The Part You Don’t See in Motorcycle Ride Videos

When people watch a motorcycle ride video, they usually see the good stuff.

The open road. The scenery. The curves.

The bike rolling through places most folks only see in pictures.

And don’t get me wrong, that’s a big part of why I love doing this.

But there’s a whole other side to making motorcycle videos that doesn’t always show up on camera.

The wind beating you up for hours. The sun washing out a shot you thought was going to be perfect. The camera battery dying right before the best view of the day.
The road noise, the mic issues, the missed turns, the bad angles, and the moments where you think, “Man, I hope I got that on video.”

Sometimes the ride itself is incredible, but when you get home and start editing, you realize the camera didn’t capture it the way it felt in real life.

That’s one of the hardest parts about motorcycle content.

A road can feel huge when you’re on it. The cliffs can feel taller. The wind can feel stronger. The moment can feel more intense. But once it’s flattened into a video, it can be tough to make someone feel what it was really like from the seat of the bike.

That’s also why I’ve started looking at these videos a little differently.

It’s not just about showing where I went. Sometimes that story is a perfect scenic road. Sometimes it’s fighting the wind all day. Sometimes it’s getting surprised by a place you didn’t even know you were going through. Sometimes it’s the quiet stretch between stops where you realize how lucky you are to be out there at all.

Not every ride video is going to get big views. I knew that when I started posting more of them. Ride videos are different. They’re slower. They’re more about the feeling than the shock factor. But to me, that’s part of what makes them worth sharing.

Because motorcycle trips aren’t just made of highlight reels.

They’re made of long miles, wrong turns, fuel stops, weather changes, bad audio, good friends, tired backs, beautiful roads, and the kind of moments you don’t always appreciate until later.

That’s the part you don’t always see in the video.

But it’s the part that makes the ride real.

One mile at a time.

~ Athrottleholic