This blog now has a YouTube Channel – Biking4Boomers.

Biking4Boomers on YouTube.

Dreams don’t come true unless you take the initiative to make them come true.  So today I’m announcing a bit of initiative.

In my last post, I wrote about wanting to take my wife and drive my vintage Minnie Winnie (Winnebago) around the country riding my bike and doing videos for a YouTube channel.

Well, I have the bike, the RV, and the wife, but not a YouTube channel.

Enter, Biking4Boomers.

I honestly never intended to create the channel.  I was sort of just riffing when I wrote that post.

It was fun.  The words just rolled out of me.  They made me smile.

Maybe there was a reason. Maybe the love for the idea was just oozing out.

Biking4Boomers is not THAT farfetched.

If you live near me in Roanoke, Virginia, you likely already know I’ve been able to look at a camera and talk well enough that people other than my mother will watch.  You may or may not also know that my two oldest sons, Jonathan and Ben make their living from their YouTube channel, the Super Carlin Brothers, while youngest son, Tyler is making great inroads as a podcaster.

So who’s to say that I, as a newscaster, photographer, public relations specialist and avid cyclist can’t get some people to follow my exploits?

Sounds like a decent pitch, right?

Maybe. But doing it is something else.

What will Biking4Boomers be about?

One of my YouTuber sons asked me what I wanted to focus on with my proposed channel.

“Well, um, you know…” I said.

“That’s what I figured,” he replied.

The thing is that there is sooo much content on YouTube related to any topic that it’s hard to get traction.  It’s hard to find a niche that isn’t so saturated that even the best Netflix binge watchers couldn’t consume it all.

Bicycle riding has hundreds of channels. Some of them have millions of viewers.  So how am I going to break through for videos of my Minnie Winnie Adventures?

I had a great idea.

Let’s do a channel for people who can barely get out of bed in the morning.  A generation that increasingly navigates supermarket aisles on Hoverrounds.  In addition, let’s find a dedicated audience whose members are, well disappearing at a faster pace than any other known age group. 

Yes.  Let’s do a cycling channel for Baby Boomers.

That’s how Biking4Boomers was born.

I just know I’m onto something here.

An auspicious start for Biking4Boomers

Speaking in the most general of terms, the idea is that we baby boomers are looking for low impact exercise.  Our kids are grown and we want to see the country. We might even have a little money.   We want to ride on the local greenways and rail trials, and occasionally test our skills on a challenging road ride or mountain bike trail.

At least that’s my story.

If there are enough people in my little slice of bikedom, maybe I can get some of them to watch.

So while I’m promising to take people along on these great adventures where I tell them what to expect and show them the trips from drones, fancy cameras, and Go Pros, the first thing I did was turn on my phone in the driveway and just start talking.

Brilliant.

My muse is your muse.  I hope.

My current mountain bike is a five-year-old Santa Cruz Tallboy.  Over the past few months, the boys have hooked me up with various upgrades, and I’ve filled in with a few of my own.  This week a friend and former bike shop mechanic will be hanging them on the rig, including a custom pair of Industry Nine carbon rims that cost more than the original bike.

How can you not be interested!!??

I videoed the bike in its current state.  Then I pointed the camera at the piles of boxes of new components.  It’s stuff I drool about when I see it online or in catalogs.

Or on other people’s bikes.

I hope the people who watch this are drooling too. (And that it’s for the same reason.)

So my first video is all about the bike build that’s going to be.  Then the next video will be what it turns out to be.  That will be followed by a clip on what it’s like to ride it.

It may sound like I’m milking this project for all it’s worth.

But I’m not.

Remember the audience is my fellow Baby Boomers.

Don’t want to go too fast.

In all seriousness, I hope you enjoy the new channel, and that you’ll subscribe to it and check out the videos. I really hope to make it worth your while whether you want to see where to go, how to ride over a bunch of rocks without breaking any bones, or you just want to see how older people are enjoying bikes and being outdoors. I’ll see you out there. Thanks.