The art of not filming your ride

The thought of missing this incredible "golden hour" footage sent me racing back down the mountain at a speed I probably wouldn't have otherwise taken had I not been attempting to capture this ride for my YouTube channel. I came to a stop at a place I thought would look "natural" to start out from (after my second hasty U turn), shut off the bike, swung my leg over the seat and ripped my keys out of the ignition before jamming them into the seat removal lock. I looked over my shoulder at the quickly setting sun, calculating how much time I would have before the day's shoot would be ruined. Sweat was beginning to form along the ridges of my eyebrows. My fingers shook as I switched on my mic, punched the ideal settings in, and rammed it into position under the seat. My heart was beating fast as I thumbed the ignition, clicked into first gear and began racing up the hill again.

The sun was perfect, the air was warm and smelled like pine needles, and the road was clear ahead of me. And I realized… I couldn't really enjoy any of it.

Scene one: Who is the ride for?

In the summer of 2016, I took a week off of work and rode from Seoul, in the north of South Korea, around the Korean peninsula to Busan in the south on my newly purchased 1998 Honda CB400SF VTEC. While the bike I had learned to ride on, a 2007 Hyosung RX125 SM, was fine for puttering around the city, my heart yearned for life beyond Seoul. Now, with 400 ccs of carbureted power on tap, I set out on the longest trip I had ever taken on two wheels.

I brought along my new (to me) GoPro Hero3 and my girlfriend's DSLR camera (not without some negotiating), intending to capture the trip by image and video, before finally uploading my adventures to the usual social media culprits: Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. During the spring of that year, I devoured video and image making content — learning what ISO worked in the best light, what shutter speeds I needed to use to capture the most realistic footage, and how to use various editing software to help make my videos and pictures pop. Admittedly, I originally just wanted to show off a bit — to show my friends back in Canada (or anyone really) what an amazing experience I was having in Korea. Surprisingly, though, I picked up a new hobby along the way and I was actually really enjoying it. Go figure.

The weather that summer was hot and humid, and the salty ocean air stuck to my skin nearly the entire trip. The roads were a motorcyclist's dream, smooth and winding beside the glistening sea, and in the back of my mind, I knew people would love to see this kind of riding. I rode through the heat, thinking of what a content goldmine my footage would be. I stopped constantly to take pictures and film different angles of my ride, extending my riding time beyond what I was beginning to be comfortable with. I just couldn’t stop filming. I couldn't stop thinking of how good it would all look. How much everyone would like my ride.

After a particularly long and hot day, back and wrists aching, I pulled into my stop for the night on Namhae island, just as the afternoon sun was settling into its warmest hue, and decided to take some "glamour shots" of my little 400 before taking an extended rest for the next few days.

That evening, I drank beer in front of the dark, shimmering ocean, poring over the pictures I had taken and reviewing the footage I had filmed of that day's ride. In the photographs, I had made (in my mind at least) my nearly 20-year-old beater bike look like it deserved a place on the cover of Motorcyclist magazine. The videos showed rice fields that billowed over the coastal hills like green icing over a cake, sparkling blue ocean vistas, and the pristine roads that carved amongst them. I was giddy, and proud, and satisfied with something that I had created, and while I was no stranger to the feeling of creating something new, the fact that it was now attached to motorcycling was a new and wonderful sensation.

What suddenly struck me, though, as I sat there in the sand, was that I didn't actually care if anybody saw these images or not. After all of the footage I had taken, and after all of the time and energy I had put into learning how to capture those moments in time, I felt desperate to hold on to these for myself. The day's ride, through bamboo groves and rice paddies, along the undulating sea-hugging twisties, and over and through the dramatic mountain passes; how could anyone really share these experiences with me just by looking at a few pictures, or by watching a video on YouTube? The feeling of clicking through the gears and twisting the throttle on the exit of a tight turn, the smell of warm salty air, the taste of the beer on this beach, right here, right now after a long days ride — these sensations would be impossible to capture in any other way than by being present while they were happening. And while I could enjoy these memories later through the images and videos I had created, I began to re-think why, and who I was actually doing any of this for — riding and capturing the footage — in the first place.

I thumbed through a few more pictures, then put my camera down, and just that there, silently looking out at the moon and the stars and the sea, the sound of water gently lapping over the sand sending me into a trance-like state. I had created these things in hopes of sharing them, and maybe even eventually becoming famous from them, but had found a greater satisfaction in the intrinsic pleasure of making something just for the sake of bringing a new idea into this world. Yes, this moment of recalling a wonderful day and being contented by something I had made, was nobody's but mine.

Scene two: A return to riding, an obsession with creating content

A few years later, in the spring of 2019, I got into an accident that took me away from motorcycling for the better part of three years. During that time, I began devouring motorcycle content, across all the platforms, in hopes of re-living a life that was now starting to turn into increasingly distant memories. I also started to pore over the shaky GoPro footage I had taken in the years leading up to my accident — the footage I never actually did end up sharing with anyone.

I couldn't get away from that need to feel the unique sense of freedom that only riding a motorcycle could give. My wife, while understandably reluctant at first, eventually gave me the green light to return to riding, and in the spring of 2022, I picked up a brand new (insert joke here) Suzuki SV650, and a little later on, a DJI Action 4 action camera, a few mounts, a Bluetooth mic, and a renewed desire to ride and share my experiences online. And just like that, I was able to pick up more or less right where I left off.

But something felt different.

As I was getting back into motorcycling, every ride began to feel like an exercise in tinkering with sound, or setting up different camera angles, or toying with storytelling. I became obsessed with how my rides would look to those viewing them on YouTube or Instagram. I began getting frustrated when I couldn't find the right settings on my Bluetooth mic, or my camera was pointed too downward, leaving an entire session "wasted." A normal 30-minute ride was turning into one- or two-hour slogs of riding the same road over and over, trying to find that perfect shot.

This wasn’t like it had been before at all. The thrill I had felt all those years ago, of creating something I thought was interesting and something I thought I could share with others, now just felt like work. Had viewing so much motorcycle content online over those dormant years warped my sense of what riding was? Or what it should be?

"Why am I not enjoying this?" I ask myself, charging up that mountain road, the hot afternoon sun frying what is left of my patience.

Despite near ideal conditions — a curvy mountain road, free of traffic, the bright afternoon sun lighting up the way ahead as if it were a stage set just for me — I couldn’t appreciate any of it. I was so focused on making the perfect video that I was totally detached from the present moment, removed from any enjoyment myself.

In my manic state, thundering up that mountain road, trying to chase down the golden goose, an image of that night in 2016, of me sitting calmly on a crescent of sandy beach, drinking a beer and savoring a moment of completeness, suddenly flashed through my mind. The moment, and its meaning, was jarring in its clarity. Had I spent so much time focusing on making something, almost solely with the approval of others in mind, that I forgot how to enjoy that very thing for myself? Was I falling into the same extrinsically linked gratification trap that I had all those years ago?

I pulled my bike over at the top of the hill, killed the ignition, and sat there, listening to the sound of the birds, and the other vehicles passing by. So much of my experience of motorcycling, from 2014 until the present, had gone hand in hand with how that very hobby and lifestyle, and my supposed place within it, was being portrayed online. Every motorcycle, hell every motorcycling experience, was right there in the palm of my hand, just waiting to be consumed. For some reason, I felt it was my obligation to add my voice to the maw by creating videos for YouTube. For others. But it all felt wrong, somehow. It felt like I was never even doing any of this for myself in the first place. That wrongness, it turned out, was distracting me from enjoying something that I did truly love — just riding.

I closed my eyes, took another deep breath, and opened them again, seeing and hearing my surroundings for the first time in a long time.

Scene three: Present in the moment

In front of me, a low, short, stone tunnel leads to the other side of the mountain. Beyond are red pine forests, fertile farm lands, and endless winding roads. Thunder clouds loom far off in the distance, but overhead, the skies are clear and blue and rich with warm late afternoon light. It smells like pine needles and earth and a hint of sweet green onion from the farms on either side of the mountain. I hear the wind rustling through the trees. A chipmunk looks at me, and I look at it back.

I take one more deep breath, savoring the moment. A moment that is mine; just mine, just like it had been back on that beach in 2016. A moment that doesn't need to be shared.

After a few minutes, I slip my helmet back on, start my bike, and slowly head back out onto the road. The bike rumbles underneath me as I accelerate through the tunnel, shift up into third gear, and blast into the green valley below. I feel, really feel, the bike, the wind, everything, and I smile, knowing that I am truly in this moment, on this sunny summer afternoon, doing the thing that I love for no one else but myself.