@tristantakephoto on Racing 800 Miles Across Morocco’s Atlas Mountains & Selling Everything to Start the Life He Wanted
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Tristan Cardew, aka @tristantakephoto, sold everything and moved from Sydney, Australia to Girona, Spain to build a life that revolved around cycling and visual storytelling. Five years later, he’s racing gravel and road at a high level and has built the creative career he dreamed about making happen.
His YouTube channel, TristanTakeVideo, has more than three million views and is built around training with Tour de France stage winners, interviewing the world’s best riders and going behind the scenes with teams at the top level of the sport.
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Tristan is also a standout documentary filmmaker and when I saw his self-shot doc about racing the Atlas Mountain Race, one of the toughest bikepacking tests on the planet, I knew I had to have him on Choose the Hard Way. The race is more than 800 miles long with 65,000 feet of climbing across remote and absolutely brutal terrain. Completing it is a feat. Making a compelling self-shot documentary while racing it is a next-level achievement.
I was excited to have this chance to talk to Tristan about his path as a creative, the story behind his Atlas Race doc, explore the question of how much is enough, and to get a preview of his upcoming documentary about racing the 466-mile Badlands gravel race in Spain. Find Tristan on Instagram @tristantakephoto and check out his YouTube channel, TristanTakeVideo.
Choose the Hard Way is a podcast about how doing hard things is fun. Please help more people find this podcast. To do that, just hit subscribe and rate the show five stars on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this episode with someone you care about.
Go to choosethehardway.com to sign up for the newsletter and if there’s someone you think would make a great guest, DM @hardwaypod.
Choose The Hard Way is a Big Truck Production. Anthony Palmer at Palm Tree Pod Co is the producer and editor and Emily Miles is head of digital and marketing. Jeffrey Nebolini is the world-renowned designer behind our brand identity and the Choose the Hard Way logo. The content for this show is created by @vontz.
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Andrew Vontz 1:57
So how did you end up doing this? This combination of things that you're doing that from the outside looks quite interesting and pretty fun. And like a lot of work?
Tristan Cardew 2:07
Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. Like I've sort of just, it's like anything good in life, you kind of just find your way into it through a combination of like passion, and interest. And so when I was growing up, I was a photographer, or like when I say growing up, you know, my late teen years, I was taking photos, I got into cycling photography, and I sort of understood how to, you know how to shoot imagery. And then in my early 20s, I started shooting a lot of weddings, as most people do, because it was a good source of income. And then as when I decided to move to Europe, I was already writing, you know, I was riding and racing in Australia. And then when I moved to Europe, I just started getting super, super, super heavily into the cycling world. Like I was in the cycling industry. I was hanging out with professional riders, I was training, you know, the same amount as professional riders, I just didn't have that, like top few percent to be a professional cyclist. And I've been racing and everything. And then I was like, I do these cool trips, and I do this cool stuff. And I hang out with these people that when I was putting photos on my Instagram, like on stories, people were replying and they were like, holy shit, this is mad, like, I don't see anyone else creating that kind of content or living that kind of life. And that was where I started thinking I should actually start to try and put some of this on YouTube. Because I've got the background in photography, I understand the framing nature of it, you know, the composition, I understand light and things like that. And then I because I photographed weddings, I understand storytelling through that. And so I understood kind of how to tell a story start to finish. Like we might get into the Atlas mountain race thing. And then combining that with where I live, which is one of the most scenic and best training places to live in Gerona for cycling. So it was like this combination of all of these things coming together. And I was like, I've got to start making some YouTube videos out of there. So I did and immediately it took off. And this was like, it was a rapid growth. At the start for me. Luckily, I had a few Instagram followers. But it took off in a way that I kind of didn't expect it to. And I was originally just going to do one year of it, you make one episode a week for the year. And then I just kept going with it. And people just started writing to me after like, two months, and we're like, like, I'd only made a few episodes. And people were like, Ah, man, you know, not to toot my own horn, but they're like, oh, man, your videos are the best cycling videos on YouTube. You got to keep going. And so after about six or seven months, I was like, No, I've got to keep this going past one year.
Andrew Vontz 4:18
How did you end up in Drona? And what was the decision making process like just to get to Europe.
Tristan Cardew 4:25
So that's another whole long story. I'll keep it short. Basically, I was in Australia and I got a flight to Europe and I was coming to Madrid and my girlfriend at the time said hey, you've always wanted to ride Why don't you take your bike and go and have a bit of a holiday in in wherever you want to ride. And at the time a friend of mine had been to Drona not riding just to visit because he'd heard it was a cycling town and he said to me, you've got to go to this little town called Drona if you're going to Spain, like you're going near the Pyrenees, go and ride your bike and Drona so I didn't know anything about Drona I came up here I booked accommodation, like two days before I got here, I just so happened to book accommodation with a guy who was an Irish cyclist journalist. And when I booked as accommodation, I was like, Hey, I'm bringing a bike. Is that okay? And he's like, oh, yeah, man I ride we'll go training together, I'll introduce you to people. So I got here on this holiday and knew nothing about Drona. And he just introduced me to this world of people here. I had the greatest two weeks of writing in my life, went back to Australia broke up with that girl, and then was like, You know what, I can move anywhere in the world now. And I enjoyed Drona a lot. Why don't I go back there. So I came back for another holiday. And then after another two weeks here, I was like, No, I really, really want to move here. Now, the second holiday was even better than the first I rode all the way across the Pyrenees to fret to, to the other side of Spain, like the French border and up around beer it's and, and just like, loved it, and was like, I just I have to be here. There's so much cycling going on, the quality of cycling is so good. There's professionals everywhere, the training is good. The entire world here exists around cycling,
Andrew Vontz 6:00
ruthless just so cut ties. You're right over there. I wanted to jump back to something you mentioned with photography. So when you got started out in photography, you said later you did weddings, what kind of subjects were you shooting when you started out, and what just drew you to that storytelling telling format or that medium.
Tristan Cardew 6:17
So when I was shooting, prior to weddings, and I started out in mountain biking, to be honest, because I was riding mountain bikes at the time. And so I was riding with my mates. And they were always better than me, like from a skills perspective, my matron better. And so when I picked up a camera for the first time, I think my parents bought us like the family. You know, every family kind of buys that, like family camera, and I just like took ownership of it. I was like, That's my now. So I started shooting photos, just for the fun of it of my mates Riding Mountain bikes. And then I'm not thinking anything of it. Like I wasn't trying to make anything of it. But I was putting some photos onto a mountain bike forum online. And then there was an editor of a magazine on that forum. And I didn't know he was there. He was just like a silent user. And he saw my photos. And then he contacted me privately. And he's like, Hey, we need some photos in our magazine, would you like to submit some photos? So I submitted some photos to that magazine, they got published, then a couple of other magazines got in touch. And then it was kind of like, well, I can actually like, I grew up reading magazines, I was like, wow, I could actually get work publishing my photos and magazines. And so I did that for a number of years came over to Europe, I shot a couple of downhill world cups and things like that. And then eventually, when I was like, Look, mountain biking is awesome. But there's, to be honest, not that much money. And unless you're right at the top, I was like I need to step into something that I can like, in my in my early 20s. I was like I need to start guaranteeing some form of income. I actually dropped out of university because I hated it. And I was like I need to my parents basically said, It's okay that you've dropped out of university, but you need to guarantee yourself some form of work going forward. And I was like, I'm going to be a wedding photographer. So that was kind of the the kick for me to really be like, how can i earn money from photography?
Andrew Vontz 8:01
Very cool. And then what was your vision for what you wanted to do with the YouTube channel? When you started out? You mentioned your goal was kind of to make one video a week, what types of videos did you intend to do at the outset? And did you even have a plan?
Tristan Cardew 8:15
At the very start, I didn't have a plan. But a plan actually quite quickly came into formation. Because when I started I was just like, I think I live. It sounds so funny to say but like I was like I think I live a critical life. You know, I do the stuff that I don't see many other people doing, I'll just start making some videos like basic vlogs about what I'm doing going out and showing who I'm writing with or where I'm riding or what kinds of writing I'm doing, whether it's a road ride, a road race, a gravel ride, or a gravel race or something like that. But then very quickly, I started to realize no, if I actually put in place a bit of a schedule as to like a more of a niche, I wanted to niche down in cycling pretty quickly. And so I was like, people love the professional cycling content. Like anytime I'd put anything with pro cyclists on my Instagram story, people were responding to it. I did a really cool trip with one of my closest friends, Ben O'Connor, who is a very good cyclist. He you know, he's a world tour. He's won a stage of the Tour de France. I did a trip with him before that I was on YouTube. And heaps of people replied to that. So the next year when I had my YouTube channel, I was like, Hey, you want to go for we'll do another bike packing trip, and I'll make a vlog about it and stuff. And he had just come back from the Tour de France. So we did that. And I noticed the best response was to sort of the professional cycling, the training, and not so much my racing but a little bit of talking about what pro riders were doing. And so then I was like, I'll niche down into more of the performance side of cycling, which is what I'm interested in. And that's what got the best response to what do
Andrew Vontz 9:45
your normal people not know about the world tour lifestyle that might surprise them?
Tristan Cardew 9:51
Everything? No, I mean, that's not true. But I think that's what interested me and part of the interest in making YouTube videos where I broke either broke the barrier or put myself in between the average everyday cyclist and a world to a cyclist as I wanted to show people, the things that they don't know, other cyclists are actually just really normal people, they just work really hard on the bike. I think a lot of people also, though, don't realize that cycling is a real job for World Tour riders, like it's not them going out and riding their bike like it's, it's very in the same way you would go and sit in an office and clock in and clock out. It's very, very specific in terms of guys will have a very set schedule for how they sleep, how they eat, how they train their intervals and things like that. And I see a lot of people not quite understanding that pro riders are at work when they're on the bike. And they need to focus in in the way that a any professional focuses when they're at work. So to answer your question, what to what do people not know? I mean, I think people have an idea. It's just the severity, to which that's taken as in it's a seven day a week job, your entire life revolves around that, you know, there are guys who missed the birth of their first child, because they're at a race. There are guys that Miss massive life events, they have to they have to be on from, you know, January, February in terms of racing through until often October. And they don't get much time off in between. And they're missing all sorts of life events in that time. So I think the level of commitment, sorry, just to bring it back to your question, I think the level of commitment is what people probably don't quite understand. It's not just riding the bike, it's like the eating the sleeping. The if you kids are sick and sleeping in another room, if you know there's stress going on at home, it's finding ways to get away from that just so you can perform optimally on the bike.
Andrew Vontz 11:44
As someone who has competed sounds like you've competed at a pretty high level. And I know that you've made some videos about your own competitive pursuits. Now that you have spent a lot of time with World Tour riders you out race on your own, and then you train with World Tour riders. What has this helped you understand about your own ability relative to the very best people in the world?
Tristan Cardew 12:07
It's been a To be honest, it's been a hard pill to swallow. Because while when I moved to Drona, I knew okay, you're probably too old to become a professional. I was 27. I always had hoped, you know, there's always this hope that like I actually maybe someone will recognize and even when I won races, I was like, oh, maybe someone will recognize me. But what really sunk in was just after a lot of times spending time with a world tour riders, it was realizing, yeah, like I can do the exact same training, I have done the exact same training. I've done the same sleep schedules, altitude training, diet, everything. And I just don't have that top few percent. And I think what a lot of people Well, I think people do understand it. But I think it's, it's a hard one to learn that the best riders in the world. Not only do all the training and the sleeping, all that, but they have the physiological elements there, which just puts them a few percentage points above the everyday person who trains as much as they can possibly train. I mean, I train in the best, what I consider one of the best training grounds in the world, being in Spain, in northern Spain, where the weather's good, the roads are good. And with some of the best riders and I just even doing the same training in the same places, I can't quite get that last few percent physiologically. So that was a tough one to swallow when I realized, okay, you're not actually going to ever be paid to ride a bike to race a bike. But then I was like, Look, I've always wanted to be a pro cyclist. How else can I go about achieving that dream. And that's also where the YouTube ties into it. Because now I have sponsors who helped me financially to basically ride my bike and make video content for a living. So I get sort of this best of both worlds.
Andrew Vontz 13:51
So let's talk about that Atlas race. And for people who are familiar with that LS race, could you just describe what the event is and what it's like?
Tristan Cardew 14:00
Yeah, so the Atlas mountain race is a race in Morocco. And it heads it's about 1100 kilometers or 1200 kilometers. It's got about 20,000 meters of climbing also, it's an ultra race. And it's a single stage race. So it's fully self supported. You don't have to stop anywhere, you can basically stop wherever you like, if you want to stop. Some guys do it non stop, you know, they'll have like 45 minutes of sleep each night. And just keep going basically, you start at one point you have to finish and another point, you have to follow the same route. That yeah, everything that happens in between is basically up to you. So carry your own food, find your own water, places to sleep, you can sleep wherever you want, you know, if you do find a hotel, you can sleep in a hotel, but in the Atlas mountain, Atlas Mountains of Morocco, there's not that many hotels, so a lot of it is like sleeping outside on the ground and bring your own sleeping gear and things like that.
Andrew Vontz 14:50
And I've been a fan of your work for a long time. That video for me is my favorite piece of work that you've done. So far, and I'm looking forward, I'm assuming you're making something about Badlands, right? Yeah,
Tristan Cardew 15:05
there's one coming from that lens as well.
Andrew Vontz 15:07
Okay. And I want to talk about that experience as well. And I'm looking forward to that video as well. But the man, just the experience that you had, in the Atlas Mountains race was so gnarly. If anybody listening hasn't seen the video yet. I really recommend going and checking it out. I'll definitely put a link in the show notes, because that's what we do on podcasts. But a lot of things happen in the course of that race, including, you know, you had a lot of difficulties with your hands. And you need your hands to hold on to your handlebars, Tristan, that's why they're called handlebars. But yeah, can you just talk I mean, I know you describe it in the video. But now that you have some distance from that experience, like what went down, like with your body, and with your mind and the course of the event?
Tristan Cardew 15:59
It was, it was really interesting, I rolled into it. So like, for starters, I'd never done an ultra before, it was the first Ultra I'd ever done. And I think an Ultra is classes, whether you class it as something that's normal stop or no sleeping or a certain distance over a certain distance. I'd never done an ultra gravel race before I'd done a bunch of shorter gravel races and road races. But I rolled into this sort of long event thinking like, this should be a bit of fun, it'll be a bit of an adventure. But then what pretty quickly unfolded was sort of the reality of like, oh, hang on a second, you're actually like 300 kilometers into a 1200 kilometer race, you're in the middle of the Atlas Mountains, it's like, well, it was you know, the first night it was six degrees and raining. And then during the day, it was getting up to, you know, high 30s. And the thing that happened with my wrist was I got like a repetitive strain injury from shifting the gears. And because I've never done an ultra, I hadn't been in that position before where I'd been shifting gears for 18 hours a day. And so I like just the small button pressing of my thumb was enough that after a couple of days, my wrist got really really sore or there was there was pain, referring from my thumb up into my wrist. And then what happened as a result of that was there was all sorts of mental fatigue going on. Because I started thinking, Am I going to be actually able to get this thing done? If I stop and I'm in the middle of the mountains, what am I going to do, you know, I'm going to walk my way out because I can't really ride because eventually I couldn't really hold the handlebars that well. And then I, on top of that when you're in the middle of nowhere, and there's not decent nutrition, I wasn't eating correctly. So not only was I physically not performing well, but then my mind like my brain wasn't working in the way that was useful working when I was riding a bike. So it was this sort of overload of the nutrition, the the pain, then the fatigue, like the first night I slept one hour, the second night, I slept two hours, but like on the floor of like a random cafe, like when I say on the floor, I mean on hard tiles, and and then the third night, I kind of had a real bit of a meltdown. And I did get a better night's sleep on it or more sleep, not a better night's sleep and more sleep on the third night because I realized, I'm gonna have to sleep if I want to get through this thing. I couldn't treat it like guys who have done Ultras before treated it, which is basically go as far as you can on no sleep. I thought I was a bit of a hero until I until I did that event and then realize no actually, the guys who are good at doing this and good at it, because they've done lots of them before and they know what's coming. And for me when I didn't know what was coming. It all became a very serious overload of physical and emotional and mental pain. And in a way, if that makes sense.
Andrew Vontz 18:37
Yeah, completely, as you've reflected on the experience, and you just kind of described this as being overloaded with a number of new sensations and situations you just hadn't encountered before. I'm curious, in that moment, what was your strategy just for navigating through that and getting to the finish what you did not to spoil it for anyone? And reflecting back on it now? Did you develop a different strategy to apply going forward?
Tristan Cardew 19:08
Yeah, I mean, the strategy going forward was screw over doing one of those again. So that's, that was kind of how I finished it. But, um, no. So what I did was when I had the third night, so like to, for anyone who hasn't seen it, I it took me five days. And on the third night, I basically was like, You know what, I'm no longer racing. I'm now just riding to get to the finish. And what that allowed me to do was just slow down and not need to rush through it in the way that I had been. So with things like the shifting of the gears, I mean, I did continue to ride but I just took it slower. I just let myself go slower. What was interesting was I let myself go slower and I actually ended up overtaking people because in going slow, I wasn't fatiguing as much and things like that and guys who had got a little bit further down the road. What down the gravel, you know, there might be 100 kilometers ahead of me in the morning, but by the evening, I'm 100 kilometers ahead of them, or 50 kilometers ahead of them. So I just let myself just ride at a manageable level. And the second half of the race became more manageable mentally. And physically, you can see it in the video as well, like I actually start to have a turning point on the morning of the fourth morning. And the year was this realization that look, you can't win every race, like I'm used to going and doing road races and being at the pointy end of road races at the level of racing, I'm racing it, I'm used to being in the pointy end, and I like to race I like to compete. And when I let that go, then all of a sudden, there was much more of a feeling of flow going on for the rest of the event. And that was what got me through. Having said that, the last night was very, very tough, because I was like, I want to try and finish in under five days. And so we started at 9am. So I was like, I want to try and finish by 9am. And in order to do that, I was like you need to write all the way through the night. So after basically having three full nights of very, very little sleep. I was like, let me see if I can pull an all nighter. Did that almost killed myself in the process? And then but I got to the finish line just a bit after five days.
Andrew Vontz 21:15
It doesn't seem like a particularly safe endeavor for human beings to engage in.
Tristan Cardew 21:21
It's an interesting one, you know, because I agree, you know, and the first thing that my mom said to me was like, how do they how are they allowed to do this, because there aren't many events that allow you like that just kind of go Yeah, ride off into the Moroccan desert, and through the mountains. And we'll see on the other side, like enjoy. You know, and there's not a lot of, there's no support out there. Like from the event, the event doesn't offer you any level of support. And if you fell off a cliff and broke your leg, like it's not even as if there's really air ambulances or anything that are gonna come and get you. You basically sign a very thin waiver at the start that says you just don't, you're not going to sue the event if something happens to you. But yeah, I think it's Atlas mountain race. It's definitely an adventure race. And it definitely pushes a lot of people to the edge of what I think most people can handle. There are shorter Ultras, and we'll talk about Badlands being one of them that's much more manageable. But that was mountain race was really an event where I think it was the first event I've ever come back from where I've said to people, I actually don't think you should do this. Like, you know, I think some people are good at it. Some people are great at it. Some people have lots of experience. But I think for the everyday cyclist, it's not something that you go, like I did go, oh, cool, I'll go and just give that a crack. You know, you need to either know what you're doing are having done some small ones before, or be very mentally prepared for, you know, very mentally ready for what's to come. Because it's a lot of time by yourself. It's a lot of time figuring out your own problems in terms of nutrition and drinking, like finding drinking water and things like that. Not getting sick along the way. And then you know, riding a bike 1200 kilometers as fast as you can is also just a physically demanding effort. And some of the tracks we were on would barely rideable. So, yeah, I mean, I agree with you. It's definitely, I would say it's at the upper limit of what most people would be able to handle for sure.
Andrew Vontz 23:17
Why did you want to do it before you did the event? What was your reason for even attempting it?
Tristan Cardew 23:24
A lot of people asked me this, you know, and I think like a lot of people would ask anyone doing Ultra is what is the reason? For me, having done a lot of cycling, like I've done a lot of writing before that it was a chance for me to be like actually, like, Can I do something that pushes me it's a bit cliche to say, but pushes me to my limit, I really wanted to do something to where I didn't know what the outcome would be. And that was quite an exciting prospect. So like anyone doing Ultras, I think there's a level of unknown there, which is both exhilarating and exciting, and anxiety and anxiety inducing. And I did have quite a lot of anxiety leading up to the event, like I really wasn't sleeping very well, because I was so concerned. But that sort of type two fun is always there, where it's like, I'm going to look back on this and it's going to be mad and looking back. And here's a combination of the worst thing I've ever done the best thing I've ever done, the most adventurous thing I've ever done. I love the video that he got out of it, because it's something that I look back on and go Well I want I'm glad I have that memory of doing that and pushing myself to that limit. And also going I've got the memory so I don't need to go and do that again. Like I know what that limit is now and I've reached that limit that I want to reach. So do I
Andrew Vontz 24:43
do know your limit?
Tristan Cardew 24:46
It's funny because as you said, like I've had some time and space away from it now and I'm like no, I could go harder. You know? On one hand I do I remember the I remember what I remember what I went through but on the other hand, I'm like getting back In a, you know, so yeah, the paradox of doing these events,
Andrew Vontz 25:06
something did having, again, having watched the video and thought about the experience that you've had a fair amount watching the video you don't I like personally, I didn't get this sense of where are you in relation to other people? Because it seems like there are very big periods of time when you're doing an event like that when there's just nobody around, or at least that was my perception. Is that actually the case?
Tristan Cardew 25:29
That is actually the case? Like what has what amazed me about that event? So I think there was about 100, and there was about 130 starters. And I can tell you, very quickly 130 People can get spread very widely across like 500 kilometers. And so, you know, you think, oh, there's 130 people around you, we rolled out and within 60 kilometers, there was no 110 minutes ahead of me and no 110 minutes behind me. And yeah, there was long periods, especially by like day three, day four, I would I spent long, long period by myself, which is fine, I love I love being by myself. But the feeling of isolation is strong when you're in the Moroccan mountains, because, like, I'm sure if I sat in one place, people would eventually come pass. But if something really bad happened, and you have to just hope that someone's coming along and someone might not come along for an hour, then that's the real, that's when the reality of like the sort of isolation sets in. Luckily, what happened to me in terms of the physical pain was not enough that I was lying on the side of the road waiting for someone to come along. But yeah, the distance was massive, and I finished, the fastest rider finished in around four days, I finished in five days and other riders took eight days. So there's this five days spread between the fastest rate or sorry, four day spread between the fastest rider and the slowest rider, which is a big period of time for people to be out on on a course. So
Andrew Vontz 26:59
when you would take your camera out to record moments, and I'm thinking about this specific experience, because I think day to day, for better or worse, everybody in the world now has the experience of imposing a narrative on what they're doing that they're going to share with everyone else, which is a pretty strange thing that that's the state of the world. But that is the state of the world. When you're in the middle of an experience like that, how were you thinking about the story element? And just like the reality of what you were feeling versus like, do I need to I don't know if you ever thought if you needed to amp it up? For the camera, I doubt it. But what was that like to like, pull out the camera?
Tristan Cardew 27:43
Mean first before I before I do answer the question, like, one thing I will say is there are so many moments that I either didn't document couldn't document, or couldn't include, because the video just would have been too long. But, you know, like for me, I thought that I might have before I did the event, I thought I might have to amp it up a little bit for the for the video. It turned out that it amped up for me. Like as I wasn't prepared to film what was going on. And that's why I ended up missing so much. So there were lots of moments when I either there were moments at the start when I wanted to pull out the camera and filming I just couldn't because it was just like I was trying to ride I was trying to race and I couldn't verbalize my every thought into the camera about how incredible it was on day one, or how exhausting it was or whatever. But then by I did, I was trying to actively pull out the camera and like trying to verbalize what I was experiencing. And a lot of what you see say on day one is just a snippet of what I was actually experiencing. But then by day three, I was I didn't need to I never needed to act, which I would hope I never acting for the camera, but like I never needed to put on or talk anything up. But by day three, I was having to force myself to pull out the camera to record what was really going on. And part of the not wanting to was because I actually got really sad that the video was unraveling in a way that I didn't expect it to. And I had had this idea of like, Yeah, I'm gonna document is amazing journey and you know, like the sort of triumph of going and doing this event and doing it well. And then when I didn't even know if I was going to finish that all started to unravel. And initially, I didn't want to admit to it unraveling to myself and to the camera. But then once I did, and I lent into that story a little bit more and I went just record it and you can put the story together afterwards. Just record your feelings and your thoughts and you know, the emotions of it. Then it was it was painful, but it was manageable. So again, like the actual event itself that kind of took me on this big trying to film it took me on this big journey of like, is this video I've waited two years to do this event and make this video. Is the video going to be a failure? Is the event going to be a failure or am I going to be a failure? I've talked to you And I tell people I'm doing this thing BMC has come on board and supported me with a bike to go down there and do it. And, you know, so the the difficulties of coming to grips with that. At first were very serious difficulties. And then they became part of the story, which is something that again, like I, I'm really happy that I documented it as much as I didn't want to. But I do want to reiterate as well, for anyone watching like there is or who wants to watch it, there's so much of it that I just couldn't tell. There's so much of the story that you experience in this five days that you just can't put into a camera when you're recording yourself. And even if someone was recording me, I wouldn't want anyone to record me in that situation because it wouldn't have been authentic. But yeah, recording myself as was a was an interesting experience.
Andrew Vontz 30:49
Not everyone has the ability to verbalize their internal monologue in a way that's actually interesting to other people. But I feel like you do and that's part of why your content is so interesting. And for me, having consumed a lot of other videos about Ultra races, the the thread is almost always something about the difficulty of the event and the human being who's documenting it unraveling, right. I mean, that's, that's kind of the typical narrative, but I did,
Tristan Cardew 31:19
yeah, I think this makes for the best stories, you know, the best of the best ones are always done when something and not that you want something to go wrong. But something goes wrong in these events. It doesn't like people said to me, stuff will just beforehand, people said stuff will just go wrong, that you won't even know is gonna go wrong. And that's what happened. And I think this happens for so many people. And if you can get that out into a way that makes sense. It's, it's it's captivating. Like, I love watching them as well. So
Andrew Vontz 31:49
yeah, and perhaps part of what's compelling about them is that for it's interesting to me, because what you've described about your trajectory actually sounds very linear and like your talent and skill had been met with opportunities at the right time. And things have kind of unfolded in a fairly linear fashion, which is not always the case, typically is not for most people. And I think with that video, in particular. And why I think people are drawn to that or things like Meru or 14 peaks are just documentaries about people endeavoring to do really challenging things is that that is most of what life is like. And that is what most of businesses like because you're just triaging the challenge that pops up. That could be incapacitating, emotionally, financially, whatever, but like you just keep going. And that's successful people figure out a way to solve those problems and just crack on. But when you when you got back home and you sat down, I just think that it's so interesting for someone who does what you do, that you then have to you then do have to impose this narrative on the experience that you've had, and you've had a lot of footage, I'm assuming so and then you had to spend probably a couple of weeks, I would guess, sitting down and putting the video together. So what was it like to have to watch yourself in that state and then impose a narrative on it?
Tristan Cardew 33:16
It's interesting, you know, because I gotta admit, like I cried a few times watching it that like as in as I was editing, the editing process took about 100 hours. So it was it was a good deal of work. I tried to let it flow as naturally as I couldn't really, like, I let the I really tried to I tried to let a lot of the music really a the storytelling. And I think from a like a cinematography perspective, that's something I guess I've always learned is the importance of music in the storytelling. So I let the narrative flow quite naturally. And then I found that as in like the way it happened, I let that flow quite naturally, I did have to take out a lot of additional things because it was getting too long. But then I really let the music kind of supplement the story. But yeah, there were a lot of moments during the event that I like the third day really spent a lot of time sort of in tears, which sounds ridiculous, given it's only day three. But it hit me that hard that it was very emotional, and then watching it back and editing it. Yeah, it was quite emotional again, especially around that period in the middle where I was watching myself, because I had just returned and I knew what I'd been through. It was watching back a little bit of the trauma. And I don't say that like I think one thing I need to say is that I just went out and did a little bike ride, you know, it's a five day event. It's not a trauma in the way that many people experience true trauma and I don't want to use that word lightly. But for me, it was something that like it was a an event in my life that really had a big impact on me whether I should use the word trauma or something else. It had a very large impact on me and so To answer your question and the editing, I kind of had to go on the same journey again, which was mainly based around the fact that I just let the narrative sort of play out in the way that I'd experienced it, supported that with music, and then and then came to a place where I was like, I think I've told the story in the way that I experienced at best without falsifying or overdoing any of it, or under doing any of it, you know, I wanted it to be what I really experienced. So I think from all the feedback I've had, you know, I'm my own harshest critic, but I think from all the feedback of how that did that, okay, and, and I got the video to a point where I was really happy with it. Yeah.
Andrew Vontz 35:40
Yeah, I would have watched something that was twice as long as what you made. I thought it was fantastic. And a really great piece of storytelling and filmmaking.
Tristan Cardew 35:48
Thanks, man. That means a lot. You know, honestly, a few people have said that to me, like I would have watched it longer. And that actually is probably the biggest compliment I can receive. Because I've grown up and made videos being a bit fearful that I'm taking up too much space and too much time. And like, I always try and edit my videos down. And yeah, like as much as I have my entire I have my personality on the internet. I'm also quite an introverted and relatively shy person in terms of having things out there and not wanting to be in people's space too much. And so when people say things like this, to me, it means a lot because it's like, oh, no, I am actually I'm okay, as a as a person to create these longer form documentaries. And I'm not going to I hope that I don't cook shit for it being too long, you know?
Andrew Vontz 36:36
No, not at all. Like, I would love to see more longer videos about more experiences like that, although I just, yeah, that was quite an early experience. So maybe let's talk about Badlands a bit. You know, that's probably a work in progress at the moment. I would think it's not of the Canada's?
Tristan Cardew 36:53
No, so I still have to, I haven't even started editing it. So I finished at the time of recording now. I finished Badlands about two weeks ago. And so the editing process will start in a couple of weeks. But Badlands man, what an experience in almost in the opposite way. Where like, I rolled into it quite quite nervous. And I came out of it just like I'm stoked. I I can't say I love the event. But I was really happy with the outcome. I was really happy with my result. I was happy with how I wrote I was happy with how I filmed it all. Everything was like so manageable. And I think it was so manageable because I'd done this whole other experience 12 months prior. So this one was much, much more manageable.
Andrew Vontz 37:38
What was different about the experience of Why did it turn out that way?
Tristan Cardew 37:42
So, Badlands is 750 kilometers, or it was going to be 790 that had to change the route the day before because of flooding in the south of Spain. And about 16,000 meters of climbing and its own terrain that I'd been told was more rideable. It was definitely a gravel bike event as opposed to Atlas, which was much more of a mountain bike event. So immediately, the time and distance was shorter. And also because I'd done an ultra before I was like I got this and it is interesting. When I finished Badlands I was like I never want to do another one. And then very quickly signed up to start when I finish Atlas. Yeah, I very quickly signed up to Badlands even though I didn't think I wanted to do another one. And then when Badland rolled around, I was like, No, I'm fully ready for this. I've got that 100% of experience from the previous Ultra. And so I had much more confidence. I also believed and trusted that because I had done Atlas and gotten through Atlas. And I could do Badlands on basically no sleep. And that's what I ended up doing. I did the 750 kilometers on no sleep. It took me just less than 48 hours, I had set myself a goal of finishing in 48 hours. And I did it in 47 hours. So it was much less physical time as well. A lot of time on the bike like I rode 41 hours out of 47 hours. But yeah, just the confidence of like, No, I can manage this was really there. And I think that was probably the best thing that I learned from Atlas was like, No, you've done a five day event, a five day 1200 Kilometer event, you can do it a two day 750 Kilometer event like it's, you know, like it's nothing. And then I carried that confidence all the way through and never had any issues. I had one slight moment where I was like, wow, this is tough, but I was like, I'm not in the Atlas Mountains. And so when I could refer to it, you know, and make a bit of a comparison and be like, I'm just in the south of Spain. You know, it's a big climate very hot. But I mean, there's south of Spain, I'm on continental Europe, there's a hospital, you know, 50 K's away if I need it sort of thing. And then I was fine. I got through.
Andrew Vontz 39:40
What is it about having to get off your bike and push it? That's so specifically terrible. It's such a terrible thing when you have right when you're why like why do I have to get off my bike and push it right now.
Tristan Cardew 39:53
It's funny you say that because at Atlas mountain race in Morocco, there was a lot of hiking bike like there was there shins, and if anyone watches the video, you'll see, one of the things that I didn't really touch on for too long is we were there was one night, on the third or the fourth night where we were like hiking down into these big crevasses and up the other side and like you carry like an 18 kilo bike fully loaded. That was just frustrating. But then what's funny is, in terms of hours of hiker bike, at Atlas, there was multiple hours of hiking the bike and carrying the bike. Whereas the Badlands there was only one small section of hiker biker, a couple that were quite manageable. But when I think it's when it breaks the flow, you know, when you're kind of in that rhythm of writing, and it's like, you get into that state where you're enjoying being on the bike, and then when you've got to get off and push, it's like you're doing another sport, it feels like you've just kind of been snapped out of this enjoyable activity, and you've got to do some other sport from it. And then you get back on the bike eventually. And it's all good.
Andrew Vontz 40:53
What is it about desert like environment like deserts or desert like environments, and adventure in humans? There just seems to be something transformational about it.
Tristan Cardew 41:06
Yeah, I don't I that's a hard one to answer. Yeah, I mean, I think that I think it's the the putting yourself on his limit. Again, like I said before, not knowing what's actually possible. You know, we're not humans aren't meant to exist in the desert. And I think there's an intrigue around that, because we live such sheltered lives. And we live in such sort of comfortable lives, that I think that those transformations come when we're when we do reach a limit of some in some way, whether it's going out into the desert to ride a bike, or, you know, for example, sailing across the ocean, my parents are currently sailing around the world on their boat. And like they've just sailed from Australia across to Mauritius. And that was a four week journey across the Indian Ocean. And obviously, not a desert. But like, you know, I think it's that expansive space where you actually don't know whether this is safe or not that that causes some change there. So the desert definitely did it for me, you know, really being? Yeah, I want to say in a precarious position a little bit.
Andrew Vontz 42:10
What were you like when you were a kid?
Tristan Cardew 42:14
Man, I was probably not a great kid. No, I think I didn't like school, I didn't enjoy school, and I didn't enjoy being told what to do. And that's probably now all that is now why I work for myself, and why I do what I do and why I move to the other side of the world, where they speak a different language because I can exist in my own world where I, you know, I'm not told what to do. So as a kid, I was quite emotional and quite inquisitive. But yeah, I didn't like being told what to do at all. So I never really fit with school. That's why when I got to university, I realized, Hey, I actually don't have to be at university. You know, there are people out working and I can go out and work. That was why I've followed that sort of pursuit of photography. But yeah, as a kid, I don't know. I guess I was probably pretty unruly.
Andrew Vontz 43:04
Were you athletic when you were a kid? And were you drawn to adventure?
Tristan Cardew 43:09
Yeah, I was definitely athletic. I loved I loved all sorts of sports. And I really always wanted to be a professional athlete of some kind. I think I wasn't focused enough. I wish I'd found cycling about 10 years prior. But I was like, I want to be a pro surfer. Or I want to be a pro skateboarder and never really committed properly to each one of those things. And wasn't really good enough to be honest. But then it was when I got into cycling that I that I was like, Oh, actually I can go up hills quite well, because I'm way too much I enjoy road cycling, I enjoy the speed I enjoy the performance. I enjoy the feeling of improvement through cycling when you as you get fitter, you know, if that makes sense. So yeah, I was definitely I was definitely athletic. But yeah, just a bit probably disorganized mentally to no one ever took me under their wing and said we can we can turn you into a professional sports person.
Andrew Vontz 43:56
Other than the aspects of cycling that you just described, which is it sounds like when you started it, you had a relatively good power to weight ratio. So maybe, maybe that was something You excelled at? What do you like about the feeling of cycling? Or where does cycling take you as a human being?
Tristan Cardew 44:13
Confession? I, for me, one of my biggest motivators in life is a feeling of improvement. You know, like, it doesn't matter what it is, it doesn't matter whether it is to do with business or whether it has to do with cycling or anything else. You know, it's like just even learning about a subject I find interesting when you start to improve your level of knowledge in something. So for me, I'm really it's the feeling of being able to do something or go somewhere or achieve something or realize a gold that you've never done before. That's a massive draw card. And, you know, like I've said about outlets Part of my reason for wanting to do it is just because you don't know if it's possible. And then you go and do it and you realize it is possible that feeling of like I've achieved something I've never done before is of them not repeating myself. It's just it's just such a drawcard. It's just such a fascinating prospect for me. And I think, you know, in the on the, the deeper sense of being a human being, I love the idea that, like we're born, and we really don't know anything. And by the time were old, and you know, effectively going to die, I hope to reach for me personally, I hope to reach this point where I've gained as much I've absorbed I've sponged as much out of life as I can, whether it be knowledge or experience or wisdom, or, yeah, like stories, those are the things that I want to I want to have as much within my person as possible at the end of my life, so that when I do die, or before I die, I can look back and be like, Yeah, you got every ounce, you got every, you know, sort of experience out of life that you could have got out of life. Possible, I don't, I don't want to die with any regrets. And I know, that's a very deep thing to say, but like I don't, I don't want to get to the end of my life. And whenever that might be, and look back and be like, I should have done X, Y, and Z, I had taken advantage of these things and didn't do it, you know,
Andrew Vontz 46:17
in the other direction, what is cycling, or what you do as a storyteller, the trajectory that you're on, what has it enabled you to access within yourself, what knowledge that existed within yourself that maybe you hadn't reached before.
Tristan Cardew 46:32
I would say to start out with sort of along the lines of that same point I just made about the feeling of improvement, it's taught me that if you commit to something, and it actually doesn't extend outside of cycling, you know, if you commit to something, and you really commit to it in every way, like physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, the you know, in terms of the hours that you put in all these things, it's incredible what you can do, like cycling is the vessel for which I've learned that, but it applies to anything. And so when, for example, I started my YouTube channel, I know that with my YouTube channel, that my videos at the start were average, and I know that they improved and I think they have a lot of improvement left to go. But I know that provided I make that commitment to them and to the channel that it will naturally grow. And the same is obviously true business. You know, it's for yourself, like it's when you commit, commit to something completely, the growth will happen. And it's there. And people do now message me occasionally and say, How should I grow my YouTube channel, or I want to start a YouTube channel, what should I do, and I was just say, man, or like, whoever it is just put one foot in front of the other, and you will reach a destination, you know, like, the fastest way to get from A to B is to just stand up and put one foot in front of the other and you'll make your way there eventually. And like Atlas, say, for example, Atlas is a small version of that was I knew when I was really suffering, the only the fastest way to get to the finish was just gonna be to do it, you know, it was just to get on the bike and just keep writing and even when I was in pain to just keep pushing on the pedals because eventually that was going to get me there the sitting around the complaining the crying, the wanting to find food that going off track to find food, you know, that like that sort of thing was not going to get me to the finish any quicker. What was going to get me there was getting me there, you know, to the finish. So
Andrew Vontz 48:26
how does what you consume, inform what you make,
Tristan Cardew 48:30
in terms of YouTube videos, or
Andrew Vontz 48:34
whatever, like music, other art you're ingesting, I don't know, whatever it is that inspires you.
Tristan Cardew 48:42
I think for me, funnily enough, I mean, I grew up watching so many surfing videos, and like my parents could attest to the fact that they would come home from work and I would have been at home for three hours just watching surfing videos. And but the way that that informed way my video making is that I like to include as much music driven action in my videos as I can. And so if you watch any of my videos, you'll see there's these peaks and troughs of music that kind of have sequences of writing to them to give people that feeling of action. And that has come from a background of watching, you know, surfing, skiing skating videos when I was younger. So that was my first sort of point of inspiration, but then also from speaking perspective and, and, like the actual verbal stuff in my videos. I've been quite inspired, I guess I would say by like, my mum and my dad are quite philosophical people. I find that quite interesting. I try and surround myself with people who like to think and talk about life so that there's always a sense of learning going on. And so sometimes I've stopped doing it as much because it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily fit as well in the genre as I would like it to in terms of the cycling YouTube space, but I've At the start, I do try to drop in more sort of thoughts about life and philosophical sort of concepts and things like that. Because part of being a human being is being able to think and being able to consider what we're doing. And so that like, philosophical side of my parents and the people that I like to surround myself with, and what I watch, or what I look at on Instagram, also, you know, from a more sort of deep, profound thinking way, I let have an influence on the way that I think and that sometimes comes out in videos.
Andrew Vontz 50:29
I had this sense that you probably had some kind of background in skateboarding.
Tristan Cardew 50:35
Oh, yeah. You picked up on that? Yeah, definitely. I
Andrew Vontz 50:37
mean, I do as well. I also used to write for a skateboard magazine, big brother does one of the skate mags that you strive for. But yeah, I mean, I can see the influences in your work and with what you just described, when you think about, you know, where you want to take your work? And what would be the ultimate expression of your vision? What are some things you haven't done, that you'd like to do in the future?
Tristan Cardew 51:01
So this came up in my mind when I was doing Badlands. Because, you know, during an alter ego, lots of time to think. And I thought to myself, What is the ultimate? Like, what's my ultimate aim? And honestly, I think one goal that I have in mind is, and it's, it's weird to say it out loud like this, but I would like to go and win an event, a big event. And I would like to document at the same time, you know, it's a very difficult thing to do. Because what I've learned over lots of YouTube episodes, and races that I filmed and adventures that I filmed, is that it's very hard to do both of them. Well, sorry, it's very hard. And when I say both, it's very hard to write an event really well and film it really well, you know, but I would like to go and race an event and finish in first place, and have the story told at the same time as Intel, the story myself, I don't want someone filming me, I want to film myself in the way that I do very first person. But I want to have the ability to finish the event first. And the ability to film the documentary, so that I've got this piece of work that's like, there's not many people doing this. You know, there's lots of people filming events that they're doing, and lots of people filming Ultras and making vlogs. But I want to be the guy that like, went and filmed a video himself and himself winning. So that's my, that's the sort of the pipe dream, you know, I'm gonna hold it up there and hopefully get there one day,
Andrew Vontz 52:19
what type of event
Tristan Cardew 52:22
another ultra, you know, like, as much as I finished Atlas and was like, I'm never going to do one again. Then I signed up for Badlands, I had a good experience of Badlands. But even after that, I was like, oh, maybe it's a once a year thing. But I think Ultras are the ultimate test of every form of bike riding in a way because you're racing. But you're also you have to have shortstops, you've got no support, you have to you know, make sure you find your own food. So you're going through all these different, there's all these different layers to it. It's not like a road race, where it's just like, you know, a couple of hours, it's like multiple days of survival while riding a bike. And I think it also gives you enough time, it would give me enough time to document what's going on in a complete way. And hopefully the bad lens video comes out well. So you can see what happens in 48 hours rather than, you know, 125 hours. But yeah, and ultra and Ultra is the one.
Andrew Vontz 53:16
Yeah, when you combine the Ultra, the filmmaking in the cognitive load of both just the just from an operational point of view, wow, the logistic complexity of that. Yeah, just the batteries, it's like it's making me thinking about having all the batteries charged at the right time, like
Tristan Cardew 53:37
the well the other thing is, like one of the big things with, you know, an ultra that I have learned as well as like, it's actually not the writing thing that makes people suffer, it's actually the stopping, you know, it's all the stopping and like you do need to stop a certain amount to let your legs rest. But actually what takes up the time and an ultra, like I tried to stop as minimally as possible during Badlands and I still slept for six hours. And that was not that was with no sleep. I did have some stomach issues, which you'll see in the video. But basically, like when I to in order to do really well at an ultra, you have to stop with as little as possible. And if I want to film this thing, as well, that means I'm filming everything I'm filming is while I'm moving. So it's the logistical operation of riding a bike filming at the same time not allowing yourself to stop getting through it as fast as possible and still documenting, you know, the landscapes around you what you're experiencing when you have thoughts pop up, like actually being able to get those thoughts out onto the camera. So like pull the camera out, record yourself while you're climbing. But because you're in a race, you're still trying to climb at a reasonable speed. You know, it's not like, it would be very easy to just stop and kill yourself talking. But this is why it's become this ultimate goal for me because I want to do it without I want to do the event like I'm racing the event and I also want to film it in the way that I know I could if I was maybe not racing or
Andrew Vontz 54:58
is it is the I mean, the disadvantage of stopping is clearly it takes time. Is it also about just a general sense of inertia? And maybe mental inertia creates when you get back on the bike? Is it just hard to start again?
Tristan Cardew 55:12
Absolutely, yeah, this is, this is the entire thing. It's like, you want to remain in that state of movement. And you don't want to be like, cooling down, heating up again, you know, like warming up and cooling down. It's kind of staying in almost a state of rhythm, where when you stop, if you do make this stop short, just to grab something that you don't allow yourself to, say, for example, pull out your phone and look at the phone for a bit and just have a breather, it's like, no, do what you need to do. finish doing that, what you need to do, compartmentalize what you need to do. So if you're getting food, you get the food, you put in your bags, you eat whatever you need to eat, you keep going. And so you haven't given yourself a chance to like stop and slow down, which is very intense to do like to not stop like that at all for say 48 hours or 72 hours or a bit longer and an ultra. That's it's a lot of physical work. It's a lot of physical moving to always be moving. So that's where the challenge is. And again, going back to why I enjoy cycling, it's like finding a challenge that I've never done before going out pursuing it and realizing oh, that is actually possible. Yeah, I like that side of it.
Andrew Vontz 56:23
No faffing.
Tristan Cardew 56:24
No faffing. Yeah, exactly.
Andrew Vontz 56:27
Awesome. Tristan, thanks so much for taking time to join me. I'm really looking forward to seeing the Badlands video and seeing where you take this thing. Hopefully seeing that big Ultra victory with the accompanying film where you're talking to the camera, which what a flex
Tristan Cardew 56:42
see if I can do it. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Awesome. Thanks.