Just wanted to mention two quick things that keep escaping me when I sit down to update. First off, I made a change to the "video & still" link in the menu to the left. Before it was a drop down that I had to go in and manual add/remove items from, now "video" is one link to Pedal's Blip.tv show-page, and the "& still" links back to my flickr collection of Pedal related pictures. These two sites (Blip & Flickr) are much better at social networking and connecting that I am - I think it's better to externalize those aspects of the this site.

Next is Pedal's Twitter log - on the main page of Project Pedal, before you get to the blog, there is a small'ish gray box with a short update in it.


That update is a "Twitter", what is Twitter? It's a great site that you can use to share "what you are doing" with your friends/family/strangers. For example, on June 25th, I wrote: Listening to 'Don't Stop Believing' at the park in Wolf Point, Mt. It's raining - the sky is pink/purple. Very hungry :)

You can receive updates through your IM, your cell phone, or just through the website (it's up to you how you are updated). Okay, back on the road for now.

tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, flickr, blip.tv, twitter

Labels: Blip.tv, Flickr, Production, Twitter

"Command Center" is the new nickname given to the van by Larry. It's quickly becoming the "Command Center / Weather Tracker 3000 Plus" (or something close to that) because we have a 12ft crane bolted to the top of the roof-rack, and it's making all the locals do a double take as they drive by. I've been asked if I was doing amature radio.

My computer says it's 10:31pm, but I just realized it's after midnight here in Parshall, North Dakota. Which leaves me just enough time to microwave a cup of easymac and down a Dr. Pepper, post two rough interviews from earlier in the week, and finally: sleep.


This first clip is of Phil and Liz, who were the first people we've met riding east to west (aka: into the raging wind). The sound on the FX1 is just the shotgun, the wide had the boom, so this is pretty much un-listenable. But it looks nice. Every once in a while, when the wind calms, you can hear what they are they are saying. When I have more time, after we are back from the road, I'll be able to sync up the close and the wide for a second round of post.


This clip is of Hans and Elly, who, let me just say, I love. We've been on the road for 25-some days now, and we've met a lot of great people who are very cool, and fun to talk to. But it's been hard finding the "voices" I had in mind for Pedal. Perhaps many of the people we've talked to so far are too early on in their rides to really dig deep into their experience. Hans and Elly are on their 2nd bicycle trip - their first was 30 years, when they spent 9 months traveling by bicycle from Holland to New Zeland. Their stories are amazing - I can't wait to hear more. They really understand that trips like these are 99% mental. Amazing people.

Goodnight for now, world. Just for the record, I'm sporting a "Morgan Spurlock" at the moment - total 'fu manchu'.

Labels: Blip.tv, Hans and Elly, Interview, North Dakota, Phil and Liz, Production

This will have to be somewhat short today, we all slept in today because none of us fell asleep till 4 in the morning due to a massive thunder storm. The wind kept pushing the tent down on our heads - I was hit in the face by the tent-poles several times. It was craziness.

We're in "the bread-basket of America", as Larry would say, and things are going good. I have a few interviews imported that I just need trim and export, hopefully they will make up for the lack of interview-footage I've posted so far.

In the meantime, here's a bunch of Mp4 clips that I thought I'd share with the rest of the class.


Here's a quick clip of Olivier taking Liz & Phil's picture, with the 16mm camera, just a few miles outside of Cut Bank.


This is one of my favorite clips, I've watched it at least 5 times so far. It's Larry making up a song about being "clean for an hour".


I don't even know what to say about this one :) except that it makes me laugh. It's about a minute of the crew all brushing their teeth in the bathroom. Yes, that's it.


I think this will forever cheer me up no matter how down I am - nothing better than a truck full of rabid little dogs.


Jef & Olan surround me while I'm on the phone with Mike Hedge and then Amanda after she beeps in.


Here's me with the crew in Glacier Park, at 6 in the morning, waiting for the fog to clear so we could get our sunrise shot. It never did clear - at least not in time for the sunrise.


Jef took this while driving in the van to who-knows-where - I just like the 360 perspective of our routine.

By the way, if you haven't already watched the Clip Show's 50th Episode, which talks about Project Pedal, then you should go here - it's a really great post. And plus: Josh broke his arm filming it.

tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, funding

Labels: Production

The last post, which ended up not going through via crappy EVDO connection, was a bit scrambled and "ehh". So, I think it's time for a "proper" post.

[Update: I just found out it did get through before I lost single. But it was still is a crapy post, and I already wrote this one... so some things get covered twice.]

I'm sorry for the lack of updates, but we've been jetting from mountain range to mountain rage, and have had little connection. Not sure if that's Sprint's fault, or if it would be just as bad with a Verizon network.

I'm in the van right now, listening to "Learning to Fly" off the iPod, we're heading back from Glacier Park towards Whitefish. "Why?" you ask: well, for a few unexpected reasons.

A) first off, we backed up the rental van into a good sized rock, and it almost took the bumper clean off the back. Which sucked. This on top of a shitty night's sleep in tents that didn't quite hold up in the downpour from hell. Okay, it wasn't quite *that* bad, but it was bad enough to wake up every hour with a new part of the bag being wet.

Seeing as there is no phone or cell connection at the base of the glaciers, we are heading back into town to take care of the whole insurance/rental situation. Fingers crossed that it works out okay.

B) I broke my bike frame... that's a different story for a different time, but it's extremely un-rideable. And the last bike shop for a while is back in Whitefish, there was a used bike shop near the school.

C) I feel a bit awkward about this "aspect" of the project, awkward in the sense that I don't like to talk about money. On one hand, I don't want to sound like a sympathy-case... and on the other, I don't want to pretend or hide the financial difficulties that exist in a low-budget project like Pedal. Or every low budget project for that matter.

But we are about 8 days away from being rock-bottom broke. Which can be a slight distraction when trying to stay focused on the task at hand. But, fear not, there is someone who has said they can fund the remainder of the trip. Yes, we are cutting it close... uncomfortably close, but we don't have much choice.

Some of you might be curious as to how someone can go from winning $25,000 to broke in three months time. Especially considering the budget on the site is only $9,000. Well, almost a full $10,000 of the 25k went to personal debts and expenses that needed to be taken care of. Then there is equipment that I never put into the budget because I was just not expecting to be able to make a film with anything but the dinky camera I already had. And to be honest, with only 9k, I'd probably be stuck without a crew.

But winning the Network2.tv video contest allowed me to make the project I really wanted to make, not the one I could just get by making. So, I was encouraged to buy a camera that matched the one 'The Black Sheep' were bringing, a Z1U. There's 5 grand. I purchased a cheap 12 foot crane, that was about $900. I bought a glidecam system, which was around $1,800. Four long-life batteries for filming long hours on the road. Camping gear. UV Filters. XLR cables. Headphones. $1,000 in microphones, $600 wind-jammer. $760 in miniDV tapes (60 hours). Shipping fees. I had to take a month off from work in order to squeeze all the last minute planning in, there's 3 months rent. 3 months utilities. A laptop for editing on the road. 3 round trip tickets from Belgium to LA. $2,500 to rent a van for two months. Wide angle lens for $350. My own personal plane ticket and rental car cost for visiting Larry & Jay before the trip. Food. More food. Gas... almost four times the amount originally budgeted because the van is overloaded and gets poor mpg, plus we have to drive back to LA when done. And, of course, there's always "et cetera". Now add in all the problems and extra money here and there. I won't even go into that.

Not to mention the thousands and thousands of dollars in equipment that the crew brought along. 16mm film stock. A fluid-head tripod. An army of SLR lens and filters. A 35 kit. You name it - that came loaded.

All in all, I'd say the budget it pushing the $200,000 area. So that's the dark side of the low budget project... it's fun stuff to tackle with no financial backing (sarcasm). Not to mention the fear of putting all this time, energy and money into something that, now that you've started, might not make see to the end. It's enough to make a person sick.

I have to finish this project. It's started - and there is no turning back. I don't know how - but there's no turning back now.


Whew. Okay, that felt good to get off my chest. And please, don't feel like I'm pressuring you for a handout. Like I said, someone has said they'd help us finish the project. It's just a part of the project that I've been meaning/wanting to share for a while. It never feels like the "right" time, so what the hell, right?


It's now 11:20 at night, Amanda has called the insurance people and they were great about it. We'll even be able to still get up at 5, like planned, and head back into Glacier to get a shot of the mountains against Lake McDonald.

Afterward we plan to follow Larry to the peak of Logan's Pass, it's closed after the top because a huge section of the 'Going to the Sun Road' was washed away by glacier run off (yay, global warming). But Larry, being the monster that he is, wants to go to the top and then turn around just to "get it under his belt". Love that guy.

We also ran into Galan, who reminds me a lot of Lyon. We ate breakfast this morning at the restaurant in Apgar and talked for 3 hours. Sadly, none of it was one tape, but he's great, we'll talk to him tomorrow before he heads too far north.

Other than all that - we plan on spending the next few days around the Glacier area, there's so much great stuff to get, and it's basically biker-central for all the cyclist. We're wanting to head back down the road and talk to 3 women we met a few days ago, I think they have a great perspective on their trip - it's rare to run into a women only group. And it shouldn't be.

Also, before I forget, I didn't have much time to go through footage while we were in Eureka, but I did dump a few random clips of Larry riding his bike (not the smoothest of shots we've taken, but I still like the look on Larry's face climbing up that hill).


And a very pretty long shot we took of a broken down house/cabin/pile-of-wood, there's cars and junk in the frame that, if I used it later, I'd snip out. But you get the idea.


We'd love to hear from you - see you on the other side (of Glacier Park).

tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, funding

Labels: Black Sheep, Blip.tv, Budget, Larry, Production

[Written on the 14th] Day 13 of filming. We crossed over from Idaho to Montana yesterday evening, the change was almost immediate: it's definitely big sky country. very beautiful here - we spent a lot of time at Kootenai Falls & the "Swinging Bridge".

Shooting is going good - we have more landscapes then we do conversations with people, but we're working to fix that, and find the right balance of time spent filming Larry's interactions and also just filming some of our own. In some cases we roll first and ask permission later, in other cases we approach a person and ask if it's okay to film them... and before they agree/disagree they say a bunch of great stuff we don't get on camera.


Larry is doing amazing - it's unbelievable how much road he covers in such a short amount of time. Yesterday we found him on Hwy 2, after Troy, he stopped a bit and talked to us about how good of a day he was having, and then he quickly took off. Not more than five minutes passed while we dug out the steadicam and set up a shot from the side of the car, and we drove for what seemed like forever before we caught up to him again.

[Written on the 16th] Larry took the day off in Libby yesterday to relax and do some fishing. I figured the crew was in desperate need of a brake also, so we did absolutely nothing all day. I have to admit - it was nice.

Amanda, myself and the crew went out to dinner at one of the only places still open past 6pm, besides all the dark and depressing casinos... 'The Antlers' restaurant. Just before our orders came out from the kitchen a guy walked up holding a folded newspaper and asked if we were from around here...

Long story short - we were up till 3 in the morning, hanging around the campfire with Brett, playing guitar, drinking beers, and talking about anything. And even though he was a vocal-creationist :) he was a really, really nice guy - very good singer/guitar-player... it's too bad Larry wasn't with us.


I know this post is all over the place - but I'm trying to go over the last few days, while thinking about the next few ahead of us. And I'm sorry I haven't been updating more often, the EVDO card we bought before leaving isn't exactly working too often in the mountains here. Which is a bit annoying, but we're hoping it picks up.

We killed the bicycle we brought with us for filming - backed it up into a tree and bend the frame 30-some degrees. The pedal is stuck in the rear spokes, more money we have to spent that wasn't budgeted out.


Speaking of the budget - I suppose this site wouldn't be a very "personal and behind the scenes look" if I wasn't honest about our financial situation. I always feel awkward about bringing it up, because I want to avoid sounding like a sympathy-case, but we are about 10 days away from being completely broke... with only a $300 credit card to get us back to LA, actually, scratch that, half of that is gone right now.

But fear not (fingers crossed), we have someone who is possibly going to see the project through with some funding. Yes, we are cutting it close, and yes, it's a bit stressful, but I'm sure if we just stay focused on the project that things will work out.

I have more footage to share, but, sadly, Whitefish has a very poor internet connection and I'm having a hell of time just checking my email - I don't think uploading entire movie files is going to happen. Maybe on the other side of Glacier Park. Till then.

tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, funding

Labels: Brett, Larry, Montana, Production

It's 11:50 at night right now, I'm curled up in my tent, 3 miles outside of Republic, Washington. I'm pretty heavy-eyed at the moment, so this might be a somewhat short post.

I'm very excited to post the 1st sneak-peak raw interview of the trip. I met Jack Denson in Rockport and knew right away he was "one of those people" I'd love to talk with at several points during our way east (if he's willing, of course). He's got just a great personality, and he's very relaxed on camera.

We lost him for a day after Marblemount, but drove past the bike shop in Winthrop and spotted him talking outside. Turned out he was spending the day at the KOA down the street and was happy to talk to us.

One thing to keep in mind is we didn't have the "nice microphone" on the camera with the HDV35 kit, we ran the XLR into the wide, so this is a shot-gun mic mounted to the front of the FX1. We have the nice-nice sound on the other tape, which, if I had the time, I could have synced up the two. But I'm on the run, so that will have to wait.


I think the interview went great - I can't wait to talk with Jack more, further down the road. Take a moment to check out his 'Crazy Guy on a Bike' page, also he's helping to raise awareness for Wounded Warriors, so take a moment to support them in any way you can.

I would love to hear your thoughts or questions! Goodnight.

tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, funding, wounded warriors, hdv35

Labels: Blip.tv, HDV35, Interview, Jack Denson, Production

No EVDO connection. No cell phone single. We've set up camp where the Skagit River runs into the Cascade River, surrounded on all sides by mountains ranging from 4,000 to 8,900 feet in elevation. It's very beautiful. People in town (Marblemount) say that we are "in for a treat" tomorrow - I'm looking forward to it.

But I'm getting ahead of myself - I mentioned in my last post I was excited about uploading the first few "official" shots (I say "official" because we've been capturing tons with the two mp4 cameras and our Nokia), yesterday we stopped at a laundry mat in Concrete where I managed to import a few minutes here and there, and export them straight to quicktime-movies.

This 1st clip is one of the many takes we captured with the sun setting behind the camp-site. It was very cloudy and grey all day but around 8:30 the sun came down under the clouds enough to just light everything up.


I'm so happy with this 2nd clip - we had set up in the morning to get their "taking off" moment, and on the 35 kit (HDV35), the guys had their zoom-lens (200). But Amanda had packed her SLR camera and one of the lens she has for it is a very long lens (a 300), we swapped it out and it looks just amazing.


Unbelievably sharp depth of field. We stopped by a field yesterday to shoot some tall grass with the mountains in the background - and I couldn't believe how many "layers" of field we could shift through.

The great news is it's turned out to be much, much easier to film on-the-fly with the 35 kit mounted to the FX1. At first we were planning to only break it out for interviews. But Olivier is finding it very simple to focus and move at the same time - which I love, it's just one more "look" we can play with for the film.

I also can't believe how much I'm loving the mp4 and Nokia footage, it gives a less "cinematic / grandiose" feel to the shot and makes it more personal. I've uploading some of it here, here and here... and one more here. We've been slowly and carefully breaking out our 16mm, we only have 30 minutes of stock for the entire two months (if anyone has any 100 foot daylight spools they'd like to donate, please let me know, we could use it).


But... *deep breath* I do have some bad news. It was news that, I could tell, was very hard for Jay to come talk to us about. Amanda was curled up in her tent, and the four of us guys were at the picnic table looking at rushes and talking about whatever, when Jay let us know the situation with his knee. I've never actually talked about it here on the site, so this will require a quick catch-up: Jay is a snowboarder, actually a very good one.

In the 2005 he took the bronze in the world championship. Yea, I know, he's good. But he's had knee trouble for years, gone through 5 major surgeries, and at the moment is actually completely missing his ACL.

Both Larry & Jay have been training, in the mountains, a great deal - so it's hard to say if it's the added weight to the bike that caused the problem, or if it just finally caught up with him. But only 10 miles into the ride this morning and his knee almost brought him to tears, and Jay's a tough enough guy to know that's a problem... especially on a flat day like they had this morning. So, Jay is going to stay behind - Larry is pressing on... alone. He's, understandably, a bit terrified about the following 4,200 miles - but he's also a bit excited about the solitude. It changes things for us, not in a bad way, but we'll adapt with it.

As a crew we are still trying to find the best balance for what we are doing - I know it will take some time in this kind of on-the-move environment. For example, Jeff and I had a hell of time today with a simple crane shot - not too sure if any of that footage actually worked out.

But I am very sad to see Jay go - I know he was very excited and ready for this ride, I know he's sad to watch Larry ride on without him. But I understand and encourage him not to push himself to the point of ruining his snowboarding career, or even just simply ruining his knee.

It's going to be a hard good bye tomorrow morning. Well, it's after midnight, I need to get some sleep. Goodnight for now.

(PS) I found out that a lot of the videos I uploaded with Transmit on the road didn't get transfered correctly and have been bouncing out bad files through the feed, sorry for this, I'll only try to upload from now on with a more reliable connection.

tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, funding

Labels: Blip.tv, Camp, Day 6, HDV35, Jay, Larry, Mp4, Production

We pulled into camp last night around 1 in the morning - overall, I think we drove a total of 14 hours from Leggett to Anacortes. We watched the sun set as Jeff played us songs in French.


Amanda and I woke up around 8 to head back to Seattle to pick up Larry and Jay from the airport. We expected it to take us around an hour and twenty minutes to head back into town - it took over two and a half hours, the whole time the crew is waiting here at camp with no way of knowing what is taking us so long.


There's plenty more to share - but that will have to do for now. It's midnight and everyone is planning to get up around 5 to head out. We shot our first "official" shots for Pedal today - I can't wait to upload them to the blog. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

Also, don't forget to wish my Mom a happy birthday (on the 6th)!

tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, funding

Labels: Anacortes, Blip.tv, Day 4, Production

We're heading north on the 101 - 30 miles south of Crescent City. It's half raining, half misting in the mountains. We are way behind schedule, which, sadly, is all my fault; I wanted to take "the scenic route" along Hwy 1 and it was so back-and-forth and up-and-down that it made us terribly car sick. It took us two hours to get back to the 101.


We were supposed to be able to meet up with Mike Hedge in Seattle as he takes off on his Live Earth tour - instead we are trying to pin point where we'll cross paths at an Amtrak station. Which is difficult to do without a connection for my cell-phone or EV-DO card.

I'm nervous though about our being behind - we need to be in Anacortes with enough time to set up a decent camp-site for the crew, Amanda and I have to wake up early tomorrow morning and head 80 miles east into Seattle to pick up Larry & Jay from the airport, and then bring them back.

On top of this it looks like it's going to be raining for the next few days... everywhere.

tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, funding

Labels: Day 3, Production

I'm writing this while driving through the beautiful mountains north of Los Alamos... thanks to our awesome new EV-DO card we bought for the trip. With Adrianna Krikl playing off the ipod it's *almost* very relaxing - if it weren't for a few straps between the roof and the rack vibrating wildly in the wind, creating what some might describe as the world's most annoying sound.


But I'm glad I finally have a moment to slow down and write a post - the last two days have been go-go-go, and on almost no sleep to add icing to the "cake".

I'm so excited about being featured on Have Money Will Vlog - it's been something I've been waiting a long time to announce, and the timing couldn't be more perfect. Jan and Ryanne recored a Skype conversation they had about Pedal's interesting history with HMWV, how things have evolved since I started working with Ryanne and then later with Jan.

In the video they mention how Jan gave me the kick in the butt to ask Nokia (WOM) about sponsoring us with a video-phone, something I wasn't considering before for a number of reasons. A: Didn't think they would give me one. B: Didn't think I would use it. But, long story short, I asked, they gave the project a phone, and I can't wait to take full advantage of it. Thanks Jan!

It's a great addition to the mix of media we are packing: 16mm, HDV, HDV with a 45 adapter ("HDV35"), mp4 cameras, Polariod, a wide range of SLR cameras and lenses we plan to do specific time-lapse shots with... I'm very excited about having so many different "looks" to choose from.

But I have to run for now, we just parked at OSH to buy something to muffle the vibration.

tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, funding

Labels: Adrianna Krikl, Day 1, HMWV, Jan, Production, Ryanne