What Goes Around Comes Around

What goes around comes around. We've all heard the saying. And I guess to some, or a great extent, it is more or less at least somewhat true, I don't really know. What I do know is that it usually seems to be associated with something negative - some sort of negative karma, or whatever.

Not this time. Two days ago I had just finished uploading and publishing a video to YouTube and was posting the YouTube link on Facebook when out of nowhere I received a private message from a friend whom I hadn't heard from in quite some time. The message read "2 years ago. Amazing trip....".

This is a screenshot of that message:

Under the text caption in the message is a short video. This is that video:



Kim is a fellow cyclist and mountain bike adventurer from Denmark. About 2.5 years ago I joined up with 2 other friends and Orlando area locals for a somewhat local overnight bikepacking adventure. Kim was here vacationing in the Orlando area and visiting one of the guys and he came along for the ride. That's how we met.

The ride was relatively short (by most bikepacking standards), but an epic one nonetheless. I had wanted to capture the experience as I do on many of my rides, so I recorded bits and pieces of video footage along the way, assembled it all into a timeline, and published it online. That was over 2 years ago.

Fast forward to this past Friday when I received the unexpected message above. I hadn't heard from Kim in a very long time and it was very refreshing and rewarding to receive a message of this nature. It made my entire afternoon to see that someone half a world away was reflecting back on some good times and epic moments that we had.

Cheers, buddy. We'll meet again sometime for another ride. I guess what goes around comes around is mostly true.

You can view the entire video of the ride I did with Kim & friends here:

September 2018 Orlando Critical Mass Ride

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It's been a while since I attended a Critical Mass Ride. At least 6 to 8 months. While I really enjoy attending these things and riding with 3, 4,or 5 hundred like minded riders, the last Friday of each month has a strange habit of creeping up on me without notice and as a result I usually remember that this ride is taking pace at the last possible second - which is always too late to attend. That is, when I DO remember!

I hadn't really planned or considered attending this month's Critical Mass ride but a friend brought something to my attention the day before. A documentary video about the phenomenon that is Critical Mass and it's organizer is being produced for an Orlando area community web site and they wanted someone with a drone who could shoot aerial footage of the ride. I have a couple of drones so I confirmed that I could attend and do it. With a day's advance notice I surely wouldn't forget this time.

With bike locked & loaded, batteries charged, and drones packed and ready I made the 10.5 mile ride on my bike Friday afternoon to the starting point at Loch Haven Park. The original plan was to do the ride and shoot a few random aerial scenes of the riders along the way, then hand off the video footage to the producer of the documentary. Simple enough. But then I figured, since I am going, I may as well bring my other gear as well, and shoot a bunch of various shots, both aerial and handheld, and use them in a video of my own creation in addition to supplying the aerial footage for the documentary.

The result of what I did is what you see above.

Until next time....

It's been a little while since I've ridden in one of the urban mountain bike rides in Orlando. I used to participate in these rides pretty religiously, so after seeing the Facebook reminder posted by the ride leader last week, I decided to go. It was pretty much business as usual: Approximately 20 miles in distance over just about any and all types of terrain that an urban jungle has to offer. City streets, alleys, grassy transitions, brick roads, staircases of various heights & lengths (lots of them), and a few drop-off ledges just to name a few.

I decided to make a return visit earlier this week with some camera gear on board. I figured I'd try to catch some various random shots of the riders doing their thing. Leave me a comment and subscribe for updates on future content if you like this sort of thing!

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2018 Florida Divide rider Stacy Bolton

It's Florida Divide season. What's the Florida Divide, you ask? Then head on over to Trackleaders.com for a brief introduction, and to check out the current state of affairs. That's exactly what I was doing this past this past Monday (3/12) and several days prior. I had been following the steady progress of Stacy Bolton, who is riding his bike from Alabama to Key West, Florida on a mostly off-road route.

On Monday, Stacy was approaching the Central Florida leg of his amazing journey and the route he is following passes fairly close to my hometown, so I thought I'd take some time and take a ride to meet up with him on my own bike, and see first hand how he's doing. I caught up with him about halfway through the Seminole State Forest just outside of Sanford, Florida - 10 days and 873 miles into his 1500 mile journey. He was incredibly focused and in great spirits. We rode a few miles together and sat down for a few moments as he recounted his experience.

You can see more of my conversation with Stacy below.
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Get more detailed info about the Florida Divide at singletracksamurai.com or on the Singletrack Samurai Facebook page.