Back in February 2020 I traveled south to Arizona to shoot four MOTOTREK episodes with hosts Dusty Wessels and RTW Paul. The first two days of filming were to focus on Paul’s tricked-out KTM 500 EXC “Six Days” bike which he was planning to ride on his newest around-the-world adventure to start just a few weeks later.
As soon as I arrived in Phoenix I met with Paul who was working on his KTM’s electronics in the garage with Mike Spurgin from Taco Moto Co. A few minutes later Paul gave me the bad news. That morning he had pulled a muscle in his lower back and he didn’t expect to be able to ride his bike anytime soon. That explained why he was hobbling around the garage like an 80 year old man.
Fortunately Mike stepped in an offered to ride Paul’s bike for the b-roll shots when we filmed the following day in the desert outside of Phoenix. Phew! Thanks, Mike!
Paul was still able to host what turned out to be a great episode detailing all the modifications he’s made to his KTM, but if you watch closely you can see that he’s not moving around much. Paul was a lot more uncomfortable than he appears in the video.
Fast-forward to January 2021. I was editing the Fuel Mods episode I filmed with Mike Spurgin in May 2020 and was trying to decide what to use for b-roll since we hadn’t shot any in May. Then it occurred to me that I did have cool shots of Mike on a bike! Since it had been a full year I didn’t expect anyone to notice that the Arizona b-roll shots were being reused, but sure enough, a perceptive subscriber did!
So, yes, that’s Paul’s bike in Mike Spurgin’s episode, but it’s Mike riding it!
On the other hand, the b-roll riding shots of the KTM near the end of Mike’s Fuel Mods episode are actually of Paul riding his own bike, which he was able to do with some muscle pain later that week back in February.