Episode 5 – Sam Pacheco creator of “Solo Riding Across Europe and the Trans Euro Trail”

Sam Pacheco posted a film to YouTube in September 2021 called “Solo Riding Across Europe and the Trans Euro Trail”. Nick Jacobs, a previous guest of the Reel Riders Podcast, called it a “hidden gem”.

Sam Pacheco and his film are the subject of this episode.
https://www.youtube.com/@SamPacheco

In the episode, Sam made reference to the following TV series and film-makers:
“The Long Way Round” (2004) starring Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman
North and Left a Bit https://www.youtube.com/@Northandleftabit
Kraig Adams https://www.youtube.com/@kraigadams
Nick Jacobs / Project Biker https://www.youtube.com/@projectbiker
Bill Pacheco https://www.youtube.com/@billpacheco790

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Subtitles are available for the YouTube version of this episode in the following languages:
– English
– French / Française
– German / Deutsch
– Spanish / Español

My name is Sam Pacheco. I created the short film Solo Riding Across Europe and the Trans Euro Trail, which can be seen on my YouTube channel named Sam Pacheco. Welcome to the podcast. My name’s Simon Josey and thank you for listening. If you’ve listened

To episode four and my chat with Nick Jacobs, you may recall that he referred to one YouTube video as a hidden gem. It’s a video which Nick described as being a big inspiration for his own work. That video is called Solo Riding Across Europe and the Trans Euro Trail. And it was

Created by Sam Pacheco, who, as you heard at the top of this episode, is my guest today. Before we get to my chat with Sam, I’d like to invite you, as always, if you have the time and inclination to consider rating or liking the podcast in your favorite podcast app or

On YouTube. This will help other listeners find the podcast. The podcast has accounts on multiple social media channels and I post to them whenever new episodes of the podcast drop. Please feel free to repost, reskeet, and retweet to help get the word out there about the podcast. A

List of the podcast’s socials can be found in the episode notes. Righto then, let’s get to my talk with Sam. Hey, Sam, welcome to the podcast and thanks for joining me for today’s episode. How’s it going? It’s going great, Simon. Thank you for having me. One of the most intriguing things

For me about this opportunity to talk with you is that I don’t know anything about you beyond the four videos that you’ve posted to YouTube. That’s a little unusual for me as to date. My guests on the podcast have all allowed me to get to know them through their many videos

Posted on YouTube. I sort of feel I know them before I get to talk to them. So I need to ask you, you know, where you’re from, where are you now? How’d you get there? Sure. So I live in New Hampshire in the United States. I have been producing videos professionally

Now for about 10 years. This is my full-time job. I’m self-employed. I’m extremely lucky that I get to do this as a job. It’s kind of my passion apart from motorcycles, but I’m also very lucky that when I go on these trips. especially these motorcycle trips, had the

Opportunity to shoot content just for myself. So I do a lot of client work for other people, where there’s other people calling the shots and determining the story and the outcome of the videos. But on my Trans Euro Trail trip, especially, I was producing it just for me. So it was an

Absolute pleasure to be able to make content that I wanted to make and have complete control over everything. So I’m guessing then that you’ve had some sort of formal training in the industry. Is that correct? Yeah, that is correct. Uh, I have a four year undergraduate degree in

Film production, uh, that I got a long time, 10 years, 12 years ago now. So yes, I do have formal training, but that being said, probably technically speaking and like scale wise, everything that I’ve learned in film production has probably been learned outside of the classroom. Now,

Why is that? Is that because of the structure of the course you did or something else? Yeah, I think it’s part to do with the structure of the program that I took. It was very theory

Focused and it was very like, if you want to get a degree and learn how to be like a film critic, critics, you know, to kind of criticize and use these different principles and theories of filmmaking. Whereas I was much more of like, I want to be out there in the field shooting,

Using cameras, using equipment, that kind of thing. So I think once I graduated, I realized that I kind of lacked a lot of those technical skills that I would need to do this professionally. So it was just a matter of getting out there in the field, shooting, doing stuff, watching

YouTube videos for tutorials. I mean, everything I learned, I think in four years of school can be learned on, on YouTube now, which is incredible. Yeah. I, if, if you’ve heard, um, my second interview with Matt McFadden, he said something very similar about the fact that

He’d learned a lot about photography and video making just from watching YouTube. Yeah. And what about the motorcycling? So what’s your motorcycling history? When did you get your license? What sort of bikes have you owned? And if you think about your riding, what kind

Of rider do you consider yourself like today? Sure. So I grew up riding dirt bikes. ever since I was really, really young. My dad always had motorcycles, so I always, growing up, thought they were really cool because it was something my dad did. And then as I got older, I got

My first motorcycle. I think I got my motorcycle license when I was 22 or 23. I’m 32 now, so about 10 years ago. My first motorcycle was probably inspired. I watched Long Way Round. with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman, which was like, oh my God, I need a motorcycle and

I need to go travel the world now. Of course they were riding BMWs, I couldn’t afford a BMW, so I bought a KLR 650, which I kind of just took on many trips, short little weekend trips around. Always in the back of my mind was like, oh, I’m just like them out there

Exploring the world and on a motorcycle and camping out at night and stuff. But since then, I’ve owned a few different bikes. Recently, I’ve really gotten into it with my friends. We buy little dual sports. Like I had a Honda CRF 250 and we just kind of, you know, do these

Week long trips in the Northeast of the United States and also other parts of the country. I would say I love having the smaller, more versatile bikes that can kind of take you anywhere on road, off road. Um, I really am obsessed with, with packing all of my gear and my camera

Gear into a very small bag that can fit on the back of a dirt bike. I’m kind of like, all right, I can take myself and all of my equipment literally anywhere in the world that I want

To on this bike right now. I still have a street bike. I have a Husqvarna Svartpilen. That’s what I ride on road, but I’m much more kind of off-road focused now. And what’s your connection to Europe? Obviously you’ve made this film about a fairly substantial road trip through sort of central

Why Europe? Yeah. So that’s a good question. When I was 24 years old, I kind of did this big worldwide trip where I quit my job. And I traveled for a year. I started in Vietnam

And I finished in Scotland and I did 40 countries in between over the course of a year. And the Balkan area of Europe, which is what this Trans Euro Trail film is about. was a place that

I was very lucky enough to spend probably two or three months of on that trip. It was this absolutely amazing, to me, like seemingly untouched wilderness area of Europe. I had been to the typical, as an American, I’ve been to like Paris and Dublin and stuff like that before, but

I never went that far East and South in Europe. To me, it was like this whole other world. that when I traveled there, I didn’t really meet many other Americans. It was absolutely gorgeous everywhere I went. And it was like, wow, there’s kind of this opportunity to explore

This area that I’ve never really known much about growing up. So ever since I visited the first time, I’m like, I need to go back. And this time I need to go back and do it on a

Bike. And that’s when I discovered the Trans Euro Trail, which I had no idea existed. And then doing some research on it, realized, wow, there’s like this massive trail network that goes through there that’s already mapped out with GPS routes and recommendations and where to camp and where

To stay. So it kind of like the groundwork was already laid. And then from there, it was an easy decision of I need to go back. The film conveys sort of a picture of quite a sparsely

Populated part of the world. Now is that actually the case? Because it’s not an area that I’m familiar with. And this kind of happens I think when people are filming, particularly when they’re trying to do lots of B-roll, you kind of want to be away from lots of other people.

So what was the case? Was it really sparsely populated or was that just sort of a filming convenience, a result of your filming sort of technique? Yeah. So I think it was the combination

Of a couple things. I mean, every shot in this… film is a real shot in a real place I was in, right? So if you see these massive wide open landscapes like that, I was actually there,

That is what it looks like. Now, I shot this in the summer of 2021. So this was kind of, COVID was still kind of happening. So there was this feeling going into it of like, almost, we had all been going through like isolation in our personal lives, right? And, but a lot

Of that time was spent inside. So going into this film, I was like, I have this opportunity to go to these places where I can be isolated still, but also not be trapped in my house or in my office or whatever. I get to explore these wide open landscapes. I wouldn’t say

I intentionally sought out less populated areas, but I think that was subconsciously maybe that was something I was looking for. But also the linesmen, who are the volunteers that designed the Trans Euro Trail through these countries did an absolutely incredible job. They did

All the groundwork of mapping out the routes. And I think they kind of look for, they know people that are gonna be doing these rides where are looking for kind of that more adventurous, get out there into the unknown aspect of motorcycling. So I think they kind of plan it out with that

In mind to get you out there into those areas. And inevitably you’ll end up going through a city or a capital city of one of those countries. So I would say that there is certainly very

Populated areas, but for the context of what I was going for in this film, I tried to feature those less and tried to feature the nature more. Did it surprise you driving through those areas? How majestic, but how sparsely populated it was? Because it almost feels like, I mean,

We’ve all seen these BDR, you know, Backcountry Discovery Route videos on YouTube, et cetera. And, you know, I think, I think probably the people riding those trails feel a little bit smug about how wonderful those, those areas are of the U S to explore, but I’m guessing

That people wouldn’t automatically think, Oh, we can actually do that in Europe as well. I mean, did that surprise you? Yeah, it did. Um, and it’s funny. I mean, I, as someone that’s

Done four of the BDRs in the U S Hopefully, I’m not coming at it in a smug way, but I understand what you’re saying. Yeah, it was surprising, especially that the Balkan region of Europe is something that I think, at least in the US, growing up, we never really hear about in any

Of our history classes. We never know any of the context of the region. We don’t really see any videos or photos of it. It was. A little surprising for me. Um, I mean, I had been there

Once before, so I kind of knew, but like actually getting on the, on the dirt bike and getting out there in the trails. I mean, there was days. You know, riding through Bosnia and stuff where

I was on the bike for eight or 10 hours and I didn’t see a single person out in the middle of nowhere, like I didn’t see anybody. Um, so it was like, wow, there’s like these massive, massive areas of nature that are almost untouched and, and accessible, you know, If you’re, if

You’re willing to get out there and get into them. Um, it kind of begs the question then, um, because we haven’t, we haven’t seen a lot of, at least on YouTube, we haven’t seen a lot of content from you. Why you chose actually this trip through Europe as opposed to a BDR,

You know, that, that you’ve done in the States. Yeah, I think there’s always, um, I think it’s, it’s kind of funny because people probably Americans like me are like, oh my God, I wanna go riding in Europe. It’s so like, it has this foreign aspect to it and it’s so exotic and exciting.

Like someday I’ll get to ride in Europe and then I’m sure that there’s plenty of people in Europe that are like, oh my God, the United States, like I would love to go explore areas

Of the US where to me it’s not that it’s boring, but it feels like an extension of my home that I already know. So it was kind of like getting myself out there. into a country or countries

Where, you know, I don’t, I don’t speak the language. I don’t know the customs. I don’t necessarily know the history. So it’s kind of all new. So I think that’s kind of what I was,

What I was looking for out of this trip. I guess, I mean, I come from a country where we have a, in terms of a European cultural impact, it’s, it’s quite recent. And, and when people think and talk about Europe, they think of that long cultural history. Um. or context rather than

The landscape as being maybe the drawing, the thing that draws. But actually the thing about your video is, yeah, there are some towns and things and you do have some coverage and some sequences that are based on like some churches and some mosques and things like that. But

As you say, most of the focus has actually been on the countryside rather than on maybe cultural artifacts or we know that the culture and the people of the place. So yeah, I found that interesting. Before, I want to talk a little bit more about the film in depth and certain

Aspects of it, but maybe just before we do that, I’d like to understand, as I usually do, about the equipment that you took to shoot the film. Can you just tell us a little bit about the cameras, the drones, what you took to make the film? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the plan was

To do the entire trip off-road. and the plan was to do the entire trip on that DRZ. I mean, obviously you’ll see in the first part of the video, I’m riding a BMW 1200. Like I’ll get

To that later, that was never the plan originally. So knowing that I was gonna be on the dirt bike the whole time, I was trying to pack as light as possible. So my goal was to fit everything

Into my camera bag, which is the size of a typical backpack. So knowing that and packing and thinking gear wise of what I wanted to bring. I kind of had to whittle it down because I, like I

Said, I do this. I’m lucky enough to do this as a profession, so I have a lot of equipment. So kind of choosing things that are small and packable was a little tough for me. But I shot

Mostly I had a Sony A7R II was my main camera that I shot on. I had a 16 to 35 millimeter lens F4, and I had an 85 millimeter 1.8 lens. I had. Also the GoPro, I think it was the Hero

8, which was kind of what I used as my helmet mounted on my chin on my helmet cam. And I had a DJI Air S2 is the drone that I used. Right. And what were the reasons for those cameras,

Apart from wanting to track, you know, to have a light load? Was it for example, something like 4k capability or what, what was, what was driving, yeah, or is it just that you’d used those cameras before and you knew they were reliable? Yeah, so I’ve been using Sony for

A while professionally and I was extremely comfortable with it. It’s also what I had, right? So instead of having to go out and spend more money on other equipment for this trip, that’s what was in the bag, so that’s what was coming. That being said, I’m a big fan of Sony cameras.

Not to get too technical about this, but I wanted to shoot the entire thing and this color profile called S-Log2 on the Sony cameras, I had actually never shot in that format before, ever. So this trip was kind of almost an experiment in shooting in this profile. And for those people

That are unfamiliar, basically Sony’s S-Log format is a way to get more of what’s called dynamic range out of your image so that you can get more information in the highlights and the shadows. And it also gives you more freedom with your color grading to kind of

Tweak the image and make it look exactly how you want it to. Right. And during the trip, did you discover there was something missing that, oh, I really should have bought either this lens or something else with you? Or did you feel you had everything you needed? Yeah,

It would have been nicer to have like a really long kind of telephoto lens. The longest lens I brought with me was an 85mm, which if you know photography is not that long of a lens,

I would have liked something like a Like I have a 100 to 400 lens now that would have been amazing to bring, but there was just no room in the bag for it. Right. So let’s talk about the film, the film Solo Riding Across Europe and the Trans Euro Trail, you published it

To YouTube in September, 2021, and you said that you shot over the summer of 2021. So, okay, we can guess how long the post-production took, but, but tell me how long did the post-production take? The trip happened in August, over August of 2021. And then when I came home, it was,

I had all of this hours and hours of footage on this hard drive ready to go. Obviously I shot everything. So I knew what was there. So that always speeds up the process if you’re editing your own stuff and you know what shots are there. And plus I’d also, this trip took

Place over 31 days. So I had a lot of time to think about, narratively how I wanted to tell this story with my visuals. So all that being said, I think it took me probably like two days to edit. This video probably. Okay. I have a feeling some, some of my previous guests

May be a little bit horrified how, how inefficient they are and how efficient you are, but okay. Like I said, I’ve been doing this professionally for 10 years. So, yeah. And also, I mean, your other guests are doing. that I listened to, you know, their channels, their content is

Very different. They’re like a lot of them, some of them were speaking and narrating and weaving that in and telling stories. Mine was, luckily it was just visuals and some music. So it was the edit, the lift on the edit was a lot easier for me. And how many hours of

Footage? I mean, cause the trip took what, 32 days, if I remember correctly. So, I mean, were you shooting hours and hours of footage every day, or were you being quite disciplined about I know because I know what the story is going to be. We’ve got an idea what that narrative

Is going to be. Therefore I need this shot. I only need this shot. I mean, how, as a professional, I think it’s kind of interesting to hear, um, just how efficient you are at that, at that

Stage of deciding exactly what coverage you want on a day by day basis. Yeah. So it was, I mean, I try, I try not to plan out a lot of the things that I do. I mean, look, professionally,

Yes, but when I’m on my own time, I’m very much like, I don’t really like to have things planned. So I don’t think I woke up every single day like, you know, I need to get five shots today

And three of them are me riding away from the camera and one is a landscape. I don’t think I ever approached it that way. I think it was kind of like this was also a journey of discovery,

Right? So I think it was like, if I found something that I thought looked cool, then I would pull over and shoot it. Some days that was extremely frustrating because, you know. when you’re riding solo and anyone who does this knows if you pull over on the side of the road to get

A shot, you have to stop, you have to take your camera out, you have to set up your camera, you have to ride past it, and you gotta turn around and come back and repack everything, and then you feel really good, but then if two minutes later, you come around the corner and

There’s another beautiful mountain range, you’re like, oh my God, now I have to repeat the entire process all over again. So some days I shot a lot more. There were some days where I didn’t

Shoot anything because I also knew I wanted this to be 15 to 20 minutes or so in the end. So I’m like, all right, I don’t need eight hours of footage that is never going to see the light

Of day. Right. That was going to be my next question. Like at the beginning, did you think, okay, I’ve got to target what I want to do? Um, because you know, other people might’ve gone, Oh, well, this is quite exciting. I might turn this into an eight part sort of half hour

Each, each parts series or something, but, but no, you say you actually had a firm idea setting out what you wanted to, to end up with you. Yeah, I did. I think I knew 15 to 20 minutes.

And I think I knew I wanted to just make it one. I wanted it all to be one go. I didn’t want to break it up. I think if I was trying to grow a YouTube audience, I think that’s

Certainly the way to do it. That’s how you gain… Each episode that you post is going to have people coming back for more. It’s going to have them subscribe to your channel. But that’s never really been my goal. I just thought it was a cool trip that looked cool. and I just

Wanted to post it so people could enjoy it. I wasn’t necessarily trying to grow an audience with it. So for those people who have seen the film, they’ll know that it’s split into these two parts. The first part, as you mentioned, undertaken on the BMW GS 1200, and the second

On the Suzuki DRZ. Is that correct? Yeah? Correct, yes. For each part, did the treble consist of… single continuous journeys. So did you go off for 15 days on the GS and then, you know, 15, 17 days, whatever on the Suzuki? How did you structure that? Sure. So, and the two

Parts are self-contained in the same video. I know we just talked about how we didn’t want to break, I didn’t want to break them into parts, but yeah, they are self-contained. But the story of the BMW, so originally there’s this guy named Dooby who owns a company called Lobagola Mototours in

Zagreb, Croatia, and I found him online, I think through the ADV Rider forums, but I found him online, reached out to him, told him about kind of the timeframe and the trip that I wanted

To take, and he was like, perfect, I have a DRZ 400 with your name on it, pay the deposit and it’s yours. I was like, great. So I did that. And then this was a few weeks before I left, maybe a few months, but then I flew out there, landed in Zagreb.

The next morning I was gonna go pick up the DRZ and set off on this kind of train zero trail adventure. And Dooby emails me and says, the guy that was on the DRZ that was returning

It today, rode it off a cliff and totaled it. So I was like, okay. So he’s like, so you can’t take it. He’s like, if you want, I can give you a replacement bike while I like source

Another DRZ. So I was like, okay, yeah, I’ll take a replacement bike. And then… When I showed up there, it was not a 200 pound Suzuki. It was this massive, huge, overweight BMW 1200 GS, which I was not, I mean, I was trying to stay positive, but honestly, internally, I

Was really not happy because this was not the trip that I wanted to take. I wanted to be riding off-road on these crazy trails on the TET. I didn’t want to be on this 1200 GS bike

Riding on road. It was almost like a… It was almost like a realization for me where I think in our professional lives, in our normal lives, everything is so planned. And we have these routines that we develop and things that we like, and we like to control what happens to

Us. And I think this was a wake-up call for me on this trip of, all right, I’m going to let go of control of what happens. I’m going to let the trip happen to me instead of trying

To control everything that happens on the trip. So I embraced, all right, now you know what? The trip changes. So now I’m on the BMW, the route’s going to change. Instead of heading Southeast, I headed Northwest up into Slovenia, Austria, and Italy. Because I was like, all

Right, well now I can go to the Dolomites, right? Because I can get there, I can travel a lot faster and cover more ground on the GS than I could on the DRZ. So I made it up to the

Dolomites for a couple of days. I’m really glad I did. It was absolutely beautiful up there. But then I looped back. After Dooby had gotten the DRZ for me. So I had to go back to Zagreb

To pick up the DRZ. So the first kind of section with the BMW was probably seven or eight days. And then once I picked up the DRZ, then I could, I could do my big loop of the Balkans, which

Was another, however many 20 something days of that. So that that’s kind of why the, why the two parts were broken up that way. The European scenery you shot is beautiful, but you also had plenty of coverage as you, not exactly the main subject, but at least a sort of a key

Subject in the film. For example, setting up camp, relaxing with a book outside your tent, walking through small towns, besides rivers and in the countryside. So as a filmmaker, how important is it to you to include people in this type of film? And significantly, how

Important was it to you for this particular film? include yourself. I think it’s very, very important to include people. You know, speaking from my filmmaking experience, like a lot of these shots that you see of me riding through these areas or walking through these

Towns or whatever it is, like just having a static camera set up of just the scenery is, well, as amazingly beautiful as it is, you know, after a minute or so of that, people that are watching it might kind of be like, like, all right, what’s the point? It’s beautiful, but

I don’t get any story out of this. I think when you place a person in the shot, it gives a little motivation to what is happening, and especially if a person traveling through these, it’s like these big massive, expansive areas of nature, and then you can see this one tiny

Little guy on a motorcycle traveling through it. I think it gives it a sense of context. and almost in a way the viewer can see themselves as that little guy, me, on the bike riding through that and almost imagine, oh man, I wish I could ride through some mountain range like

This or some little valley by a river or something like that. I think it’s very important to include people in the shots just because it gives it that context of there’s a human in this natural environment. Then as far as including myself, In the back of my mind was always like, I just

Want to show this to my grandkids someday, you know, when I’m an old man and I can’t ride bikes anymore. Like, Oh, like here’s some cool stuff I did 60 years ago. I’m like, I’m not just like some old man now. Yeah. Cause I was thinking that arguably you could have made

The film with just sort of starring the landscape, as you say, and maybe just the motorcycles in the landscape, but, but you went that further step and said, no, I’m going to, I’m going to put a person in this and many of the shots here. Yeah, and I think also one aspect that

I want to talk about is, you know, these motorcycle travel films, a lot of them that you see on YouTube are just the bike riding through or the helmet cam ride through areas. I think that people shouldn’t be afraid to include other aspects of the ride. Right. Like I have, like

There was a couple of little places where I went on like a hike for a day just to get off the bike. And I shot myself doing that. Like that’s not motorcycle related, really. That’s more, that’s hiking. It’s a different category. But for me, like that was still things that

I did on the trip. Um, and I think motorcycling gets you out into these areas that you normally wouldn’t be out in. So you’re also doing things off the bike that, that add to part of what the trip is. You reference other, other sort of motorcycling, um, videos that we see all

Over YouTube these days. You’ve obviously made a conscious decision not to include any spoken word and very minimal sort of titles right at the very end. So, tell me about that. Yeah, that was kind of a personal challenge for me, kind of as a filmmaker, of how can I use just

Visuals to tell a story? And thinking about that, like, how do I set up my shots in a way that one shot can lead into the next shot, can lead into the next one? Now, I’m not saying

This was hugely intentional because I think a lot of the times you, you can almost find the story in the edit with how you pair shots together, but it was for me, basically a challenge to tell a narrative story relying entirely on my skill as like a cinematographer and capturing

These shots more so than it was speaking and kind of just telling what the story is. Yeah. I, um. I used to be a little bit snobby and think that, oh, you know, you get into one of these big Hollywood movies and within the first 30 seconds, there’s narration. You go,

Ah, they’ve just been lazy, you know, they don’t need to do this. But more recently, particularly with some of the videos I’ve been watching on YouTube, I’ve actually really enjoyed some of the narration. The tone, sometimes it’s quite poetic. It’s actually working quite well. I

Quite like it. I’m more of a fan of that than say the recording that people often do when they’re driving, like in helmet cam mic. I mean there’s a place for that and obviously for people who are more sort of focused on vlogging, I understand that completely. But if you’re

Taking a more cinematic approach, actually I’m finding that sometimes some narration actually really works for me. I realized it’s different horses for different courses. So yeah. Yeah. And I think I’ve always been, you know, my entire career, I’ve been behind the camera. I don’t

Really have any interest in being in front of the camera. I don’t really have any interest in, you know, having a shot of me talking to camera or vlogging or anything like that. So

Probably it was more so if I just don’t want to be on camera, which is, which is why I didn’t include any of me speaking. Right. About halfway through the film. There’s a. a human drama moment. It’s during a section of the TET. You’ve obviously dropped the bike. We haven’t seen

You drop the bike, but we know you’ve dropped it because it’s sitting there on the ground on a fairly, it looks like you’ve dropped it in a corner, a slow speed corner, I’m guessing, in the gravel. And we see you unloading the bike and then going through the process of

Picking it up and you get on your way again. I was thinking what’s kind of nice about the sequence there is that you’ve taken multiple shots, multiple coverage shots. And like you said, you’ve only got one fixed camera. So you’ve obviously done a little bit of the work, moved

The camera, done some more of the work. It must’ve taken quite a bit of time and determination to do that. And I was thinking, you know, was there a bit of a conflict at the time? Because

It looks like it was a hot sunny day. You just said earlier that you were there in August. And that part of the world I know is hot at that time of year, right? So there must have

Been a conflict, well, I’m presuming there must have been a conflict in your mind, like, I just want to get over and get the damn thing up and get going again. Or, hey, actually, this would be a great narrative hook. Do I take the time and actually make sure I get lots

Of coverage so that I can create this nice sequence, which is going to possibly even center this 15-minute… you know, movie, the adversity that I encountered at this point in time, bit of drama. So, okay, I’ve said a lot, but now what’s your version of what happened and what

You were thinking? Yeah, that’s a great point to bring all that up. It’s funny. First of all, yes, it was extremely hot. I think it was, you know, I think the temperature was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I’m not sure what that is Celsius. It’s hot. It was hot. But yeah,

So that was in Bosnia. a few hours outside of this little city called Mostar, which if no one’s ever been to Mostar, Bosnia, you should go there. It’s one of the most incredible places I’ve ever been in my life. But it was up in the mountains outside of Mostar. It was on

A corner, a really sharp turn coming downhill, and there was a lot of really, really loose rocks. And I knew, like coming into it, I’m like, oh yeah, I’m dropping the bike in this. You know, it was, there was no doubt it was gonna happen. So luckily it wasn’t, didn’t

Really catch me by surprise. I knew it was gonna happen. So as the bike went over, I was able to kind of just like step off and let it fall down. Right. But then, yeah, so then now I’m

Sitting here and it’s I don’t know if you can see so much in the video, but it is a pretty steep incline. The way that the bike fell down. So that’s why it was so like I took all the

Bags off and everything to make it lighter to lift it back up. But to your point, yes, as it was happening, you know. I don’t know if I was intentionally thinking like. Oh, this is like I’m going to show the adversity of what I’m struggling through on this trip. But I

Think like these this it was something that happened, right? For real. And I was trying to document my trip as it happened to me. So I was like, all right, I’ll get the camera out for this. And then as far as the coverage on it, I think that probably comes from my

Background. Doing this professionally is like whenever you’re shooting something like you want to get coverage of it, right? I want to get a couple of different shots of it. So that was kind of almost instinctual, I think, to move the camera around and get different. different

Shots and different points of view of what was going on. But to your point, yes, I, I found myself being like, oh, this stupid camera, like all I want to do is like, just lift the bike

Up and get out of here, you know, and maybe not even include it because I like just totally fell down this thing. Maybe I don’t want people to think I fell, which, which is, I don’t know, maybe something that creeps into your mind after you’ve been. out in the mountains of Bosnia

For eight hours of being alone. Like, oh, I want to show people I’m a perfect rider or anything like that. But, uh, yeah, it was kind of a pain, but I’m really glad that I got it

Because I think it works really well in the, in the little, in the video. Yeah. I mean, it totally does. And the first thing I’d say is that actually initially it doesn’t look that steep, but then as you, as you’re lifting the bike up, initially it looks like you’ve

Lifted it too far and it’s going to topple over the other, you know, the, and then you realize. Oh no, it’s not going to do that because it’s actually really steep. So that’s the thing. It’s quite difficult to perceive steepness if there’s such a word on video, but it was that

Movement of bringing the bike up you and the fact that it looked like you’d gone too far. It’s sort of really, for me anyways, like really confirmed, Oh yeah, that was actually a really steep bit of ground. One thing that I’ve also noticed with my previous guests is that they

Also have at times in their videos. really highlighted moments of adversity. And it just makes the whole thing so much more interesting. And I kinda liked the way, even though you’d made this very cinematic video, there was this very kind of personal moment, again, without any

Speaking or noise, apart from just the actual noise going on. It was kind of a contrast in the film, but it fitted well with the overall thing. I thought it was… Yeah, really well done and really interesting and made that point in the movie really interesting. Thank you.

Well, thank you for saying that. I’m glad my sweating struggles in the mountains of Vaznia had that effect. I’m glad. It was worth it to take the camera out, I guess. Absolutely. I mean, you mentioned earlier that, oh, you know, you drive along, it’s such a drama to get the

Camera off and to, you know, set it up, drive away, drive back. I mean, just when you’re not falling over, it’s quite a lot of work, right? Yeah. At the end of the film, there are very few titles. It’s just, just a few bits of information that you covered three and a

Half thousand miles. Forgive me. I don’t know what that is in kilometers. It must be pushing five thousandish something like that. Anyway, Google it people. It’s not difficult to figure this out. Um, and that was in the 32 days of writing, you passed through 11 different countries

And I’m not going to ask you to list those off people. If you’re interested. just go onto the YouTube site, because I think under the notes, you actually list out all the countries that you visited. I do. The point I’m getting to eventually here is that you did it all completely

Alone. And to date, my guests on the podcast have all been solo travelers or travelers who often travel alone. What were your reasons for undertaking this journey and making the film alone? I think, I mentioned a little bit earlier that I kind of did this year of traveling around

The world. And I think ever since then, I kind of missed it. I missed the feeling of this solo travel. You know, there’s like this feeling of adventure that you’re on, this feeling of self-reliance of like whatever situation I get myself into, I’m the one that has to get myself

Out. And that’s incredibly satisfying when you actually make it through something. So I think there was always that feeling that I was looking after. And then another part of it is, you know, I think opportunities like this are a lot easier. Like when I did this trip, I was

30, unmarried. So I think now I’m married now, like hopefully gonna be starting a family soon. So I think down the road, like doing something this will be much, much more difficult to be able to do it alone, you know, and it’s gonna be easier to do like the weekend rides with

My friends as part of a group or something. So I think there was kind of this not. Not like future planning, but like I’m going to take advantage of where I’m at in life right now, where I can do this alone. So that’s kind of what I was thinking about. Do you consider

Yourself a solo rider or do you prefer to ride with friends? Yeah, it depends on the ride. I mean, obviously in a group of people, cause I’ve done this before. I’ve done rides with my friends where like we’ve had to, you know, record some stuff and people are generally

Like, they love watching the video, but I think that they definitely after the second or third time that you’ve stopped to get some shots, you know, and you’ve been riding for like an hour or two, I think people generally are like, oh, like you don’t really realize how much

Work goes into making this. You know, I think there’s a lot of stopping and there’s a lot of breaks and there’s a lot of time setting up and capturing the actual motorcycle riding versus like just getting on the bike and riding for five or six straight hours and then stopping,

You know? Yeah. I mean, that’s That’s what I’m hearing a lot. I was just listening to an episode of The Trail and Adventure Motorbike Podcast. And some, I can’t remember who it was was, there was sort of a group discussion and they were all saying, Oh, we stop a lot for these,

These filming things. Don’t we? And flying the drone and all sorts of stuff. I was like, yeah, yeah. Yup. I found with the film, I should say, first of all, I loved your music choices. And I saw. comments in YouTube and other people said also how much they enjoyed the music.

I found that the music choices somber and sort of reflective, setting quite a specific tone for the film. And in the final shot really sort of evokes a departure. And I was almost wondering, because I didn’t know anything about you. I was thinking, oh. Has Sam spent some time living

In Europe and is this sort of like a farewell to Europe? It really gave me that feeling. But now that I know a little bit about you, that doesn’t seem to be the case. But can you understand where I’m coming from? Yeah, absolutely. I think firstly, the music I think is hugely,

Hugely important to the success of any video. I think, and for me in my editing process, obviously once I have everything shot, I think finding the right music is step one. It really is going to drive. the mood and the feeling, and it’s kind of like aids, it lifts up your

Visuals to the emotions that you want to. Right? So the music was a huge, I spent probably the hour, couple hours the first day just trying to find, and I think there’s only three or four tracks in the entire video. So like three or four hours to find three or four tracks

May seem like a lot, probably not to anyone that’s ever edited a video before. I mean, I think all these, all the people that are editing videos that listen to your podcast this eternal struggle of trying to find the perfect track that will fit exactly what you’re looking for.

And I think it was really nice to read the comments from people saying that they liked the music choices. I think that kind of shows that it fit kind of the mood I was going for. I used a website called Epidemic Sound for those music tracks, so anyone that’s looking for good music,

Check out Epidemic Sound. They have some great tracks on there. I think they also offer a 30-day free trial. So if you’re not ready to commit… Maybe they could be a sponsor of your podcast, Simon. Then I think, yeah, it’s interesting what you say about the departure,

Which I think in a way for me it was because when I left on this trip, the reason that the trip happened when it did was because my now wife at the time had gotten a job in a different

Part of the country. So we were moving. So I had to leave my job and I was going to move and then get a new job at some point. So I was like, well, instead of just moving down there

Right away and getting a job, why don’t I just fly to Europe and do this trip that I’ve been wanting to do for five or six weeks? So I did it. And then at the end, I really feel like,

You know, maybe in a way it was not to get too philosophical about this. But I think in a way it was a departure for me of this, like, kind of big adventurous trip that I’d just

Been on. And it was a departure back into the, you know, the normal. daily life of waking up and going to work every day and not being in these beautiful locations riding motorcycles, which I think we would all prefer to do every day of our lives. But you know, we got to pay

The bills. So sure. Yeah. Um, when, when creating a film like this, what part of the overall process do you most enjoy and, and which part is the least enjoyable? And you probably asked, heard me asking these questions before, but, but it is, it’s very individual and, and Is

It the writing? Is it the capturing the footage? Or is it, is it that feeling when you come back of going through everything again? So, so yeah. Tell me, tell me what you really enjoy

And then what’s, what’s not so great for you. I think it’s a lot of, of what you just mentioned. I think, you know, for me, I’m very passionate about making videos, filmmaking. Um, and I think, like I said, I’ve done so much work for. other clients that this was something kind

Of a passion product that I got to do for myself. So I think I’ve really enjoyed every aspect of this because I knew I was like, I was doing exactly what I wanted to do for me. There wasn’t

Some creative director that was like, Oh, that, you know, your sequence of falling and, and picking up the bike, like doesn’t really work. Let’s edit that out. Like for me, I was like, Oh, I can just include whatever I want in this project. Right. So I think the shooting, the

Editing and all of that is stuff that I really, really enjoy. with any project, but especially so with this one. The days of shooting, and I had my laptop on this trip too. So I would

After every night when I got to a tent or a hostel or a hotel or guest house, wherever I was staying, I would transfer the footage from the drone, the GoPro and the camera every night because I didn’t wanna lose it. And I think another really enjoyable, probably the

Favorite part for me was like looking through the footage from that day. at the end of the day at that night and being like, oh my God, I was there and I didn’t realize, you’re there looking at it and you’re like, wow, this is incredible. But then to see it from the drone

Shot of a place that you just rode through, you’re like, it gives you a totally different vantage point and it makes it look so much more interesting and cool. So I think that was a huge highlight for me, was looking at that footage every night. If I had to pick a least favorite

Part, I think we’ve mentioned it, but it’s probably just how much you have to stop. And I know everyone that listens to your podcast that is doing this stuff knows how much work it is, but I think as a casual YouTube viewer, maybe people or someone that doesn’t have video experience,

Maybe they don’t realize how much work actually goes into it. You know, like every time you stop, that’s at least 10 minutes. And especially if you have an end destination that you’re trying to make it to that night, like that just delays it another 10 or 15 or 30 minutes until

You’re gonna get there and be able to like, eat dinner. So I think the constant stopping is what I don’t enjoy. But I mean, it has to happen. You have to stop to get the shot. So in the end it works out, but sometimes it’s frustrating. I’ve wondered, because I’ve asked

My guests, hey, would you want to do this with someone else? Would you like to go with a partner? And by partner, I mean someone who is just as passionate as you are about making a film so

That you can sort of share that load. A little bit like, you know, when you talk about the long way around and a long way down, they took a third rider with them who was the camera

Person, right? And I think the drone control and so I don’t know if that would speed things up, but the problem is I guess it’s going to be difficult to find someone who is exactly as passionate as you are and has got the same creative vision that you have for the film.

Yeah. I guess it’s, you’re never going to solve that one, right? Maybe, though, maybe. I mean, there’s, you know, with the internet and the rise of kind of motorcycle YouTube channels, I think there’s much more of an online community developed and then online message boards. The

People that are into this, that are into shooting and writing and stuff, are a lot more connected than we’ve ever been. So I think, you know, I think it might not be as hard as it was to

Find someone that kind of is, you know, your level of passion and your writing style and the trips you wanna take. So who knows, maybe there’s hope for people to connect online that way. Yeah. You mentioned earlier that the purpose of, of creating the film was, was not really

To get YouTube views and to grow a massive sort of YouTube. As we record this today, the, the film has had nearly 30,000 views. Your website though is quite modest. Anyone can go and have a look there. There are four videos there in total. I was just wondering, had you considered

Submitting this film to something like a film festival? You know, are there other channels that you’d thought about? I’ve been watching a little bit of Motorcycle Film Festival content, and from what I’ve seen, your 14-minute film would not be out of place in some of those

Festivals. So I just wondered, had you considered that? Well, first of all, thank you for saying that. Second of all, Uh, I did consider it. I think I did a little research within like the few weeks after I posted it on YouTube and I was like, I saw some festivals and stuff,

But I don’t know for one reason or another, it kind of, it never really happened. Um, but I don’t know, maybe it would be something to think about in the future. And to carry on from that, what are the plans or what plans do you have or hopes for the, for the future,

Particularly. this kind of filmmaking and, you know, releasing this kind of film onto, onto YouTube for those people who’ve seen, you know, your film and thought it was great. And then probably a lot of people would like to see another one or more films similar. Do you, do you have

Any plans? Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting. I get a lot of, a lot of the comments, which thank you to everyone that has commented on this. You have no idea how much it means to me to see that there’s people all over the world that appreciate all the work that went into this.

So I really, really enjoy reading all comments from people. But a big one is people are always like, oh, like when is your next trip? Like, when are you gonna do another one? And at this point, I think it’s been like two years since that one happened. So it’s tough, you know,

Life gets in the way. Obviously if I was trying to be a YouTuber, I would have a lot more of these trips. But it’s kind of was just like a passion project. I think there’s gonna be another one this summer though. I’m really, I’ve been trying to get to Central Asia. Stan

Countries for a while now. Um, if anyone that’s listening to this has been there, I know these videos get posted on YouTube to comment on those, reach out to me. I’d love to hear any advice

From anyone that’s been there and can kind of help me out and give me some good tips. So potentially this summer, we’ll see. Just some final thoughts. I have to ask the question as a filmmaker, who do you take inspiration from? Who do you feel has influenced you? Who

Would you encourage others to also watch? Sure. So I have a couple. Obviously we’ve already mentioned Long Way Round. That was kind of extremely influential for me. If anyone hasn’t seen it, go buy it, order it, stream it today. You need to watch it. It’ll change your life. At least

It did for me. I think more contemporary, some of the guys, there’s a channel North and Left a Bit. These two Australian guys that ride from Australia to London. As part of a series, I think they’re on at the time of this recording episode 30 or 31 or something. Those guys are

Incredible Much along the spirit of Long Way Around. Definitely check them out if you haven’t heard of them This is not really a motorcycle Video or channel, but there’s a guy named Kraig Adams on YouTube who posts a lot of solo hiking Videos. He was a massive inspiration for me

I was watching a lot of his videos. If you watch one of his videos within 10 seconds, you’ll be like, oh yeah, I get where Sam got his inspiration from. Because the style is very similar. There’s also this guy named Nick, and he was actually your last guest on the podcast. He reached

Out to me and we exchanged emails. He actually reached out to me about this video and was like, I’m thinking of doing something similar, like any tips or anything. So we exchanged some emails back and forth. Then it’s always interesting because A lot of times I’ll get

People that are just starting out that ask me for advice, filmmaking-wise, or whatever content-wise, and I try to tell them some things like these are the cameras I use or whatever. It’s always hit or miss. You never know if these people are going to be any good, what they’re going

To do, whatever. So then Nick did his trip, he sent me a link to his first video, and within 30 seconds I was like, oh man, this guy is good. He can shoot, he edits, he narrates his videos.

He’d like. tells a story in an extremely, you know, extremely good engaging way. So definitely everyone, I’m sure that since listening to him has checked him out on your podcast, but he was someone you should look at. And then I also, I have to, my father, Bill Pacheco has a YouTube

Channel where he posts like his little GoPro travel videos. Um, I have to, he’s, he’ll kill me if I don’t, if I don’t give him a shout out in this podcast. So, of course. Okay. Final

Question. And I. seem to be in a habit of asking all my guests this question. So does filmmaking enhance or diminish the pleasure of a motorcycle ride for you? Oh, for me, it enhances it. Absolutely, especially because like a trip like this that I get to share with other people, you know,

Like I could tell my wife or something about this crazy mountain pass that I went through in Bosnia, but be able to like show her, to show people that, that’s an extremely rewarding feeling. You know, I had this great quote that I heard. It was talking about photos, but I

Think it also applies to videos. And the quote said, a photo is just a click, right? The art is what was in your mind when you click the button. And I think as photographers or videographers,

Like we have this power to kind of use our medium to showcase like what we were feeling and what we were thinking while we were there in that moment. So for me, being able to do that and to combine it with motorcycles, Yeah, it absolutely enhances the trip.

Thanks for being my guest today, Sam. Other than your YouTube channel, is there anywhere else people can find you online or see work that you do? Not really, no. You can find me on YouTube and really no other social media platforms. Right, right. Simon, I just wanna

Take a moment to thank you for getting this podcast going and putting it together. I mean, I think you’re filling a huge gap that hasn’t necessarily existed for people that ride motorcycles and like to make films or take photographs. So just thank you for having me on and thank

You for doing this. I think it’s really incredible. Thanks. Cheers. Cheers, Sam. Okay. That’s it for today. I’ve got my fingers crossed that one day we’ll see more motorcycling films from you. Thanks.