My days with the long haired freaky people are over for now. To be honest having long hair is a major pain in the ass. Tangles after long rides, mouth fulls of my own hair when trying to eat. Definitely a few things I won’t miss.
Both my wife and I went in together and had a lot of our hair cut off to donate to Locks of Love here in Panama. I had always planned that once it was long enough to do somebody some good I’d cut it off. Because the hair needs to be in a pony tail that took longer than I had thought. It was cool being a hippie, but it’s nice to have short hair again.
http://bit.ly/waKPPE
A few weeks ago I rode my motorcycle to the top of Volcan Baru the tallest peak in Panama. I took a serious beating on the ride, and got some great video out of it. I wanted to do a ride from sea level to the top of Panama, so I started at the beach and filmed my ride to the top. It was exhausting, and horrible, and everything an adventure should be.
For this series of videos I wanted to do something special, something different so I have created an iPad book. The book has a bunch of photos, and 7 different videos with a combined length of over 70 minutes. Since it’s a book I was able to fill in the gaps between the videos and give more detail about what’s happening and what I was feeling. I’m really happy with they way it turned out. I’ve been asked a lot about DVD’s of my videos, or a book about my adventures. Well this is both. You get to read about the trip, see the photos, and watch the videos all in one place. Once it’s downloaded you don’t need to wait for video to buffer before watching them it’s all there you just hit play and it goes. Really if you have ever wanted to come along on one of my rides this is the closest you will get without flying to Panama and renting a bike.
I keep calling it a book because I don’t know another name for it. It’s more like a mini adventure and you get to come along for the ride. I’m very excited about it, it looks great on the iPad.
http://bit.ly/waKPPE
For the Volcan Baru Adventure I wanted to do something special, so I turned the adventure into an interactive book. I’m pretty excited about how it turned out, and I think you will really enjoy it.
The book is has a lot of pictures, and video. Over 70 minutes of video that won’t be seen on youtube is embed in the book. Read a little, look at some photos, read a little, watch a video. With the magic of the iPad the book is very cool.
Why are your videos so short?
I’ve been asked a few times why my videos are so short. I always kept them short because I feel people on YouTube are there for quick doses of entertainment, not feature length films. But because so many of you had requested longer episodes I created one that is 25 minutes long. It wasn’t that big of a deal, and really didn’t take that much longer to edit than my normal 3-5 minute videos. It was nice not having to cut anything out.
The problem came when I tried to upload it. The status bar appeared and estimated the upload would be finished in 1000 minutes. Okay so I just chill for 16 hours while YouTube hogs 100% of my upload bandwidth. I started the upload at night, went for a ride the next morning and when I returned my computer was off. There had been a power outage, and the battery in my HP Envy went bad long ago. When I rebooted I found that the file had made it to 96% complete before the power went off.
Thankfully YouTube has resumable uploads for problems like mine. I tired to start the upload again, but nothing was happening. When the last 4% of the file hadn’t finished after 4 hours of hoping I gave up and deleted the video from my list.
Once again starting the upload before I went to bed. Fast forward 1000 minutes later the upload completes. I click on the URL to make sure everything worked and I’m greeted with the message, “The user has deleted this video.”
Which means I get to start all over again. It took 4 tires at 1000 minutes each before I actually got the video successfully upload. I’m still waiting for it to finish processing before I make it public, but this will likely be the last time I post a HD video that’s longer than 10 minutes. Until Panama runs a fiber optic line to my house, and holding my breath for that would be suicide.
Skeefoo is one of my biggest fans. So much so he turned his helmet into a halfthrottle advertisement. www.halfthrottle.com isn’t actually my website. It was already taken when I was picking a name and they sell decals and stickers. Mine is www.half-throttle.com, but hopefully people will figure that out and find the right one.
I decided to start a 2nd youtube channel for some of the random stuff I film that has nothing to do with motorcycles. I want to keep halfthrottle on the subject of motorcycles, and altthrottle open for anything I happen to film and still want to share with the world. There are a few videos there already so go have a look if you want.
http://www.youtube.com/user/AltThrottle
Ryan Grassley has been documenting his trail riding in Panama for a while now. With over 100 videos presently on his channel (halfthrottle), he has been able to document some awesome adventures.
In this video we interview him about some of his experiences and learn about his future plans. Check out http://www.youtube.com/user/halfthrottle.
What’s the craziest trail you have ridden?
My main camera is the Canon Vixia HFS100. I bought the camera in 2009 and have used it like crazy since then. I love how small it is, but the video it captures looks like it’s from a much bigger camera. Many people are surprised after watching my videos when they finally see how small my camera is.
http://amzn.to/ph3xhP It looks like the HFS100 is still for sale, but there is a newer version out that has replaced it. The Vixia HFS30 http://amzn.to/ns1aA3 You will have to read up on them because I have no idea what the differences are.
The shotgun microphone I use is made by Canon and will only work with Canon’s “mini-shoe” Sometimes I think I should have bought a Rode’s shotgun mic so I could use it with other cameras, but I was really impressed with how well the mic does. I’m often asked if I’m hiding a lapel mic somewhere under my shirt to pick up such great audio. http://amzn.to/oxhiYN
The helmet cameras I use are the Drift Stealth (http://amzn.to/qShDLd) and the Drift HD. It looks like the Drift HD hasn’t made it’s way onto Amazon.com yet, but if you check out www.mypov360.com they should have them. And if you decide to pick one up be sure to use the coupon code. “halfthrottle” It should get you $30 off your fancy new camera.
The wide angle lens adapter was actually $17.99 rather than 12 like I say in the video. http://amzn.to/qCpe2s
My tripod is made by Manfrotto and is a small enough size to fit nicely in my panniers. Tripod: http://t.co/5uu3q75 Quick connect: http://t.co/bCdVxr4 if you want to see a full review about that tripod check here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYdsazUp2y0
The Zoom H4n I use to record the narration for my videos is a game changing device. It’s an amazing microphone and can do so much more than what I use it for. Check out the video on their amazon page http://amzn.to/pnzhEL
The camera bag I’m pulling everything out is made by Domke. I’ve had the bag since 2006 and it’s been everywhere from Iraq to Europe and every country in Central America multiple times. It’s still going strong. Domke makes a lot of different bags and they are all amazing quality. http://amzn.to/qhwEAX
Thanks to youtube user TractorKingc for his tweet that finally gave me the motivation to make this video. http://www.youtube.com/user/tractorkingc
HalfThrottle turns 200!
This is my 200th YouTube video. I have over 8 hours of content on youtube, I wish there was a way to calculate how many miles I’ve traveled, and hours I spent filming and editing to get to this point.
Thanks everyone for watching, laughing, and cheering me on. I can’t wait to get out there and make 200 more.
So this is my YouTube channel. I live in Panama, go on adventures, and film stuff. I ride a KLR650 and sometimes take it to some really amazing/crazy/hard to get to places. If you haven’t already I hope you will subscribe http://bit.ly/nwveuE and check back often. I might be reviewing a new product, or showing you how to install a gadget. And there is always another epic adventure around the corner.
Welcome to HalfThrottle. I hope you’ll enjoy the show.
I’ve been wanting a short video that introduces new viewers to my channel that I could leave on the homepage. I know my way around Adobe After Effects well enough, but can’t take credit for making this. For this video I used a template from http://videohive.net/ Specifically this one: http://bit.ly/ooxMav It’s a very handy site.
