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Videobiker About Us |
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Home of the Best Motorcycle Videos Of The Best Rides In The USA! |
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Our videos make great gifts for motorcycle riders! Bookmark our site! |
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VideoBiker Productions started by accident. It all started when I discovered I had cancer, and I decided I might want to get on with all the things I'd always wanted to do but never got around to. There's something about thinking you're gonna die sooner than later that makes you reassess your situation. Anyway, I always wanted to buy a motorcycle and ride around the country. So I did that. I took a video camera along, thinking I would make some memories of my trip. That first video wasn't too good, but it wasn't bad either, and it occurred to me that other riders might like to see what it looked like. That all happened about 8-9 years ago. Along the way, I got better at making videos. I had help and advice from an old and trusted friend named John Plattner, who also turned up with cancer within a year of my diagnosis. I survived. John didn't. All I can say is it's a damn terrible disease and you just never know. You gotta live each day like your allotment of days is limited. I kept on with the videos. John's been gone over three years now. The videos are selling okay. You can get them on Amazon.com, but I prefer you buy them thru Createspace since I get a bigger cut of the take. Amazon gets the lion's share of the revenues. Sometimes I feel like I make the movies so they could make the profits, but I guess they earn it. They do make it pretty painless for me. A check arrives in the mailbox each month. Once it adds up to something useful, I'm gonna use it to finance the creation of another video. I got some ideas just waiting on the means. Meanwhile, I now work in a motorcycle shop. I have a title and everything. Service Manager. I try to treat the customers as I would like to be treated if I were standing in their boots. It seems to be an effective way to do business. I wrote for a motorcycle magazine for a few years. Some of those articles are finding their way onto my web site. I finally gave that up - writing a monthly column or feature article is a lot more work that I realized, and I just don't always have that much to say. Somewhere along the line, Playboy Enterprises called about using some of my video in some TV show they were ginning up, but that never amounted to anything. The State of Tenessee did use some of my footage in a commercial that ran statewide. That was kinda cool and they pay by the second for footage like that. I also got married along the way. Re-married, to be precise. One of the changes during the days of dealing with cancer was a divorce, which was long overdue. While it wasn't exactly pleasant for anyone concerned, I think now all concerned would agree that it was a good decision. Getting remarried was a good decision for me too. I didn't think I would ever do it, but then I didn't think it was real likely I'd ever find someone I'd want to be married to. Turns out I did. So life goes on. I'm pretty healthy these days for an old guy. I have several motorcycles. I bought them used but they are in pretty good condition. The V-Star that I made most of the VideoBiker videos on is gone to a better home. Another guy who had just found out he had cancer wanted to buy it. He needed some brightness of the future like I did when I got it. I made him a really good deal. I had to. The Nighthawk on which I made the Talimena Winding Stair video is still around but showing it's age. It's going up for sale as soon as I fix a few niggling problems. I Bought two Honda CT-90's (Trail 90's) that were not running and pretty rough. They both had titles, so I fixed them up and made them street legal and sometimes I ride one of them to work on the back roads. The real reason I got them was for Big Bend, and we've done that. I bought a Suzuki DR-650 SE dual sport so I could hammer down the Interstate and mix it up in the dirt all on one bike. It's a lot of fun, but like most Jack -of-all-trades situations, it doesn't do anything really well except thread thru traffic in town, which is not a riding situation I much enjoy. It will either be set up for Adventure Touring or it will go to a new home. Depends on my budget, mainly. On my last birthday I bought myself a Honda ST-1100. I've wanted one for years. I love it, even if it is too tall for me. The ST and I will be making more videos before it's over. Joe The VideoBiker |
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