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There are two things we love at RevZilla.com: Motorcycles and the power of the internet. It had been a dream of ours to take our RevzillaTV Gear videos into the realm of high-end motorcycle films for some time. The major recurring issues which sometimes keep us from the "next level" are typically time and money. Many times great ideas get shelved for periods of time until the right mix of factors can bring them back to life.

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“The Commute” back-story….

This video started with a crazy idea in the Spring of 2010 that spawned from a casual conversation about our individual rides to RevZilla HQ each day. "How sick would it be to get to really play each day on your ride in?", one of our guys quipped. We all kind of reflected for a moment on how great that would be. The conversation lasted a few more minutes then fizzled. Everyone went back to their normal Tuesday activities that day, but the conversation kept coming up at random times over the following few weeks and we all eventually had put our own stake in the ground as to what the most fun "Daily Commute" for each of us would be. Little did we know our daydreams were about to get legs.

Now for those of you who are just finding us because you saw our “little movie” somewhere, we will let you in on something that our customers typically learn pretty quickly about us - we're slightly fanatical about what we do. We're nuts about motorcycles like we're nuts about the internet the same way we're all nuts about escaping the norm of what most of society thinks a person's weekday should be. It's probably the reason we all work in the motorcycle world in the first place  - and we are typically so obsessed with it.

We met Brent Buntyn (the owner of Ashland Mine Productions) on a ride in North Carolina a few years back by chance. Our paths crossed on a roadside pit-stop and gear-heads being gear-heads our conversations went from causal bike talk, to industry talk, to talks of RevZilla and his film production company working together at some point, all over a Gatorade and a refuel.

Fast forward close to May, and while the idea was still brewing somewhere in our heads, Brent was passing through Philly and popped in to say "hello." Little did we know that casual conversation would turn into, what looking back, we would consider the beginning of pre-production for "The Commute." We collectively wanted to work together and now an idea was rapidly being fleshed out from both sides. It seemed to touch a nerve for all of us and now we had an excuse to collaborate on something cool; it was staring us in the face.

When it came to the aggressive nature of what the idea was becoming, we thought it only fitting to beat the hell out of what we considered ADV staples in our line. (You can see everything we wore here) The REV'IT! Gore-Tex line was on the cusp of being released and we wanted them involved. The pipedream was some custom gear like they were doing for the Marley Boys for their upcoming trans-Africa Trip. After some prodding (and whining) to the Dutch home office, REV'IT! agreed and in June they built us a few pre-production Defender GTX Jacket and Defender GTX pant samples…. Along with Ziggy, Robbie and Rohan Marley.

Brent also decided to call in Todd Bell, who was flown out from Los Angeles to lend his expertise to the project. Todd has had vast previous experience on other moto film projects and was excited to be involved.

The table was now set. We just needed the gear to show up on time and to make sure everyone got to North Carolina without incident.

We shot down to Charlotte in mid-July and spent a sweltering two days in the woods getting dirty, lugging gear, pulling ticks off of ourselves and riding of course - trying to get the shots we needed for what ended up being some back breaking work. Todd was behind the RED camera, Brent was on the bike (his KLR) as we worked behind the scenes on multiple levels. It had rained the few days before and the humidity was ungodly in 95+ degree heat. We were force feeding ourselves bananas just to try to keep from getting light-headed.

After a few days of shooting we had all of the footage in "the can" and it was off to a month of editing and post production. In film time that's nothing, but to all of us it seemed like an eternity. We were as excited to share "The Commute" as we were to go out and film it.

If you notice in the video Anthony is standing there with the stop sign. He doesn't work for the waste management team on the weekends. We promise. We actually paid that crew of city workers $20 to take an early lunch and leave us their truck. We then quickly tried to get our shots before the local police caught wind of us and came to inspect our... ahem... permits.

“The Commute” is what we thought a day of riding to work could be if that particular day was surprisingly awesome. Epic riding. Short, sweet and burly with a dash of the unknown. A gift from the moto-gods. Just what your day needs before you hit the very “known” universe which is the typical weekday at work for most people, right?

We say "god bless" if there is anyone out there that lives that ride daily. We're jealous. But for the rest of us, we can only hope for a sprinkling of adventure here and there to keep us going. We think we captured the spirit of our wishful commute. Just like so many of our customers, we’re always ready for it – because every day could be our next adventure.

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