I Built a Bicycle to Go Surfing - This is What it Took.

I had a trip coming up to St. Augustine Florida with my family and I really wanted to go surfing, but I never learned to surf! So it seemed like a great opportunity to modify my bicycle to make it sea worthy! The only problem was I had just a couple weeks to build it and have never welded before, or worked with fiberglass and I had to do both of those things. 

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO HERE

There were plenty of challenges to create this "contraption" as our family friend Tom likes to call it. The first was just figuring out what in the hell I needed buy to build this thing. I learned about this small fishing vessel called a "belly boat" which was the perfect starting point. But from there I knew it would take a bunch of welding to create a metal frame that is strong enough to withstand the waves. So that's the gist of it but because this video seemed to tank again and just get like 300 views as I type this, I'm going to take this opportunity to really dissect the cavern between my effort and the outcome at this time in my journey just to help me cope and process it a bit. I also think it'll be interesting to breakdown what goes into a video for whoever's reading this as of course with any YouTube video that's the tip of the iceberg. 

First I'll start with the financial cost. Now I'm fortunate I have the money to be able to do this, BUT it still hurts to look at the total time and financial investment versus the  return on moving the needle towards my dream of becoming a full time creator. 

1. Used Bicycle: $100 
2. Used Belly Boat: $75
3. Used Kite Board: $70 
4. Welder: $150 
5. Angle Grinder: $80 
6. Welding mask, gloves, brush and flux: $50 
7. Respirator: $30 
8. Metal tubing:  $90 
9. Nuts, bolts, spray paint, velcro, fiberglass: $50
10. Then I had to TRANSPORT IT OF COURS: 
11. Topper Box: $200
12. Bike Rack: $70

All making for a GRAND TOTAL of $965 to make this video a reality! NOW, of that, I can continue to use most of it which is great. My new ability to work with metal opens up UNTOLD doors for future projects that I'm incredibly excited about. And, I had been meaning to get a topper box for quite a while so really this road trip was a great excuse to buy one. See, this is how I'm processing. We're good. It's all good here. 

BUT THEN I THINK OF THE HOURS. I mean, I've never done this in detail so I'm going to TRY to process how much went into this video. Oh FYI I didn't do this in two weeks, it took like 6 weeks for the build and 2 for the edit. 

Planning: 8 hrs

No idea, but I can conservatively say I spent 8 hours brainstorming how to build this, jokes I can put in the video, outlining the goal and story of the video

Shopping: 9 hours

When taking into account 3 hours of driving alone to buy the used bike, board and belly boat, I easily another 6 hours perusing Facebook marketplace, making trips in and out of Ace Hardware and Lowes, and researching and shopping for welders including a completely failed trip to buy a used bike from a sketchy pawn shop that ended up being a scam ad and I left with a used sander because I needed one (oh yeah, I guess add that $15 to the tab earlier). 

Building/Filming: 70+ hours

I mean truly untold hours... It's not worth the time right now to break it down in detail, maybe for the next video I'll document it to scratch that itch and know truly what goes into it. But just consider that I had basically done 2 welds, 4 years ago before diving into this project. So there was a big learning curve and there were 20 welds on square pipe, so that's basically 80 welds for me. I had to shape and fiberglass the nose of the surfboard twice. Spray paint it. Each time assembling and disassembling it took me about 45 minutes because I had to inflate those tubes with my own lungs. I mean it's just silly. THEN, the filming day at the beach alone was 11am - 4 pm. Plus breakdown and cleaning all of the saltwater off of the parts to minimize rusting on the frame. I actually per Tom's advice submerged the whole bike and frame in the pool at the place we were staying. 

Editing: 60+ Hours

My editing routine is basically going from 9pm until about 12am to 2 am and sometimes later depending on how sleepy I get. and I'll do this every weekday for 2 week. Then weekends I start cleaning up the garage to be in good shape for the next build (and doing other productive procrastinating projects around the house) but probably putting in a 8 hours each day but getting to bed at a decent time usually. Also, my dumbass always thinks I can finish a video much faster but that's not how the creative gods work unfortunately. So I first try to assemble a rough cut to go through all the beats and pull out all of the best clips in somewhat of a proper timeline. Then I go back to chop that down and refine it a bit while finding what the intro and story will be. Then I start on the intro and voice over while refining the footage down further. Then I'll start adding music, and more details that help establish the tone which then often alters some of the voice over and pacing so it's all getting more refined. Then I have a edit I'm pretty happy with and I micro analyze the first 30 seconds of the intro to make sure pace, intrigue, setup and excitement all seem as good as I can possibly make it. Then I show it to my girlfriend to see how she reacts, then I uploaded an unlisted version and sent that to some other YouTuber friends for feedback. Then I make final edits. Yikes, it's exhausting me just to type out (but I know every creator worth their salt does the same in their own way because we love it.) And all the while I'm thinking of Titles and thumbnails 

Thumbnail: 6+ Hours

I make like 5 different versions, and this time around used my top 3 to see what might work. My click through rate on this video was laughable (below 3%) so obviously I did a shit fuckin job on this. BUT, I took one night for like 3 hours and assembled and studied 6 thumbnails of the most popular and recent videos of of my creators in the creative maker space and took notes to then come up with this one. So if that time is considered it was easily more than 6 hours total. 

TOTAL HOUR COUNT: 144+ Hours that went into a 16 minute and 44 second video. 3.5 full time work weeks. 

So, does it suck that all of this work only got me 300 views at this time? YES 100%. But, in this, I felt so much pride of my growth, my end creation, the experience I shared with my family and girlfriend and what I learned. I proved I can competently weld now even if it's ugly as sin. I improved my understanding of thumbnails and titles even if I continue to fail at them. I built something that brought a ton of joy to myself and those around me. I was able to make shared memories for us that NO ONE can take away. Except dementia and Alzheimer's. But OTHERWISE core memories that will be taken to the grave for me and hopefully others! 

Like I have probably said before, one of my biggest fears is living a normal life and why I do this, life gets interesting fast. I love it too much to quit, and the exciting part is I just don't know when my content will start to resonate but I know without a doubt eventually it will. 

If you read this, thank you and I hope you'll share this damn video if you enjoyed it!