@SuryA

I'll make it sticky for a while to support you. And buy Tascam DR100 MKII, not zoom H4n.

Seriously gnarly! I've always wanted to tour, but made too many excuses. I own Surly's semi equipped to hold gear so I was just about ready. Wish you the best of luck on your adventure and really looking forward to how you guys setup and tear down gear. Awesome!

Great idea! I was wondering where you'll stay in between those announced cities. Riding from Amsterdam to Hamburg, for instance, is a looong way.

@griplimited Thanks!

@Tobsen Not only will be be lugging the audio/video equipment in our trailer, but also all the needed equipment for camping. Since we're not stopping in between cities (ofc we'll have to do some night timelapses and other stupid stuff if only to divert ourselves) and will be stopping easily a week or two in each city to shoot, well we'll be camping a lot, if not exclusively when on the road. Probably not so often in campsites either (hey that equipment is expensive, gotta save up somewhere!)

@soundgh2 Haha great thanks! I've studied audio engineering for a while so I get the frustration. Specially since I didn't know much about the whole video workflow when I started doing that, I was shocked at the crap they used! Hey, we're down for special requests, whatever you'd like we'll get! Can't wait to be on some beach with a frosted bottles of that beer!

Ok Vitaliy you asked for it, so let me give all of you some more details.

First about the show: It won't be much of a travel show, but of course it will contain an element of it since well, we'll be on the road. There will be transitions at the beginning and end of each episode (we hope around 40 min eps) that will contain whatever amusing things happen while on the road. The real focus will be the cities. And by cities I mean the life that it contains, so no history or facts unless they are relevant. We'll be looking for young local people to show us there life, friends, essentially what they do every day.

It's interesting to me because my generation was born in the midst of exponential globalization. It think it's safe to say today that we all have, that we want it or not, a general background, a shared background because of the different aspects of globalization. I know it but I want to see it for myself, and most importantly what I want to see is how different cultures/countries react to this new common background.

Which is why we'll be looking for groups of friends, if possible that have something in common they gather around. It doesn't matter if it's sports, art, videogames, flying kites or even playing monopoly every friday night. That's going to be the hard part, finding people. I hope (and believe) that because of this background we'll find a lot of people willing to show us what they do and take us with them for a little while.

Secondly, about the travel part: To be quite honest, we kinda forgot about those logistics and they're slowly coming back to us. I mean to most people ( and they're right), the logistics of doing such a long trip are pretty monstrous and will get you worried. We've been focusing all our attention on the show. Then we're not totally unseasoned in this kind of thing, we've toured on bikes a few times, and well for my part having been a bike messenger, which is an incredibly tough job, makes me think the whole bike part will be a walk in the park. Which it won't. Anyways I'd rather focus on making the best show I can than focus on my own comfort, but still, we're prepared.

On the travel equipment side of things, we're leaving on quite a peculiar bike, a semi recumbent bike: the Performer Family (I know, doesn't seem very travel friendly) http://www.performer.com.tw/2010/user/product_2.php?wp=05&sno=00552 Its a cheaper version of the popular Pino Haze (THE semi recumbent bike) but it's much cheaper (around quarter the price) and is probably built in the factory next door in Taiwan. The main advantages of using this are: -Weight and practicality: It might seem heavy, but it's lighter than two separate bikes, so you have less bike to lugg around per person. Also less parts to break and it's easier to deal with one bike than two (parking etc) -It goes faster: Basically since there is only one aerodynamic trail instead of two you cut down wind resistance by a little less than two. Also there are only four friction points instead of eight on two bikes. Since there are two wheels for two people, the frictions points are the contact points between the wheels and the ground, and the hubs (center part of the wheel). -It's nicer to ride than a traditional tandem, or even two bikes: here both can clearly see the road infront, which you can't say about a normal tandem. Since the head of the front rider is basically in between the rear riders arms, you can very very easily communicate, which isn't the case for a regular tandem or two separate bikes. There are two different positions and we can switch as to not hurt our butts too much (although I'm pretty used to it)

As for everyday life and travelling, well nothing to complicated, we'll have two tents and all the common necessities (my dad works in a outdoor sports shop so we know our way around): gps, solar panel and all that. We plan on stocking all that we don't need in the cities (camping stuff) in lockers in train stations (those do exist right? It's not just a movie thing?). All the video equipment will be stocked in a a 1550 Pelicase which we'll lugg around, and when shooting empty in a massive waterproof messenger bag (just have to get some padding).

Ok thirdly: all the Video and Audio equipment:

Camera wise: So, of course on Gh2, and hopefully a extra Gh1 or Gh2 if we can as a B camera. Otherwise, a hacked Gf2/3 will have to do. Lenses: we have three for now: -28mm Sigma f1.8 Minolta MD mount. Found it NOS, it's from sometime in the 90s. It's my main lens to do it all. I would've loved to get the Voigt 25mm f.95 as my do it all lens but sadly its a bit expensive to my taste (although its surely worth its price) so this one will have to do. The build quality is good on the sigma, and it's pretty sharp all around. It's not perfect opened up completely but its still pretty good. I don't worry to much about softness: better a softish image than a noisy one. It does breath a fair bit which is a pain though. -50mm F1.4 Minolta MD lens. Well of course, the classic hdslr lens. Good stuff. -14mm Lumix f2.5. This is the lense I choose to get the camera with. I like it, I find it sharp as a tack, f2.5 is good enough for day time and interiors. My main lens for the Flycam. -70-300mm Tamron f4-5.6, Sony mount. This will be our long range lens, just need the adapter. The fact that its sony means the aperture is normally controlled by the camera, with the sony system, the motor is in the camera not the lens. There are cheap adapters that can control the aperture. It'll have to do and I don't think I'll be using it that much. Its a decent lens anyways. -Stuff I'd like: A normal range zoom. We have none. Worst case scenario I'll get the Lumix 14-42 because its pretty cheap. I'd like to get 14-140 although its very slow. Maybe something with less range but constant aperture and lower. But thats often 1grand+ so we'll see.

Rig wise I'm using a cheap proaim rig. The baseplate, rods and handles seem just fine to me, no reason it would break and I won't be spending more money on that. I got the Rj Folow Focus with it and that I'd like to replace. For all intents and purposes it works just fine, although there is play I can work with it. What I'm scared about is its lifespan, I have my doubts it'll last long. I'd like to get a friction FF, notably the new jag35 Sidekick. Since I'll using mostly primes and this switching often it also facilitates things. I just don't know if it'll manage to turn prime focus rings easily. Both the Sigma and Minolta are smooth but not as loose as a by wire lens so I have my doubts.

I'm using a recently purchased camax H005 monitor, which I'm glad I have. A seven inch monitor would've probably been to big to run n gun.

On board I'm using a Rode Videomic pro for now, and I'll take it along to use as reference audio instead of the onboard sound. It'll come in handy too when I'm not with my bud who'll be taking care of sound.

Power solution: Those cheap CCTV batteries. Got 3 for under 100 bucks. I've yet to test there full capacity but they seem to hold up pretty well. One feeds the GH2 aswell as the monitor which is great. It'll probably also be the power source for the audio department.

Stabilization wise, I've also just got a flycam nano, I just have to learn how to properly balance it and train on it a bit, but from my first impressions, its promising. On the tripod front we have a Manfrotto 055xprob which is photography tripod, but it's very sturdy with a Velbon ph368 Fluid head. I get good results with it and I'm not that much of a fan of panning anyways, I do have to choose whether or not I decide to upgrade it to a real video tripod. I'm also thinking about a monopod because I do understand that it gets great results. It would be fast to just slap it under the rig. I think that's something I'll see and eventually buy later in one of the cities if I feel the need to get one.

Finally, the Audio departement. This is where we are lacking funds. I've spent just about all my saved money on the camera stuff, and my buddy will spend a good portion of the corwdfunding campaigns money on audio stuff. This is the stuff we plan on getting for the time being although it might change. Mics: -One Rode Ntg-3 as our exterior shotgun mic, along with a boompole, stabilizer, and deadcat/zeppelin. -One Oktava mk-012 with hyper cardioid capsule, for interior booming and recording. Supposed to be killer for the price, just like the ntg-3. -Two or three Rode lavalier mics. Lavs are so freaking expensive. At first I was looking at Sanken cos-11s but I fell on those new rode lavs. They seem great: the sound is good and they come with a bunch of adapters that let you connect them to just about anything, as well as a little deadcat and waterproof case. Sounds good to me. One will be for my friend who'll be doing the audio so it'll be directly plugged into the preamp. I'm not to sure about mine, or it'll also be plugged in to the preamp and then we'll be tethered, or I could plug it in directly into the camera but that wouldn't be recommended at all, or we have enough money to buy a wireless transmitter/receiver kit. For whoever is being recorded, another lav and its the same problem. Or we'll just boom them. -The preamp we haven't chose yet, I'm thinking Motu Traveler, it seems to fit our needs well. At first I though about a sound devices Usbpream2 but I don't think two inputs will cut it. -Recorder: Sony m10 or D50. The d50 has a spdif input, so according to our pream it could be usefull. Also you can plug in mics directly a la zoom which, we never know could come in handy (say if the preamp fails).

I'm open to any suggetions and questions are welcome!

On the travel equipment side of things, we're leaving on quite a peculiar bike, a semi recumbent bike: the Performer Family (I know, doesn't seem very travel friendly)

You tried actual traveling in at least 300km on this bike, right?

If I were you I had ditched all your equipment list, leaving only two Panasonic video (not GH) cameras, ala TM900. Bunch of batteries for them, two battery powered shotguns and one wireless set. All residing in very small bag. And, of course, I'll use normal bikes.

@luxis Thanks for all the great info! Good to know it's a winning combo! On board stereo isn't too much of a concern, although I guess it could be of use to record ambient stereo sounds. As for the whole left/right issue, its going to be the same if its spdif or not isn't it. I don't know of any recorders that have multiple ins for those prices, do you?

@Vitaliy_Kiselev No, we haven't, but we've tried the Pino Haze which is the one you can see in the video and have got feedback from people who've toured on the Performer. Unfortunately there are no distributors of the Performer so no way to try it out before getting it, but we will be putting some km on it before leaving for good. I'm not scared about that though. I've been a bike messenger in Paris for over two years now and that means putting in 100+ km per day into my bike (1500km+ per month), over 8 hours of stop and go traffic and terrible pavement. Doing 150km on the road in the country side sounds like a walk in the park in comparison. My friend is an experienced biker and an all around sport freak so I ain't too worried about him either. I've also been building bikes for over 5 years now so I'm pretty intimate with their functioning (no worried on reparations)

I've been told that a few times about video equipment since I've been preparing this project, but we really don't have the intention on doing a half assed travelogue or even just a travelogue. We want the best image we can get with out budget even if that means having something completely unpractical. Had I wanted that, I would've gotten an hvx200 or the like. But it's not the case. Leaving for 9 months on a bike with two tm900s, I believe we would've come back with a really really great "vacation" video, but that is all. Having this whole mess but also ability to take incredible images (not that the tm900 isnt, we might get one as b-roll cam) will force us into prepared shooting. It's not going to all be run and gun. We want to find people who are willing to let us shoot them for real even if it demands more time. Not just "hey whip out the camera we should record this", a little more planned as general. We want to make something different, push the limits of what can be done with very little. @Rambo Can't be too worried about thieves, you can only be careful. No point in limiting what we want to do because of what might get stolen. When we'll be on the road, everything will be locked up in the pelicase, which will be the first thing on the trailer with a massive bag with all the rest above, so it should remain low key. On the streets while we're shooting, well it'll have to be obvious of course, but we're not going to be using anything that looks like "photo" or "video" bags, the first telltale for thieves (oh so how many times I've wondered how many thousands of dollars worth of equipment we're in those tourists huge Lowpro bags), but rather a large messenger bag that should fit most of our equipment without alerting anyone about it as long as its inside.

I travel the world (by plane) shooting Ocean Event videos and my main cameras are GH1 and GH2 with assorted waterproof housings etc and small range of mikes and recorders, but some of the best video I've shot (content wise) is on GoPro Cameras (handheld and onboards) so throw a few of those in your kit bag, very handy. Perfect for bike mounting, hanging in trees, placing in constricted places, etc. Enjoy your adventure.

Weird is what we're aiming for. Also we have no problem ditching gear on the way (sending it back home) if we find it useless. We want it to look as pleasant to the eye, like fiction, and want to avoid the docu look. @Rambo Yes, we do have a gopro hd (not the last model unfortunatly) but if we have extra money left, we'll get another one. I still have to look into a flat lens housing, it's nice to have the choice to not go fisheye without cropping. @Tobsen Great! We will take you up on that, for the time being we have no contacts for Hamburg so we will take you up on that! I'll add to our list of people to contact for info!

Thanks! You're right, I'm just not too sure what gear to get rid of so now the plan is to send back what ends up not being used that much, lets say the first couple of cities will serve as a test run. In the end is it really that much? I mean really its just one GH2 on a rig, and a couple of lenses for video, I do have the flycam too and that I might get rid of but I can see it being usefull.

Since my friend is taking care of sound, well he'll have a little field bag with the recorder and one mic on his boompole, wich he'll have to switch from inside to outside.

Thats basically it.

Except if we try to take along a Jib, that might be slightly overkill hehe. I think we'll probably build one somewhere for kicks.

We'll be lugging the stuff around for sure, but we'll be biking with the whole mass only between the cities where its not an impractical problem.

During shooting days, only what's necessary will be in the bagpack.