hello and welcome to the very first episode of TWC monthly.
On this series, I'll be doing monthly updates
talking about news with this channel, recent videos that I've made
talking about upcoming videos
and things that i want to talk about in the future.
Just an easy way for me to be in touch
and since this is the first video of
this kind on this channel I thought I
should do a proper channel introduction
on what exactly is "Two Wheel Cruise"
To begin, let me start with a
self-introduction. So my name is Cruise.
I'm an American cyclist living and working in Japan.
Two of my biggest passions
throughout my life I've been cycling and Japanese culture.
As a cyclist, I've raced all over the US.
I've also raced internationally, doing races in
Canada, China, Puerto Rico, Japan.
So doing everything from road, track, mountain bike, and cyclocross.
I've also been studying Japanese now for about five years or so..
And now just living the dream, living in Japan
Also experiencing the cycling
culture here, exploring Japan by bike
doing what I love and that brings me to "Two Wheel Cruise"
So I've always been a fan of YouTube.
And one of my goals since moving to Japan was to make my own YouTube channel about my life here in Japan.
But the longer I stayed, the more I kept procrastinating.
and I just never made the channel..
I coming up with excuses like I don't have time.
I have too many other things going on
don't have confidence to really talk in front of the camera.
So I kept procrastinating and
procrastinating and never really took the first step.
Anyway, long story short..
I finally gathered enough motivation to start this
channel and actually made that my goal
and New Year's resolution for 2017.
To keep myself on track with actually coming through with making videos.
So the beginning, the first challenge I faced was
deciding what kind of channel should I make?
I of course wanted to make a
channel about my life in Japan
things that I thought were interesting here but
there's a lot of channels like and I
didn't want to just limit myself to making the same types of videos.
I also wanted to make a cycling channel, but I didn't want to make it
only appealing to cyclists
So I thought I'd sort of mix my two passions
riding bikes and also exploring Japan.
so i'll have... I plan on doing a variety of different videos.
Some more cycling oriented, some more Japan oriented.
and some combining the two
So maybe exploring some more traditional area, talking about the history
talking about the local culture while riding the bike there, and mixing the two that way.
So I decided I'd mix those
But I also want to be inclusive of other things that I do.
For example, I recently did a cycling trip to Taiwan
which of course isn't related to Japan really
I think the three themes I'm going for right now with this channel are going to be
Japan, bikes and also different adventures.
So sort of a misc category.
So recently, I had a holiday at work
which gave me some time to start working on developing my editing skills.
So until now I've never really done any video editing.
I'm a web developer, so i do a
bit of development and some design
but it's quite different than video editing, so it's
been a pretty time-consuming learning process
learning to make these videos.
My first video was a little bit rough
that was about exactly one month ago and I made
it for local cyclocross race here in Japan
and just lots of problems
audio quality was horrible, lots of sound from the case on the GoPro.
And some sound you couldn't hear with people talking
and just the timing of the music, not sure what kind of music I could use.
and just a lot of uncertainty, it just took forever.
But, that's to be expected with the first video
You don't know until you try
so it's been gradually getting better for each one
After that, I did a two week trip to Taiwan, where I brought my bike.
did some cycling and I made a youtube series for that
called the "Taiwan Cycling Trip" here on the Two Wheel Cruise channel
So if you haven't seen that yet, make sure to give it a look
It's pretty fun. The first video is definitely lower quality
than the later videos but it's an interesting
and you can see the transition
each video hopefully gradually gets a little bit better.
and some days I'm mostly riding bikes,
Other days I'm doing more touristy things
So it's not a cycling only trip
but it mixes everything I did on that trip
So far that series has gotten a lot of positive feedback
which makes me really happy and actually the
day one video is now close to 2,000 views
which is pretty great i think for only a few weeks.
and a brand new YouTube channel with only 75 followers now
so far
like I said earlier it's been about a month since I started this channel
and I wanted to wait to do that kind of introduction video, because I didn't have
really many videos or much content to really talk about.
but now I've got a month out, i've got about 10 or so videos out on YouTube.
And just really happy with how it's going so far
I have a lot that I'm looking forward to with future videos.
A lot of ideas in my head, now just practicing with all these different videos.
developing that video editing process so that I can present the information I want to in a better way.
I'm really excited to continue
developing those skills and making new and interesting videos.
One other thing, my good friend Natalie, who appears in some of the later Taiwan Cycling Trip videos.
She came and stayed there with me for a week.
She's also a graphic designer and web developer
she made an awesome logo, that we're using here on this channel now.
I'm absolutely in love with this logo, so thanks Natalie!
She just surprised me the logo one night
while we were in the hostel, and just absolutely fell in love with it when she showed it to me.
So thanks Natalie!
Definitely helps to create more of a branding for this channel
and make it look a little bit more professional
So going into the last thing for today's video
That's what I want to do in each monthly video
Do a "coming up" next month part section.
So I've got a lot of video filmed already
The problem is just finding the time to edit it and get everything out and published.
But the good side of that is I have a lot of ideas
I have a lot of content ready to go
Just the editing that needs work.
So the things that I'll be working on this next month, going into march, is..
continuing with the Taiwan Cycling Trip videos.
I've still got at least about six more of those to go, so it's about halfway done right now.
In addition to that, some other topics I have are
snowboarding at the Niseko ski resort in Hokkaido, Japan
So I went there with a friends who I met in a hostel while I was in Taiwan.
about two weeks ago, so that was a cool turn of events.
another interesting trip is the
cycling modeling trip I did in Guam
So, yeah, I did some modeling for a cycling company in Guam
I had to wait until pretty much now because
lot of the things that are featured in that video are for their new product lineup
So I couldn't show that until it was released
and now it's released, so I'll be making that video soon.
that one's gonna be exciting. Unfortunately, I filmed it at low quality, but
should still be a nice fun video
another one is track cycling at the Gifu Keirin velodrome
So getting on the tracks here, the velodromes here in Japan
is very difficult, very strict
If you don't speak Japanese, you're pretty much not getting on
and even if you do, the chances of getting on
or the opportunities to get on are so few
This was a great opportunity we got to go check out the track nearby in Gifu
which is close to Nagoya, so that's gonna be a nice, fun video.
other video that i filmed from a long time ago was last summer or late last summer
I rode my bike from Nagoya to Kyoto and Osaka
so I've got a lot of footage from that so I'll hopefully be making that video too as well if I have time.
So like I said, I have lots of things coming, really excited for it all
just really need to find the time and hopefully improve the speed of my editing skills
so I can get this content out
I've also got a lot more ideas on videos to make in the future
but if you have any ideas
anything that you want to hear
any questions you want answered about
cycling maybe in Asia, in Japan
questions about Japan in general i can try and make those featured in a future video.
so feel free to write those in the comments down below
and lastly this channel is just starting out so it would mean a great deal to me if you
like the videos, share them or just subscribe to the channel
every little bit helps
It's definitely encouraging to help continue to motivate me to make these videos
Seeing all these different people like and interact with the videos makes me really happy
So anyway, thats it for today's first TWC Monthly update.
Until next time, TWC OUT!