it interesting 100 yeah you had mentioned earlier that how going back and shooting
film really helped you hone your skills it was a pivotal thing pivotal pivotal pivotal i just say it
quick and it sounds like it's right um it was very uh it was something i needed and it reinvigorated
photography but it taught me a lot more about composition yeah like i said you're more intentional
about things but i think there's also something that at the time i started shooting film there was
also this other thing that was happening to me motorcycle wise where i was getting where i really
wanted the older bike or older feel or an older aesthetic and it it kind of like was paralleling
with um there is this these machines that are perfect to do everything you do the same way this
camera does everything we need to do but for some reason that one right there that's inefficient
in all kinds of ways i enjoy using more and inexpensive in all kinds of yeah yeah it costs
more it's like you you know and then i those 36 shots that half of them got light leaks and the
other ones aren't in focus i'm like why do i love this more i have 30 000 riding shots or this of
that or whatever the case may be but i'm looking at this 36 roll and for some reason i'm just really
connected to maybe the scarcity of it yeah i mean it comes down to intention but it also
comes down to learning lessons like if you're on an old bike and you're on a road trip and
something happens yeah one the dealers won't work on something older than a twin cam yeah
two like it's it's your responsibility to learn how to fix that machine and you didn't just wake up
one day learn how to fix it you learn by being stranded a couple times yeah and with film you know
my the best roll i ever shot i didn't load correctly so that the first time i ever got a blank roll
back i was i wasn't devastated but i was like wow like i just learned a lesson i'm never gonna let
that happen again yeah and so that was that lesson all right you you didn't install the lens correctly
didn't load it correctly whatever it is you're learning those lessons or damn i forgot to rate
the film in a fully manual camera yeah and now the whole roll is underexposed or blown out
and you're you're it's just a steeper learning curve that leads to very solidified learning
lessons yeah and yeah man i got i've always enjoyed carbureted bikes older bikes you know my first
Harley was an 86 FXR and coming from like sport bikes and dirt bikes that was like wow this this
feels very different because of professional relationships and all the traveling of course
i ended up on new bikes and i still do love them because there's there's just a different aspect
of fine tuning it to make it this perfect machine just like i would do with a modern camera if i
really needed to do some professional work but when i go out on my own like this trip on this
dyna that's got a fucked up motor mount and at 75 i'm getting a death wobble and i got wired
headphones going from my handlebars to my little three-quarter helmet and i can smell the exhaust
and the gas and i'm not really sure how many miles i got left and dudes are you know in their old
Ford pickup looking at me at a light going like damn like when i was in college that bike came out
and i remember that was my first bike or whatever it's something that everyone can connect over
and then yeah i wrote a foot clutch for the first time maybe two years ago and was like
blown away i couldn't stop thinking about it now i got bit by the bug yeah yeah we were talking about
that at breakfast this morning how like you have a you have a 2001 dyna defender that is 25 years ago
yeah so it doesn't feel like that long ago i was five years old when that bike came out yeah you
know yeah and so it doesn't feel that long ago as opposed in 2001 when you think 25 years prior to
that things look very different yeah you know it's just one of those things like when you post it up
and you put it in a in a you know a youtube channel you know the warriors out there all that
ain't a old bike it's like yeah not not everything has to be a fucking you know a knucklehead dude
yeah yeah don't be a knucklehead yeah don't be a knucklehead and it i think what people get so
caught up in when they're entering that world whether they're consuming or creating is just like
taking things too seriously you know okay i called an old bike and you don't agree with that i can
understand your side but like how else am i gonna okay cool motorcycle ride across the country
yeah it wasn't across the country you didn't start in Maine you know like there's there's always going
to be something and i just it amuses me sometimes what people have to say because they're not
out doing shit yeah you know yeah you have so much time to say something that's not
you know i i feel compelled to say something whenever i'm inspired yeah and i want to give
people ownership over that feeling they gave to me or yeah accolades or whatever you want to call
it but so you know it was it was funny because you know when you guys all thrashing everybody
i did the whole ride the surges and there was like buying the old bikes this last year i mean
i was it was kind of validating for me because i did you know i have also been on that cake but
it was cool to see that and then i was really engaged in all the content from both channels
throughout that process you guys riding the sturges last year and it was cool and everything
every feeling every reason like why i'm into it right now was being iterated in those videos on
both sides of the of the channels yeah i mean that it kind of goes back to enjoying it for
what it is for us as a as a a team of teams at that point sturges was always that one trip of
the year 15 minutes 15 minutes sturges was always that one trip of the year that was about not the
one trip but it our goal was to have a good time yeah the content was a byproduct we're documenting
of course we're still going to do a good job but for a couple years we're like four days to the
black hills that's still a push even on new bikes and just we got to get here because then the next
day we got to get here and we're still having fun and having dinners together and whatnot but this
last trip to sturges on the carbureted bikes was the first time we took damn near a week to get
there and we're camping together and we're going river rafting and we're fixing bikes five times
a day and making wheel spacers out of soda cans and and barbecuing and just really
really really living that experience and that'll that'll forever be one of my favorite trips
today it was awesome watch and and it's translated again it goes back to are you doing it to do it
and then all the everything people can view later as a byproduct or are you like just going out there
to try and make content you know yeah whatever here in texas when you're ready to level up your
ride there's only one dealership that i go to and that's cowboy harley davidson of austin whether
you're looking to jump on a new 2026 model or a certified pre-owned harley that's ready to go
cowboy has you covered genuine harley parts expert service by factory trained technicians
finance options all from the dealership that i have trusted to buy my last five motorcycles
in the past 10 years swing by or hit them up at cowboy harley austin.com and don't forget cowboy
hosts weekly events so follow them on instagram at cowboy hd austin to get real-time updates
in one split second your ride can turn into a fight for your life your bike and your future
that's when you want law tigers the motorcycle lawyers to have your back they're not just attorneys
the riders real ones they've been in the wind they understand it they know the risks they've
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1-800 law tigers needs to be the first call you make they will get you on the right path with
free case evaluations 24-7 call law tigers before the insurance company starts spinning their wheels
again 1-800 law tigers or hit up lawtigers.com to get on the right path and give them a follow
on instagram at lawtigers and once again 1-800 law tigers the first call you make
yeah content creation buddy yeah i don't gotta put on the influencer caps and uh get out there but
you know with you you know you you sold that dyna right that from all that situation and in this
dyna that you picked up you have the roguelite right the new one yeah i was 24 there's uh
like run me like what is your feeling what is your why buy this bike the defender why do that like
what i mean i had planned on buying a dyna and then the defender just came up on my fee like
everything on my facebook marketplace was from local and then for some reason this bike like
almost 3000 miles away just pops up and i'm like i've always loved them you know i had a thing for
fxrp is for a while i've already had an fxr and something about the railbags on it and having the
you know auxiliary lights and had just the old police bike it was just something different
i didn't know those things came with bigger tanks either that was five point two i think which is
so it's like you're getting the best of both worlds between like it's almost like a mini road
king slash big dyna but i've always enjoyed machines and cool little trinkets and gadgets
that you just don't see very often and that's why i built that built that's why i put together
that green road king the way i did because you just didn't see that many at least at that time
you know road kings within fxrp fair you could you can't just go buy that
whereas some of the newer bikes like yeah i go down to nettoons net or pch on a sunday and there's
29 low rider sts and 15 road glides and yeah and then you start seeing the dinas and the
fxr's and the choppers that are all kind of made their own honestly i found that bike like two weeks
before the trip so it wasn't something i was all calculated and yeah it just lined up perfectly
were you kind of looking for something far away to do the trip and then that one ended up
being the the culprit of it or i'll boil down yeah like i i was just planning on maybe finding
something in arizona and just kind of riding home and once i committed to the decision of
going out and doing my own thing that trip in my mind became like how can i actually
make this an experience that i'll like never forget and how can i you know a bunch of times
this year i've seen some cool diner or chopper or whatever it is oh i'll get that and then it
sells yeah so with this i was like you know what this is it i'm trying to underthink a lot of this
next chapter of life and not what you call it analysis paralysis yeah yeah like fortune favors
the bull just go do it yeah so i hit the dude up i'm like hey bro i am not very close to you
i'll shoot you like 500 bucks if you can hold it take a deposit i'm gonna get a one-way ticket
i'll see you next week and it that just like making some spontaneous decision just got me so fired up
and then i started doing a little more research on the defenders and i liked them even more because
of it you know they're rare they're cool um i just i really enjoyed that low rider on the
sturgeon's trip and just wanted something like that you know and for you out there in the socao
you know area is it is it really easier to ride something like the dine out there versus the
roguelod when it comes to splitting or like is there is there an aspect there with it or is it
maybe a little bit i mean i'm i'm so used to yeah splitting on the roguelod and squeezing into
places that i think maybe a lot of folks wouldn't do on even a sport bike yeah but yeah if i when i
was on the the low rider and it had like the thrash in leather pro style bags which are a little
bit more narrow than the defenders yeah i was it was a little easier when i was in like la or
something and splitting through um it's you know you feel connected to older bikes without
maybe as much technology and i have so many great information yeah i noticed which you know we were
riding around again this is another thing i've talked about here a lot but you know yesterday
we we left the house in the van it's it's the gnarliest storm i'm like you don't get these out
there in cali huh you get storms but like it's just gnarly it's the rain wind blah blah blah
but like the van like the white wipers sometimes work the uh there's only like yeah it's either
overheating the battery don't work there's gas in it and then here's how fast you got no gas yeah
i don't know if the tires have air or not you feel it yeah it lets you know right but my jeep
it's like i get in the car i haven't driven it for a week yeah tpm s is going on it's like it's
sensor error it i feel like it it's constantly feeding you someone's information that you uh
it creates expectations in your head in some kind of weird way like it makes you like you're
thinking about the tire pressure sensor now which obviously is something you need to go
fuck with safe you know um gets too much you know what i mean yeah i was having a conversation
with someone recently you know i'm mechanically somewhat skilled i can fix a couple of things
but i'm by no means like i couldn't rebuild the motor like fix anything catastrophic on the side
of the road even with the twin cam but that was the adventure that i signed up for and
if something happens i'm gonna learn something yeah that being said if you only have an opportunity
to take one trip out of the year and like yeah the brand new bike is gonna be like when i went
on that trip to Idaho that was also a very last minute i'm pretty sure i decided to go
thursday morning i left on friday morning and i rode a thousand miles to boise hung out for a day
to do party at the pan and then rode a thousand miles home like that'd be pretty brutal on a dyna
what'd be if you couldn't i mean you if you keep your bike dialed all time but you would
still want to go through a little bit of a checklist a little bit of a i want to make
sure everything's good before i just yeah throw a thousand miles down whereas on that trip i it
wasn't i wasn't really worried about the bike making it i was more so focused on having this
experience and having a tool like that i would come back to using tools yeah that would that
was the perfect tool i had my tour pack and my speakers i'm charging my phone
it's got good mileage big tank great wind coverage i'm still still giving you the motorcycle
experience yeah and it's still giving you the harley davidson experience which i've always
enjoyed especially touring like you're it's still incredible you can't if you've never taken a big
trip you have to yeah it's literally like i i try to iterate that to everybody's like you
you get married to this once you hit the road the bar hopping stuff that stuff is that's fun
and that's a hot chick for a while but you're you can you can give that up yeah the road those
good experiences especially if you get to do with friends or you have friends on the road to go see
become these most like very visceral memories and and feelings of of like your past in your life
i have them on my wall in here you know and it makes me you know i love that shit you know what
i mean it's uh you know whether it's like now you get the the notification showing you hey remember
in 2017 this is what you're doing oh cool that's yeah i like that new feature on the phone but like
it's just stuff like that you know and it's the experience is the best teacher but travel is a
yeah i don't work with the with the youtube channel you know like like i said with the
photography aspect to it i love that direction but you're already kind of saying like you want
to be a more multifaceted like where you thinking you want to take the channel and stuff like that
that's a great question i haven't thought that far per se you know people have been asking
what what i'm going to do yeah i don't know man you know i have a pretty good idea of things that
excite me and i'm going to start with obviously integrating motorcycles and photography as i have
i just thinking about that idaho trip you know earlier we're talking about like you can't just
post a photo anymore that gas station photo of uh roam station on this just barren stretch of uh
of road you know i'm riding you went up to what the 395 i went 395 to like the 96 or something which
takes you all through nevada up into towards idaho but what that experience
it's taught me i guess about and i'll do my best to lead into actually answering that question about
where i want to take it is that merged storytelling with photography in such a unique way for me
because that that one shot became like the whole highlight of the trip and the story behind it
i think if i were to just have put that shot out there without sharing the experience of how it
came to be yeah it just would have been another post on instagram you know but then i end up you
know paying for the trip by selling prints yeah of that because it was such a in-depth moment
you know and and on this trip we were talking about it i'm holding on to the like a q2 monochrome
which for those that are unfamiliar is a digital camera that has a black and white sensor so it
doesn't have the color array it cannot capture color and because of that it has
obviously a couple limitations but a lot of strengths and this whole trip i've been shooting
photos on that and to me being able to look back at that when i get home whether it be a photo book
or just something for me to enjoy or something for me to share that is storytelling yeah you know
i want to make something that lasts i don't want to feed some machine yeah and i think that's what
is my intention with the channel i don't want i don't want to like just stick to a couple of
different things yeah it's probably always going to be motorcycles or at least travel
but my goal is just to inspire people to try new things and whether it be taking risk or
finding new opportunities for themselves or just traveling i mean traveling is just
it's the best you know it is and some people aren't exposed to it like i was fortunate that my
parents took us camping and introduced us to mountain bikes and ski or snowboarding and
road trips i mean my i've told the story a handful of times but growing up we would always
go to like mammoth on 395 and i'd be in the back of my mom's o1 land cruiser with a
green it's clear water cassette tape playing in there and i'm just looking out the window
and at that time you're just asking over there yet you're waiting you're waiting to get there
but i remember seeing as a kid these guys on like BMW adventure bikes in the middle of nowhere
on 395 and in my head at the time i'm like why are they doing that not in a why are they doing that
but just genuinely intrigued like i'm sitting here in a comfy car with snacks and quiet and i didn't
really get it but that was my initial exposure to like wow you can do things that are unconventional
and a reap of benefit from that and then church it 15 20 years later yeah here i am doing that
and living a life i probably would have never imagined as just a regular kid you know yeah yeah
so i want people to find whatever that is for themselves and if i can put stuff out there that
inspires them to do that then i'll die happy you know yeah the traveling aspect is and not to
not to dosate it either way of traveling but like the airplane solves the problem right the
airplane solved the problem to get you to that side of the country to get this bike would have been a
long time yeah um but the aspect so like literally this trip you're on is literally both types of
traveling yeah you know it's it's the convenient got there you know hat snacks on the way yeah and
then the all right i'm gonna go deal with the weather the sun the cold the the the traffic the
people the the changing climate or everything everything's changing right you going from the
coast to the to up here to the plains to the desert to the mountains to the fucking coast again it's
like you're earning everything yeah and there's a mix you know you talked about whether you're
traveling solo or with a group and if you are traveling solo seeing friends yeah that was the
cool like when i did the Idaho trip i knew there would be a body or two at party at the pan i knew
i had a buddy in Boise um that i'd probably see there and i knew that there would be a couple
people that would come say hello at the event but i was going there alone and to have this experience
of the unknown but on this trip what's so cool is that i'm you know in florida i initially had
planned on visiting a buddy but i would have had to go further away and couldn't make it happen
but i visited two buddies that i met Hamza and moose that i met in Sturgis and when they came out on
there like 50 day trip after Sturgis before even going home back to texas they came and visited me
and i showed them around and showed them a little hospitality um i will admit you guys do it better
you know hospitality wise but and they're like dude if you're ever out here hit us up and stay
with us blah blah and usually that's just kind of sort of the thing you're like oh yeah yeah for
sure someday down the road and i just realized that if i stayed down the path that was it would
never come yeah i had but anyway i digress i visit them for a couple days they show me around in a
place i haven't spent much time in yeah i visit another high school buddy from there i come up
here i visit you we have all these experiences i'm gonna go see some other friends and high school
buddies and this is all still in texas yeah and then go to arizona so this whole time i get all of
it i get some hotels i get some time alone i get some time with friends and shared meals and catch-ups
and all this life you know a year's worth of life and interaction squeezing to a couple of weeks
and uh yeah i always try to tell people when it comes to uh a lot of people were like i just
want to get a hotel i want my own space like man take the couch yeah the the couch and the kitchen
table conversations with the people that are hosting you or whatever opens up so much doors like me
and taylor from shifter crew are 100 as close as we are because when i went to his house for the
first time to do a podcast for with you know have him on he was like i'm gonna i'll put you up at the
casino down the stairs like oh man like the couch is fine we we split a bottle of buffalo
trace that night we never even did a podcast and we became best friends over the over a bottle in
his kitchen and i guarantee we'll be telling that story at least to each other for the rest of our
lives you know i'm saying but it's choosing a little bit of uncomfort a little bit of like
awkwardness you know like you you know we've had people come through town and i'm like hey man i
i'll put you up yeah vaughn gasfall came to town wasn't awkward but you know he comes to town he's
on a spirit quest or you know whatever and i'm like you can stay here as long as you want man yeah
you know i gotta go to work we gotta go to work you know if the door shut leave it alone you
open it yeah but you know for the most part don't let the cats out you know what i mean yeah
and that's uh that's an aspect that i think is coming back maybe it didn't go away but
what i've always noticed you know my parents did a lot of traveling before they had me my brother
and told us stories and some of which we got to experience ourselves during travel when you
meet someone in europe and they tell you in passing or after getting a cup of coffee next time you're
in europe come stay with us they're not saying that to say it like they mean it yeah they're gonna
and i more often than not when i hear it here maybe i won't say more often than not but it
doesn't always mean the same thing in the states but i think when you become a part of a community
and make it your mission to connect with people and and show up as that person that you would
love to show up for you yeah those experiences become possible and yeah if i was staying in some
hotel like hey jace you want to get dinner like you want what do you want what time are we doing
this now we're just living for a couple days and yeah you know you know i'm up at midnight when
everyone comes home from the bar yeah the uh you know i've been very you know fortunate to have
some i've had some very hospitable people over the years some of which have become very close
friends and whatnot and showed just they have way more money or they live in a way cooler place than i
do but i've always like taken a little bit of like that feeling that i got and that
just try to be that for everybody else that comes through here and like whatever way like
yeah i'm not rich i ain't got the money yeah i can i can probably get you a meal you know um but i
i want to just hey let's go do this i want to show you this part of town this is where we like
to hang out because the one thing about traveling that i think drives me the most crazy is that like
i really don't want to go to the tourist spots i want to go eat at the restaurants and the dive
bars and the things like that that are more local stuff you know i don't want to get the
13 dollar michelob ultra beer yeah i want to go to this not a crap beer brewery kind of nerd but
like i want to go to like the the places that we we were at last night that little down and out bar
and fort worth that place is cool i don't go to fort worth much yeah because i go a little too
hard and it's a long drive home but that was a cool little bar had a good vibe yeah another trip
that stood out to me uh with tulane was when we went to we flew into nashville but we rode down
to kentucky to go see cape city with the fish decline yeah and zam deal the southerners just know
how to do that hospitality but instead of us going there and basing a couple of our experiences
off of something we saw on the internet or by word of mouth and hey let's go check out this
restaurant and that we had her a local born and raised there that has deep family history show us
places and introduce us to people and share all this family history i mean there's at one point
we walked into the woods she's like it'll be like a mile i think it was like five miles
each way and we're yeah i got the big a7s i got the whole the river rig yeah we're just walking but
it was just this unforgettable time and after that ended up being one of my favorite trips in the
first four years because she took the time to show us what it would be like to be fully
like ingrained in that culture like what it would be like if you were living there and you knew
people and you were part of the community versus you're just passing through um and the same goes
for now i look at this place differently because we've checked out different things and i'm not
stressing about my 19th hotel bill of the month because you were kind enough to let me stay at
your place and eat your eat your salami when you're taking that not that i'm not going to turkey
eat your snacks in your fridge that's cut but you know let me uh raid the kitchen and then edit
from the couch and charge my shit and get a good night's rest and uh you know wrench on the bike
if need be whatever it may be it's a very it brings a whole new meaning to motorcycle road trips um
then just staying in hotels yeah i mean when me and the boys over the years when we've gone
travels it's like yeah when you're traveling on a bike you know you if you go get a fancy hotel
in every spot it gets expensive so yeah but sometimes men like the the dude that lets you
hey man i don't have that much space in my house but if all y'all want to just throw some sleeping
bags on the floor yeah you're good and it becomes like uniquely great experiences like one of my
closest friends bruce who lives on top of a mountain in washington who he's the one that
my roguelide my old uh goldish brown one this dude says hey you and the boys come up here
we right up there we leave a Eugene Oregon we ride up to you know just over hood river
kind of close to portland rain the whole time piss poor still beautiful right we get to his house
he went out and got like like salmon from the the area from the ocean or all that
shit wherever the fuck rivers then got steaks that were from there then got huckleberry pie that was
from there and like then he had a a whole he don't drink he's not a drinker but he had a
whole cooler full of montucky yeah you know it's like he just spread it out for us and then we're
at his house and like i said it's it's like a rainforest you know i'm saying and it was just
like one of the funnest nights i've ever had you know what i mean yeah and we're getting drunk
jaden crushed a beer can with his ass i got it on video it's funny as hell yeah um that's
our wives think we're out cheating on him like no chase this is what we're really doing yeah
i heard uh one of your buddies that i met at the swap meet uh tall dude he was talking about
building like a uh a not you know not a Harley chopper a similar chopper anyway he was telling me
about one of his friends hit up his parent or hit him up and said hey don't your parents live here
can we come stay with them he goes yeah let me hit him up hits up his parents
and they didn't tell him how many guys were coming 19 guys showed up on choppers and just took over
their house and his parents loved it yeah they drank they had a whole bar like in the basement
or downstairs these guys killed every bottle and the dad was just like reminiscent let's just
i got all these rad dudes yeah and i'm feeling young and wild and free again and just the way he
told the story i was like dude that's what it's all about yeah that's the you'll never forget that yeah
yeah the johns uh he at the east originally from new jersey and he had a lot yeah that story was
ragged he was telling me because i've been wanting to get back to new york pretty bad
and i said i would love to go get drunk in this dude's basement you know what i mean yeah so it's
like that that stuff's kind of cool and like i said you know the connection to people is something
you know when i go to venice and i stay with my wife's aunt she's that way very small house it's
not like they're trying to boast but like it feels so for lack of a better term intimate
to sit there you know you got the the sounds and smells of venice good or bad but it's still a
fucking experience and you're just in this place and then all of a sudden elon shooting rockets up
and shove it you know i don't know what is the venture area or whatever i started but yeah it's
just there's those weird it's the same way like when you're on your motorcycle on a cross-country
trip on a tuesday and you're just like man how lucky am i right now you know whether it's not
not to like boast or brag but like really being gracious in those little moments yeah how fortunate
am i to be able to be doing this yeah not regardless of circumstance yeah i think for a lot of people
myself included it's a getaway in that when you've made connections and you you know you might have
a place to stay it all of a sudden only really costs you gas money maybe a little bit of food
or or if you just do it and go camping yeah instead of like you know i think maybe sturges
is an exception because once you get there yeah you can still camp anyway like a lot of people
might only because they're unaware of how to still make it a good trip while keeping it cheap
they're like oh i could never do that or oh if i had your money like bro i've been checked to check
like for a very long time i didn't exactly leave a comfortable job you know what i mean but i'm still
doing this experience because i am confident that having the experience will get me
inspired to go live the life and make the decisions that i have to make to be able
for that to be comfortable one day or whatever it is you know like you can't take it with you
yeah i don't want to work when i'm 65 but yeah i think i'll probably ask me then yeah if i make it
until then remember we used to ride motorcycles oh man yeah i remember the last day we got to ride
those things i mean i for the bombs dropped yeah before it was all electric or whatever yeah i i spent
a lot of time carefully considering my options for you know over a year and having conversations
with people that i value their opinion and their experience because they've done something similar
i just know they have a good insight that can help me a lot of which are older than me by one
decade or four and the common consensus between all of them was i wish i took more risk when i was
your age and that can come in many forms that can mean many things but that's a good example of like
damn i really wish i took that motorcycle trip when i was 29 or when i was 35 or whatever before i
had all these responsibilities even though it would have meant maybe i'm not advocating financing a
trip but like maybe it would have meant overextending myself for a month or two but okay well now you'll
be happy i don't go around your motorcycle yeah you could in a sense you can always make more money
yeah you might be uncomfortable for a while but like i think maybe on the opposite of the end of
the risk thing is it like i felt like i'm always leveraging risk yeah right where it's like you
coming away with that fucking camera and like every night i'm like looking on marketplace i'm like
man i got a credit card i think i could probably swing this um it's like fuck it if i do it i'll
figure it out i'll bust my ass i'll work harder i'll get it paid for that's like the that's all i
have to do to have the experience or to have the thing i want then it's not a really you know hard
it's it's not hard it's just i gotta i gotta do it yeah i gotta sacrifice maybe maybe i'm not getting
as many espresso martinis for the next couple of months you're going on those dude making it happen
you know i'm just spreading the spreading the gospel you know what i mean i'm apologetically
drinking margarine margaritas martinis and uh and like you said if there's something that's
important to you and you and you you know really why you're doing it it's for yourself and not to
like please other people or show off or have some ego trip or whatever which all of that
life is much too short for that like go have the experience you know yeah i mean another thing we
kind of dabbled in talking about is that trying to remove so many expectations from the decisions
we make even though there is inherently gonna always be some form of expectations it's it's
kind of like it's it's not it's just being mindful of that right when i talked about that seven week
road trip and how like i'm on the road i'm sacrificing so much time away from my wife my kids
and my life i'm not getting the photography or the video or the things that i thought i was going
to get i i'm on the road for seven weeks i was only able to record like six podcasts yeah i've i've
gone i've done like four podcasts in a day before you know say you know how we can trip and get that
yeah and i'm like what the fuck and all these like beneficial things that i've i've kind of like
now received from that trip have come so far removed from it toward like in the moment it
made me really miss the life i had that i was maybe taken for granted in a way but now it's it's
giving me so much more perspective that i'm still unpacking here and there when i when i'd go through
the the album on lightroom and see the photos and i got the ones i liked that i want to be in the
book but then i go look at the ones i shot i'm like oh that one's pretty good too i don't
miss that one you know what i mean it really just puts me back into a mindset of when i was there
you know and it's there's a lot of that trip i regret because i wouldn't allow myself to
enjoy the moment i was putting all these expectations of like oh man i didn't wake up early enough to
get the sunset this whole day's fucked yeah you know i'm saying i had one of those days
on this trip where again like the first day even though i knew the first day wasn't gonna be ideal
and because of that i had a great time because i expected i made proper expectations or a
realistic expectations and then i was my own experience to pass that on the night making my
way i guess that would have been night three of the trip night two on the road on my way from
Pensacola or uh yeah from Pensacola to Houston i had told my buddies yeah i'll be there around eight
and well we made dinner plans and this that and the other and then like the tan shut down
and sent me through some weird detour in Louisiana which essentially shut down yeah and then there
was rain and then i couldn't see because my sunglasses blah blah blah my windshield 20 years
old and looked up and then i'm running late and i'm running on this stretch of road and i just wasn't
enjoying it like i knew i could have been and i stopped at the gas station noticed something's
loose on the bike and i fixed it and i sent a couple texts out and uh i'm just like in my head
i'm like man i hate being late i'm showing up two and a half hours late to see these guys and i was
just like bumming for no reason i was just tired yeah and and again my expectations were different
than my reality at that point and then like five minutes later free bird comes on in my headphones
and i just like snap into it and i'm just screaming out loud i'm like waving the truckers and i'm just
having the time of my life i'm picturing myself like singing in some country bar with good people
knowing that those times are coming yeah and making the best out of not a bad situation
but making the best out of the situation that pretty much five minutes before i wasn't enjoying
and it just goes to show that that's all a choice yeah managing expectations managing
how you feel in the moment and it was obviously a lesson i've learned many times in my life
mostly on road trips that it just like solidified again yeah and it it not again not to be too
philosophical but it was a perfect analogy for life like you could be grinding day to day
and going to something you don't enjoy or being involved with someone you don't want to be around
relationships business work activities but if you make that choice to just show up
and and be excited about it it'll pay dividends and it's not going to be a perfect thing ying and
i segued over there but it was that was just a very that was one of the most important
moments of the trip i think for me yeah i'm pretty sure i mean you're maybe halfway home
i think i'm about a little bit less 100 miles in and i think if i took the fastest route i have
about 15 or 1600 miles home yeah and i do have to go north to fulfill some obligations
um before i start heading west yeah so tomorrow i think uh sherman is like an hour and a half north
and then i'm either gonna cut down through you know odessa and midland and stuff towards
big bander at least towards the 10 because the 40 uh well when y'all came out and did the uh the
run a long time ago in 2020 and we all rode together i know y'all had to book it back so yeah
where we were at in bandera and we rode the twist of sisters and then i had never ridden big bend
yet it's so fucking badass yeah but it's it is out of the way there is it's not on the way
somewhere thing it's on the way to son i mean no no no so like the 10 is 150 miles away from it
north of it oh wow so you got a drop down into desolate it's but it's changing my expectation
yeah it it's one of those things that i would go there and stop there because you can loop it you
can do you can make it a looped journey or like a you know you can still make progress but it is an
intentional thing and it is truly unique down there i mean i've had there used to be an event
they're called runder atone or runder atone uh run to terra lingua and dude the sun sets there
which i mean what you're on the west coast so anytime the sun sets on water it's badass but
it's it's amazing there and these old ghost towns you you don't really know if you're in Mexico
or not but it's you're riding along the real grand there ain't no fence dude and that water
is not that deep well you know it's like i i could literally run to Mexico right now now
you're in some shit it's like you're not i don't know it's not that there's no there's no uh light
pollution you can like it is amazing one of the darkest skies in america too yeah i mean that has
been on my bucket list legitimately for at least four or five years and something that i just it
seemed out of reach and i had initially planned on this trip of going out there and meeting my
same buddies from houston on my way down from you know meet them both of our half ways there and
doing it and then i you know i had more people reach out hey these are some things you can see
and i just kind of figured that i'd be better off coming back with the truck and the camper and the
dual sport and like that in a week out there that would actually be really badass to do with that
but there's another route that i think that you could take once you leave odessa that will take
you around something pretty cool that i did on the way out whenever i saw you guys uh last summer
it'll still take you on the way to el paso but you'll go by some mountains and salt flats okay i
would like that you know yeah you guys rode you might have rode through it last time when y'all
came out because when y'all went to carlsbad yeah when y'all went to carlsbad juggle white sands new
mexico into it or did y'all come through el paso to it el paso because we uh we went to that
steakhouse no that's emerald oh that's an emerald yeah yeah y'all went north and then down yeah
probably uh this is a long time ago that's that's a trip yeah yeah yeah i would like to uh it's a
trip that's already been a week because i remember on day two i was like damn this i'm not not at all
close to home and i was obviously excited for what's ahead but i was like that's a pretty big journey
and now i'm like well yeah i'm almost halfway halfway on a two week time span distance wise
not so much but i also haven't traveled for four yeah you can make a lot better time going west
so once you get out into the open yeah the east is just congested you know what i'm saying
but i was actually excited to have at least two full days of like riding through nothing because
that's some of the best helmet time yeah once i'm on the 10 and i'm heading west
i could just stop when you're done fine okay well there's a hotel or there's a awning or whatever
but yeah it's been cool people reaching out whether it's like offering a place to stay or
hey my wife will cook dinner or if you need help with the bike or i got a trailer or
you should go here it's open my eyes to a lot of things that i can see where you know i could
picture the possibility of me being like and maybe i would like to get home but i do i do want to
squeeze a lot of a lot out of this experience if possible so i'm notorious when i would do all
the trips with the boys to where as soon as we hit the furthest point i would target
affixiation on home yeah where we had to start planning the trips to where there was so much
shit we were doing on the backside coming home that i really couldn't just skip it yeah because
i'll i'll ride to san francisco and be like sick i i'm just be lining home now yeah and um
it's something that every time i would do it i would be so disappointed in myself from all the
things i skipped or we're in roswell new mexico and we're gonna make one more stop in amarillo
or abalone or something and have a good night but i'm like man i'm 400 miles from home right now
i've been on the road for two weeks wife's sending me some cool pictures yeah i'm trying to get back
but if i take that extra day yeah and and hang out with the boys it's kind of like now we get to
end together as a group as opposed to like the night before when they weren't ready to say their
goodbyes i was already saying mine you know what i mean yeah so this is also the first time in my
life i'm still in the mindset of like i gotta be back at work on monday yeah i have to be working
on monday but i'm not like you know it's it's a very unique feeling of being like wow when i get
back i'm gonna have to hit the ground running to figure it out but there's not necessarily
what why would a day or two make a difference you know in the grand scheme of that so yeah i should
should take my time arizona i want to spend like at least a handful of days in arizona
doing some riding that i'm familiar with maybe checking out some new stuff and while i'm ripping
across the plains of texas yeah i want to see some cool stuff yeah it'll get if you stay on the highway
so i'm telling you like texas has a lot of great stuff but you gotta get off the highway okay um
i mean think about it like in california there's a lot of cool shit out the highway
um but here it's like man like i you know the the catalac ranch is right off the highway it
doesn't feel that special when you walk up to this thing that is so easy to obtain an experience
at el monte uh rv rentals and you know yeah i'm with you because that's how i feel about new
mexico i know you and me had talked about it when you were saying man there's nothing new mexico but
then the first time you went through riadoso and you went through northern new mexico you were like
dude this is rad yeah i'm like yeah but you've it's not you don't know it if you don't get off the
interstate and actually explore and like you said going through carls bed in a riadoso and
cloudcroft dude it is way different than any new mexico experience yeah well give me some
waypoints tonight so i definitely do it what um i mean this podcast probably won't come out to the
end of this month so you already be home and yeah on this next chapter but like what what are some of
the things you're gonna try to do in phoenix or like uh arizona like riding wise um the uh i always
love going to tortilla flat my buddy dale owns that that town uh it's outside you know where uh
gold goldfield ghost town is outside of phoenix but the road towards globin all it or is it more
going up north uh great question uh geographically i'm pretty i don't know but a lot of people will
do that ride when they're in arizona bike week okay but i i came across it and met dale the owner
when i was with on a trip with the two lane guys and since then we've become friends blah blah blah
but it's just this incredible road like freshly paved something like 190 or 300 you know some very
high number of curves and turns and it passes by uh what lake is that that would give you the give
you the i should know this but i'm looking it up right now while you're talking yeah towards you
patchy junction yeah it's right near patchy junction i believe um and that it's it's very
picturesque and it's just a cool ride uh so i want to visit yeah if i run into dale great i got a
buddy uh from high school was a fellow film photographer and this is a really good dude and
you know uh you know chris chaney yeah i follow i don't we don't know yeah i was gonna hit him up
he's a real salt of the earth dude just a good guy same deal rides motorcycles loves photography
and overpriced cameras and uh ben christensen is out there if he if he's in town i would love to
see if he wants to go do something and just just go ride and uh get the experience of like i did
here what it would be like to live there and and immerse myself a little bit and man some of those
sunsets in in arizona yeah every state's got their own but those arizona suns i want to see a couple
of those and um i don't know you know i got some projects that i'll be uh making a little more
public when i get home and that's what i'm trying to i'm very eager because i have stuff to finish
before i publish that but i also want to enjoy the trip and i'm just trying to find that balance
of like i gotta stay present and have these experiences because i can knock that out when i
between here and home i really didn't plan and lose much um for better or for worse i got a buddy
that just picked up and built a new dina that wants to meet in like joshua tree on my way home you
know kind of right yeah right with you i hope that fucking cricket's not really that heavy on the uh
on the audio so if you guys are listening and yeah we uh acquired a new cricket in the shop
sure did it's crickets mic yeah like uh but what um fucking crickets just talking to me
they're like the hardest thing to find in a shop like mine they'll be like behind like a
piece of two by four and it's like echoes and you're everywhere yeah um damn it i had downstairs
like a just big-ass megaphone just amplifies it corp god damn it i had i had another question i
ask you um well fuck me playing on the way home places to go people to see projects to finish
oh are you uh we never really talk about it much while you were here but is there
is there any desire or any open-mindedness to move from california or is it like you're trying to
um i have always wanted the experience of living in another state and i think if i
like off the bat if i had a gun in my head they're like where would you move if you had
to move now i'd probably phoenix you know yeah just to just to live a little more of a different
paced life um not you know like cave creek or something like that or compared to california i
could afford a house and a place to be at i've never lived more than more than like 45 minutes
away from where i grew up but which is a blessing and a curse i love it out there and i'd be completely
content staying you know my brother's out there brother and his wife are out there my parents
are close by um amazing roads and ocean and opportunity and especially as someone in the
creative field uh as long as i play my cards right there's there's gonna get some work for me um
but i also am a bit of an old soul and have no need to party or be around people all the time
and i would like to have my own little slice of land somewhere um and that's what these experiences
are showing me like yeah i could have a life in some other state yeah um it's always hard because
i i'm i'm very fond of a lot of the northern states but i'm always riding through them
at an ideal part of the year and like i love wisconsin i love riding through it i love i love
the dels area everything by the mississippi um i like the architecture i like yeah so much stuff
out there but i'm also like there in in the spring or in the summertime or yeah i'm there for mama
tried so it's like oh i can do this snow for a week and then it's like it's not for six more months
you know for sure yeah i think it if the right opportunity knocked i'd go pretty much anywhere
um professionally that is uh like i would love i would love to be able to slice a little bit of
my life i wouldn't want to do it forever but if i could just get the experience of living in like
one of the like a soho or something in manhattan you know it'd be i would love to live in a super
urban environment where everything i need is within a block you know the pub i go to is right there
the pizza joint there's the bagel stand i work from home where i gotta go jump on the subway to
you know midtown or some shit to yeah like that experience is a unique life i could do that for
maybe six months but it doesn't sound enticing yeah but an experience a worthwhile experience
yeah um yeah i think there's a lot of getting out of my own way that that i need this trip is helping
with but uh yeah yeah i don't know man i i got a lot of a lot of things to figure out um that being
one of them but yeah i don't know why it's a trip and then you die yeah have a good time
so i mean there's just this whole years there's there's a lot of unknowns obviously this whole
trip is kind of like opening up a can of unknown right yeah so it's like i would i was gonna be like
so you know what are you gonna do what's some other you're gonna be a sturgeon but
but i i feel like that's all kind of like a thing that's on the table would you say like whatever
you don't know what's gonna happen yeah i don't know and that's the cool part i think i'll go yeah
whether i go you know my brother's never been and he just kind of wrapped up his uh his harley
and it would be a pretty good opportunity for me to just go to go instead of every time i've been
filming other people and you know i could just go and photograph and take it all in and yeah
i was so kind of like bummed when uh grainy days went up there and did a
sturgeon's trip and it's like he's i'm watching this video this dude i really want i've talked to him
a handful of times um but i'd like dude i would have loved to show you this place yeah and like
you know like like the way that i'm showing you dalas or something forward like it's like bro like
take him to the dungeon yeah for sure i think yeah black and white it's like let me tell you this
campground man you're gonna you're gonna open your eyes just you're gonna want to get rid of those
Hondas or where the fuck you're riding and get some harley's after this i'm pretty sure he's actually
out near me somewhere he's in pasadena i think when i talk to him yeah that's pretty close by
we talked about doing a podcast together a little bit and then um i was like i can't remember if i was
driving or riding to california and i was like hey man i was a little pushy and i think he's a
little bit of a sensitive soul kind of dude and i think i was like coming in hot and heavy
because he was kind of interested but like i don't know man yeah i'm like yo dude i'm in town
i'm i'm staying in venice i could be i can do i can do this on your couch or we can sit out
on the uh on the patio or some shit but like i'd love to talk to you yeah you know and uh i could
see that i don't know the guy personally but yeah i could see him being like now i'm just gonna go
hang out with my dog yeah yeah something there you go shoot yeah whatever um his work is incredible
man it's uh yeah it that's one of the few things i actually will sit down and watch yeah and it
inspired i don't know i don't maybe want to say inspired my work but it it showed me that there's
enough people out there that have a genuine interest in watching uh someone enjoy photography
yeah yeah showed me that i can implement still photography into my photos and that people will
enjoy learning about the process like when i did a video on developing film and scanning for the
first time i had dudes commenting that were like damn i did that in high school 40 years ago i didn't
know people even still shot film or yeah you know hey what what should my first camera be or what i
want to get into photography all all these little things that you're introducing to people and the
cool thing about putting out videos is that now that's a resource that's always there so when
someone it reaches out and don't get me wrong i love uh being helpful and answering questions but
when you're one guy and all these people have the same question it's very hard to keep up
that's the reason why people make a video to answer all those questions now i can send you a link you
know and when uh hey guys a lot of people been asking me yeah so if i give a little hint into
part of one of the projects i'm working on next time someone reaches out and asks me what a good
camera is going to be i will be able to supply them with that whether it be a film camera used
or a brand new camera you have the experience to be able to say if you made a youtube video about
starting a youtube like i would watch that for the the the sake of all the experience that you have
within it right so when you say i would use this camera over this camera or whatever like i would
be interested in that kind of stuff myself especially if i was if this was like back when
really the only person i could find was peter mckinnon doing this stuff you know what i mean
which was still very helpful but like you know he's in a different world and now that there's
so many content creators in the motorcycle space i think you know that the dude justin james you
know you met him uh he worked with blockhead quite a bit he has some really good content uh
his shit hasn't blown up yet but he's a he's i've hung out with him at a couple different uh
like indian press ride and he was at the blockhead uh cruisy deal down here he does a lot of like
instruct like short real instructional videos of like how to get engaging content yeah it's pretty
nice yeah to check that out it's cool yeah i mean like i said you have that you have that
you have that pedigree or that uh the accolades of it to be able to stand there on the table and say
this is what i would do yeah and it's and it's like if it is something i truly uh
know and i'm not just like bullshitting the video that's one of those things where i think people
connect would be able to connect with it if i just like went out and yapped on camera and talked about
you know the reason why i like this like i did a video on
point shoots or a point shoot that my buddy luke that i'm visiting in arizona he gave me this
point shoot for my birthday and it was like not only one of the best gifts ever but such a perfect
camera you know when i made a video about that i it was partially to show people like don't over
complicate things don't over complicate photography um and also if you want to get started this is a
great option you can probably find it for eighty ninety bucks yeah you don't have to go get that
contacts t2 for thirteen hundred dollars uh you don't have to get the like m6 for six grand without
a lens or you know whatever it may be and again it all it all comes back to introducing people to
things but yeah i i do plan on you know i think people have really enjoyed following along on the
experience of solo road trips whether it be because they don't necessarily have people to ride with
or it's just something that's out of their comfort zone they like seeing someone else do it um but i
do want to i don't want to say i'm more interested in cameras than i am motorcycles but i do have a
bit more technical knowledge and that is something i will plan to share because i can go in my own
backyard and and just take a little hot lap or malibu canyons or by the coast and or bring a
camera with me on a on a camping trip with friends or whatever and just talk about that camera yeah
and that's something that i can repeat that's something i i can enjoy um and that can be a
resource to someone looking to try something new yeah no i think it'll do well and i think it's
interesting it's awesome when i first saw you was the first video you did uh was it
the the Idaho trip was that the first one you kind of dropped on your channel or uh
i think i might have went out with my buddy rob and jant like with some stunt friends
okay and shot uh some black and white on a fully manual on the olympus om 10 i think that was before
that was that the one that like you recorded but then you shelved it for a long time oh no that
so that came that came i think after the Idaho trip yeah i think the Idaho trip's the one i watched
i was like oh buck yeah it's the one that popped up onto my yeah that was definitely what what
kicked me into gear and being like you know what i do have interest in committing to this yeah um
whether it's uh as a hobby or for fun or or as a part of my uh repertoire professionally or creatively
but that i do want to touch on that uh because i think it'll give people some inspiration that have
gone out and film something and never got around to the footage in 2023 no it must have been 22
because i still had there i filmed it when i had that road came i just i wanted to dabble and i
wanted to see what it would be like you know could i talk on camera by myself could i adequately
share my passion for photography um and and have that be a place where more photography can live
for people that are interested in seeing it like you know you make a post and then it's gone but
if you have a video and again you're talking about the story of each photo anyway i filmed it i went
to go edit it and was just like i don't think it's gonna turn out that i never even gave myself
the opportunity to fail not that you're gonna fail doing that but um because you're just you're
just making a video but i just kind of shelved it and at the time someone that i spent a lot of
time with was really encouraging me to start and do do what i had just done now go out on my own
yeah they were trying to tell me to do that years ago and i just i didn't it's not what i wanted at
the time i knew i still had a lot of learning i knew it just wasn't my interest um but anyway
i digress i i never did anything with it and then when i started my channel i remembered though i
was digging through my photos like looking for a store to share and a post to make and i found these
i think it was illford hp five which is forever one of my favorite black and white
film stocks and just this set of photos has always been so so special to me there's
the county line shore across from
Neptune's net that print was like one of the first prints i ever sold and
that one of the first prints i ever made for my parents and that bike was one of my favorite
bikes and i just it was a new experiment for me using like yellow fill anyway it was it was a
first for a lot of things and i saw those photos and got so fired up but i was like damn if i just
edit that it that was me years i don't even look the same and and i i know so much more now and
this and that but i just realized you know what this is an opportunity to inspire someone and
it's an opportunity to fulfill a promise that i let myself down on so i just like recorded something
in the beginning saying three years ago i made this fucking and then i just
put the video itself on the end of it and i loved it and and uh yeah i don't know what the question
it was good no it was like yeah that was like i said when that that popped off like i said this
it was the idaho trip that really hit and it's funny because like those gas station
style shots like you got in there yeah when we were coming back from california i got one of
those two at the new mexico one was dope i also took a show it was like that was it was that gas
station where we made the decision like all right are we gonna push for dwayne's house or we yeah yeah
we're going yeah it was uh yeah because we we left um like josey's hideout essentially yeah
because we were camping we were staying in one of the cabins above it and we went and did uh uh
what was uh a glamis yeah and then we were we were dodging storms all on the eight until we
got to the 10 and then we hit the 10 and it got cold yeah yeah and so we were trying to get all
the way to el paso because we had a a free our buddy went and bought a bunch of air mattresses
okay there's a weight on us and like we struggled to get to dimming right yeah i think that's where
we ended up landing which is just before lost cruises but it's like once you hit uh that stretch
a 10 between like lost cruises and the border to go into arizona like dimming's in the middle of it
kind of got so i'll probably pass yeah you'll definitely pass if i'm if i'm going to phoenix
via the southern route through Tucson i'm taking the 10 that'll put me through lost cruises
for his lost cruises up more towards the 40 no lost cruises on the 10 yeah basically as
soon as you go through el paso on the 10 as soon as you cross the new mexico you're going to be
right there in lost cruises they're just right across the border from each other gotcha okay well
i guess i'm going through that that point i was looking at routes and initially and i love route
66 and yeah that's all north williams and i love going through flag on even if it's high 40 just
such a nostalgic road for me after all the two lane days and and but you know a little colder
than what i dress for this trip um there's good routes on the on the southern half of new mexico
into uh arizona where me personally like when i did that trip again the one i was just referencing
to on the way out there um i i stayed in el paso at our buddy duane's house and then as soon as i
got into lost cruises and i was 10 uh west i got off the road and it kind of takes you up and into
globe and then brings you into phoenix on from the eastern side of things so you kind of in the
mountains you know have you ever ridden salt river canyon in arizona where is that i think it's
between globe and show low i know i know one end is show yeah it's it's a long windy like i did that
the first time in 2016 when i in 2016 i was in norcal still painting a lot of baggers and i
started like and i've said this on the podcast like a lot of the customers that we were painting
baggers for if they were building big will baggers but they all had dinas and fxrs yeah so the dude
would ride his fxr to the shop to see how the big wheels going yeah and so i got to ride like a s and
s 124 dina and i was like holy shit this is so badass i came home got a dina um and then i kind
customized it you know air quotes built it was just more like do a lot of parts on it i wrote it to
phoenix in november because at the time i was closer with like dixon flannel and all that stuff
and this is when they were really kind of like in the early warehouse with the skate ramp and
it was a much more of a homey built up kind of brand and it was new and it was ours and it was like
you know it was a bike party you got shut down like 15 minutes after it started but we still had
a blast in phoenix but on the way home i met one of my close friends from that and we rode that canyon
just kind of like half like just happened to land on it what was dope too is like when you go up to
show low or show how do you say that when you start heading back east like you pass that array thing
you ever seen that with all the huge uh like uh radio telescopic kind of uh it's almost like
they're sending signals into space kind of thing yeah it's been it's been about four years i can't
say i remember but it's pretty gnarly yeah i've seen it i've written through there a few times at night
and completely didn't even know it was there and then actually doc uh used to live here yeah was
telling me about and i was like fuck i've written past that like a bunch of times but it's always been
like dark or i'm like tonal vision trying to get home i'm not even paying attention with the other
road but when you when you go there and you see these and they're all like like tracks they move
these things around it's pretty it's pretty sick yeah i uh if i could at least ride a road like
that on my way home and just have that experience i would love that there's a i thought for a second
about going a little bit of long way and going through uh like monument valley or something oh
yeah and then this morning i saw a video of uh was it portrait poppy or something one of the film
guys i follow oh it's covered in snow but i uh actually i had a i was at university of
you dar a university reached out and they have a building right within monument valley
that just got built for a new educational center and they reached out to uh have some of my work
in their new building and so i really i it's still in the process of getting there but
when that happened i was like if it lined up i would have totally went out i don't even care
about the cold to go see these giant metal prints of you know that i've documented during
some times in monument valley i do want to take you know uh a re a redo of some trips that i've
done just for myself to experience myself i mean my monument valley has so much to see
and y'all got y'all got the real yeah we got the real deal yeah and then my my buddy don donmos
junior junior uh out there you know again that's just another another person that we've had the
pleasure of encountering that has offered a stay a meal and a ride and some knowledge
and that that's culture that many people don't get the opportunity to learn about
from the horse's mouth so yeah that was that was really cool i would love to go down to mexico
you know on a diner just some just basic bring all the shit you need fishing pole or whatever
and i'm trying to do it on the chopper yeah i mean my goal this year is to whether i build
or get help or buy some sort of chopper because the roads near me you know we were talking about
this at breakfast about yeah there's this scene and some people are just trying to conform but at
the same time like that those machines are truly special because they teach you to slow down just
like film does and be more intentional in that i've reached the point now that i don't care about
going a million miles an hour i don't care about being the fastest guy yeah well of course i want
to have fun in some canyons but yeah on the at least up until this point on the few opportunities
that i had to like really go out and enjoy my motorcycle near me like i can't tell you how many
times i wanted to just hop on a chopper with a little half shell and just go get down to the
beach at 40 miles an hour with no music leave my phone at home and just putt and enjoy still
through the curves and the twisties and everything but they feel good at all speeds yeah you know
and smell the gasoline and to me i've been thinking about it a lot on this trip riding the dyna
because it is kind of i don't want to say the best of both worlds but it's a very well-rounded
machine that provides that nostalgic feel the non necessity of just flying one because i
need a new motor mount yeah and two minutes five speed but anyway like it is giving me what i
eventually hope to experience on a chopper out of this trip yeah and when i get home like i'm
probably gonna sell my road glide you know i got a one car garage i got a dual sport in the kitchen
there are groms in the living room and shit you know there's not enough room i'm starting a new
chapter i've got projects to fund they will always there will be another new bike in my
future of course because that's a lifestyle that i love to live traveling on a bike but
anyway like the dyna is going to be my daily for a little bit and i'm going to go
cruise the canyons and bring my laptop and spend some time working on the beach and
i hope that one day there's a chopper in that mix too yeah you know i do want to go man we had like
josh brolin and brian bow and smith and some of those dudes on the show
and the way they talked about trips like you know you can go do 600 mile days on a bagger and
it's fun but when you're with a group of dudes that are all on old bikes and you're just
fucking around and and going like 150 miles maybe for the day and stopping and going swimming and
getting some food and just like breathing in the air like i would love to do a 395 trip
on a chopper obviously i would love mexico yeah you know brush up on my spanish a little bit but
god there's just so much to see i really want to i don't think i'm gonna be able to get the
bike up there this year just because of how long it's it would take to ride the shovel head to
san francisco yeah but initially that was like i want to go ride the hardest possible place
for a jockey shift no front brake oh yeah in the city and there's yeah it's great and it
i'm kind of bitching out a little bit because there's been little times like even where we went
to go eat when you first got here to dallas the other day i would get off the highway and it would
be this most bitch-ass incline you could ever think of like not even hard and i'm like struggling
like oh shit like i don't know what to do my feet i'm like i'm like almost like my foot's behind me
i'm trying to push it up from it you almost have to like just fuck the traffic go to the top and
then just park it sideways until it's time to go and then go back yeah it's it's so intentional
like everything and but it's again like i was saying when you first got to the house it's like
it's so fucking visceral yeah it it does nothing that that roguelaj does but it does something to
me that the roguelaj can't you know what i mean yeah and you can only focus on that one thing
yeah i'm actually gonna go up to the bay area not this not the weekend i get back but the weekend
after that and probably take the dina assuming it makes it back home yeah and uh go see the bay
area with my my buddy george who's also a fellow film photographer and in the bikes and you know i
i'm up there all the time and i i blast through the city too much i would love to like be able to
go to san francisco or anywhere like on the peninsula either side of the the bridge and just be there
for a couple of days to get slowed down and more intentional and go shoot places and i'm always
like staying in like livermore or somewhere inland and then i'm passing through that way on my way
north or south yeah you know what i mean it's gonna be a little bit of a burn i think like i'll
probably leave on a friday morning spend the night in his house friday night and then saturday
sunday monday we'll go out get to his house or whatever get back to his house sunday night
so his trip is done but then i can spend the night there and i'm like five six hours south but
we uh we had that conversation of like well do you want to spend more time in the city
for me no i want to spend an afternoon there i want to ride across the golden gate bridge
and i want to get two or three film shots other than that um i want to get the fuck out i want to
get i want to see those little small ghost towns and i want to see those curvy roads and i'll come
back and see the city uh with you on a foot clutch and we'll both struggle to survive yeah um but
it's just i didn't maybe i'm just being a financial dumbass right now but like these are two
trips that i just have wanted to do forever and prior due to my schedule i couldn't even commit
to going out for a three or four day trip to go visit friends just because uh i i take my
responsibilities seriously and things that i have to get done and it couldn't fit into the schedule so
um already you know these experiences have taught me so much and i'm like you know i look at someone
like danger dan who just is living god the man that he's alive he's present um he shows up with
energy um for so many people and he also travels like a motherfucker and i he's traveling right now
yeah i don't think that that first part is a coincidence because that second part you know
he he's allowing himself to live that life i don't know if you ever heard he did this series
of podcasts when he he wrote from here to like argentina like or like the which is like my dream
trip yes to do that he does he tells me a story about fucking being in this hotel or he tells
tells on the podcast about being in this hotel in columbia and basically the the columbian president
or some president for some countries and is sitting right there just one election he's got
hookers all kinds of like it's a crazy story and i'm like dan's the kind of guy that dan's the
closest thing to like forcegump i've ever seen yeah it's just like when you watch the movie
there's all these like historical events and there's just danger dan in the back of the way how
are you always here you you just you fit it but he's that guy you know truly in a way one of the
most interesting people i think that exists in motorcycles right now yeah and a good friend
and he helped me start my podcast and i'm always forever grateful for him for that he uh i need to
i've listened to one of his episodes but i need to listen more because obviously anyone with
experience like that knows how to navigate around a conversation but only because he said it publicly
on our podcast um i'll mention a little but he was telling us a story about like he was in Mexico
or something and there was a section of the road where you had to ride on a train track through
a tunnel and there was someone trying to like stop him from going through and he thought they were
just trying to be dicks or like whatever and they might have been experimenting and weren't uh anyway
they go through and then they get out or the other end and like very soon after a train comes by
and they're all just like oh you know what happened and just thinking about that
whether something bad happened or almost happened or whatever like that's that memory that you're
you're able to look back on my buddies that i was with in in houston showed me a video
of this dude that was down in mexico is they got his helmet camera footage back got speed
wobbles on a road king death wobbles at like a hundred miles an hour he fucking totaled the bike
and he walked away from it and then he proceeded to tell us this story on how the police that
showed up police uh whatever um you know with rifles in the back of trucks and they're like
you crash you need to pay us so they paid up and then okay everything is all good but we got to
get this bike out of here so they paid another officer truck whatever to come and get the bike
and then the mexican police helped them find someone in town they checked out multiple small
towns who would actually buy that bike from them because it wasn't getting home and then so they
found someone who'd buy a bike and then the dude who crashed was on the back of his like brother's
bike or something and they went they're like we got to get back to the states bro you just crashed
your bike going a hundred miles an hour you should probably get some medical attention and and just
figure it out and meanwhile this whole time they were trying to just find a cheap bike in san diego
and they did and they went across the border of san diego bought some piece of shit road king
went back to mexico to meet up with their boys for the trip and it was just i i couldn't even
i'm watching that video of this guy going down from his point of view and i'm like
to it was just i was already mind blown by that and then to hear the rest of the story i'm like
bro you're never you're going to be telling that story on your deathbed yeah that is going to be
some dad lore that that our generation can actually show our grandkids whereas like my grandpa might
have told me something i'm like it's been a long time you sure about that yeah but yeah it's the
memories you know and being fortunate enough to be able to know how to document it and stuff like
that having it online like i don't think i'll be doing this forever career wise but i know that
when i'm older as long as we're not like plugged into some microchip vegetable like i can go look
back at these experiences and show my kids and yeah and uh it's just so damn cool yeah i think
about that a lot and uh it would be cool if i could literally just log into an app right now and see
my grandfather's experiences growing up yeah you know what i mean like that that would be really
i mean we have their method with photography and stuff like that but just if like in the 50s they
had go pros and shit yeah i mean i i uh my dad it's your boy yeah it's well did you see dom uh
dom's kamal do that that video where they pulled out the ovhs stuff yeah his dad was like the og
motovlogger and they had these cameras that were like shoulder camcorder size and shooting out of
vans and like showing that chopper scene of the you know when shovel heads with new bikes essentially
but any craze like you back to that conversation about people like oh old bikes are better but it's
like all these dudes were riding new bikes back then yeah it's like it's like if they were all on
roguelads right now oh damn you got a 75 oh you know in 74 damn you know next model i but back
then everyone had the mindset of uh making things last and repairing them and everything's
replace replace replace and um i was just gonna say my my dad is uh was a major influence in
why i got into cameras and i remember growing up as a kid he he was always like taking pictures
and i i didn't have any interest in photography until um like a couple years into college um
but my dad was all he was always posing pictures and whatnot but anyway he uh has
coda chrome slide film he's got an entire bookcase bigger than this of film
photography from prints negatives um that color positive negative color positive slides
all that from like when him and my mom were my age and younger and i get to look take a glimpse
into his life you know no one's around forever um like there's pictures of my grandpa there's pictures
of him like ice climbing and rock climbing and camping and that that's my version of you know
when i'm when i'm older i don't even think we'll have phones but give my grandkids check this out
you know and that's almost even a cooler experience looking at these prints that are
yeah you know it's tactile tactile yeah yeah it's a good one man josh you're doing it you're
living the dream thank you sir you gotta keep keep reminding yourself of that yeah yeah i'm doing my
best and uh one foot in front of the other it's an interesting time i would like to think i'm
excited for whatever's ahead and i appreciate the opportunity to share some thoughts and uh
sleep in your house it's a good time man i'm glad you came through i'm glad you thought about us
you know coming up here i wanted to spend some time and uh you know make this a part of that journey
so uh i'm honored for that and i'm glad when i asked you hey we got a lot going on this weekend
you want to say here a couple days yeah are you just trying to turn and burn like i'm i'll
hang her down let's go let's go you know so just in time for a lightning storm tomorrow
exactly yeah i think you'll be all right yeah if anything is proven texas doesn't know what
the fuck it's doing with weather yep and i don't know what i'm doing in general so yeah so it all
it all lines up good yeah so just wrapping it up you know i'm riding places youtube channel um
the instagram page same thing yeah like uh i guess go follow it yeah and uh my new website that
i'm working on there will be blogs so a place for me to share photography and some storytelling
written form i've always enjoyed riding i'm still working on some licenses and uh dealer accounts to
sell cameras like i said i will have some apparel uh you know it's not it's more of a project than
like a brand and an endeavor if you will but that's going to be uh cr38co.com cr38co.com
and that's just kind of where all my stuff is going to live so i'm going to probably launch
that a week or two after i get home and you know people are does that stand for something uh create
co like it's just like a play on number i i was like overthinking all this stuff and then
i saw something it just like popped into my head one day and i wrote it down like instead of analysis
paralysis trying to come up with some cool name i'm like that's good enough and it's dude there's
a part of me that really wants to kind of like rebrand all my shit yeah but it's like that no i
like fast life it works but like there's something like it'd be so dope just to have a brand called
like muster or some shit it makes no sense yeah you know a cool t-shirt you got you know
i don't know like i'm into that kind of goofy stuff you know what i mean yeah for sure like
it's like it's not taking things so seriously but it's like this is still cool i had a thing
back in the day and i mustered wasn't like the thing it was just like the first thing popped
my head but like you know yeah no i get you i was i was gonna mention a name for something i had
planned on making way way like high school days but i can't remember if i still pay for the domain
so i'm not gonna tell you never mind but yeah so that'll be that'll be a way that'll be where a
lot of my stuff will live videos and photos and apparel and old film cameras and stuff like that
until i maybe decide to go work the oil rigs or something i don't know come make my way back to
Texas or yeah you know you might all have to go out to the old field or something like you
keep making all these damn landman shows making that shit look cool as hell that's the only reason
i'm going to midland no i think was that midland well they filmed it all in Fort Worth but yeah
no just as worried man it's supposed to take place yeah it's based out okay you can go to the
patch cafe it's in Fort Worth though good enough for me yeah i don't think it's actually anything
though it's just like a set gotcha they're they're they're building a whole like film studio set in
Fort Worth Fort Worth in the next 10 years is about to be a big fucking thing gotcha personally i mean
as soon as you get the other side of Fort Worth the train opens up gets really nice so
i'm gonna open just while you're telling me to shout stuff out i think i made an instagram for that
yeah it's cr38.co i haven't done a single thing with it but and then to me i'm like
this many instagrams i'm gonna be managing a brand's instagram for you know some contract work
i'm like how many instagrams do you need but if you want to follow it check it out yeah well cool
thank you josh uh thank you do some rest man we're both i think we're all burned out devins over here
fade up you know they don't see how many monsters i've been drinking it just it's 10 p.m it's past
my bedtime i've told myself i'll be getting out early every day of this trip and it hasn't happened
once so maybe tomorrow's the day maybe yeah all right thanks josh thank you man i hope you guys
enjoyed it i really really enjoyed spending the weekend with josh uh we did this podcast on the
back end of his stay here with me in dallas and um had a great time with him and we had so many
deep conversations and uh he's somebody that after spending a couple days with him i was very
inspired to get after it on my own and get back to uh you know trying to produce his youtube videos
vlogs whatever you want to call him so yeah being around creatives man it just kind of like
it kind of rubs off on you you end up getting the creative bug you end up being motivated
inspired and you know that's kind of where i'm at right now off of this uh the stay that we had
together so hopefully you guys are following him and saw his journey he's uh on the new ones already
i think he's about to drop a youtube video on this trip in like while he was in dallas so if
you want to go check out all that stuff there's links to his youtube in the description below
also guys thank you for listening to these podcasts i really appreciated um
if you guys are interested in the sponsors that we have letting them know that you got
their information from me helps me kind of maintain that relationship and keep these uh
these podcasts funded also if you guys want to check out our patreon and join our community
we really appreciate it it helps support this channel it helps support us and continue and
to grow and get new guests on here uh it's all appreciated i really really enjoyed doing this
stuff and i hope you guys enjoy the content that we get the conversations we have and um yeah i
guess we'll catch you on the next one all right peace
About this episode
Josh Seiden (I’m Riding Places) shares the story behind quitting his job, buying a motorcycle via Facebook Marketplace across the country, and riding it home—while using the trip as a mental reset. The conversation dives into how he builds high-quality photo/video storytelling, why editing makes him a better shooter, and whether “influencer” money is realistic without brand deals. They also debate balancing creativity with algorithms, the value of film and intention, and why hospitality and community make road trips unforgettable.
Original notes
I have known Josh since 2020, when he first stepped onto the scene to produce the 2 Lane Life channel! Josh and I have always had in-depth conversations about photography, videography, and the creative process. Now, after six years of grinding and honing his skills, he is stepping out on his own to focus on his endeavors. Hear all about it on this episode.
Josh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imridingplaces/
Josh YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@imridingplaces
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