This video was made for the “triathlon” part of the i-am-specialized website.

The i-am-specialized website is aimed at being the public’s way of following Specialized riders’ racing and stories online. It is a new site and will mostly aim at internet video content. Internet video is the new TV.

I am honoured to be the 1st triathlete to have a video on the site. Terrenzo and Macca will have videos soon…

The shoot started with swimming. Bobby Behan- our Marketing Manager (and a few other things) used to be a pro triathlete himself, (we lived and trained together in Stellenbosch in 2000) so he knew exactly what needed to go into this movie. He sat in the director chair for 2 days.

Aaron Vogel just realized his dream job by becoming Specialized’s first in-house videographer. He says it wasnt really his dream job- he couldnt dream of a job where he could ride bikes and make movies AND get paid for it!

Anyway, Bobby decided we’ll kick off with swimming. And posing. Lots and lots of posing. I hate posing, but it was one of the many things I learnt about acting that fateful day….

After an interview about training and swimming (to use a voice over video) Aaron, Bobby and myself had lunch and set off to Henry Bear park. A beautiful place in the hills near the Specialized head quarters in Morgan Hill, CA.

Aaron had this huge equipment bag- at least 40lbs- and was trying to climb these really steep hills on an Enduro bike. (ie not a climbing bike!) I remembered seeing a really pretty place on top of the hills and made them ride up there instead of shooting at the bottom of the hills- which is less scenic. Aaron was wearing a full face helmet with a camera mounted - so he was really suffering. So I helped and rode the bag to the top.

Of course we still had to do the run pictures. The light was getting really good, but it was a race against sunset. We still had to shoot 3 locations running and an interview. You’ll notice in the last interview on the video where the light is fading fast. And I look hungry, tired and broken from a full days’ acting. Acting is not glamorous, its definitely hard work and real actors are really gifted. I just rode my bike, swam and ran, (many takes) and mumbled a

few lines. No use scripting those- when I repeated scripted lines it sounded like and old gramophone that got stuck.