The olly Wilkins vid he’s just uploaded is more of the same and he even sarcastically says it’s “essential “ whilst filming himself and driving his car
Great role models for da kidz

He also has a Youtube channel.

By that logic anyone fancy riding anywhere in the country can just setup a YouTube account, grab their phone and off they go. They are more professional content creators, not mates out for a ride

Theres a few instances of close quarter no mask wearing between the three and that was on film so probably worse instances off camera and if Ali has real health issues maybe he’s not taking it as seriously as he should and maybe put a mask on when spraying that cardboard box at the beginning, if anything just to set a good example on spray painting advice.
I’m in the high risk category and have just had my first vaccination jumping the queue by a few months and I’d be uneasy being that close to Brendog and Olly without masks, wouldn’t surprise me if one of them caught covid while filming content with various others, its not like they needed to go to fat creations for content and put Ali at risk, they have been filming with a dozen other riders recently and there’s plenty of other things to shoot outdoors.
Personally though I’m not bothered, but I can see both sides off the argument.
Also, come to think of it, if they’ve been tested they would no doubt have filmed that as well.

They have both already had it.

They have both already had it.

Oh so they haven’t learnt from their mistakes then?

I am glad someone in the 2nd or 3rd post mentioned its his job, as that’s the primary here.
However a relevant secondary is that we are all MTB’ers. Over the last 10 years the sport has gone through the roof, bikes are better, trails are better, access is better, kit is better, bike parks everywhere, umpteen holiday providers, ski resorts, airlines recognising bikes, new businesses springing up with great new products, amazing kids bikes, amazing kids, great videos and entertainment, bike festivals, bike oriented food and drink, and many people are fitter. I mean some bloke on here has a chainring tattooed on his leg!!
I love it, its ruddy utopia.
Now this probably would not be so good if it wasn’t for people like Brendog and all the other racers and influencers, love em or hate em, getting the message out there and generating interest. Interest = £££$$$, and that is what has driven our sport to its healthy position.

I salute him, and all the others.

Of course if you hate MTB and all the broad range it covers, well then yeah, he’s a useless lunk.

OP which are you?

By that logic anyone fancy riding anywhere in the country can just setup a YouTube account, grab their phone and off they go. They are more professional content creators, not mates out for a ride

Well no because this is his actual job.

These threads are pretty pathetic TBH and distracting from the real shambles that is our government’s woefully late efforts at quarantining travellers.

These threads are pretty pathetic TBH and distracting from the real shambles that is our government’s woefully late efforts at quarantining travellers.

Not really. I’m quite able to comprehend that the government are useless AND that the general public need to do their bit as well. The 2 aren’t mutually exclusive.

These threads are pretty pathetic TBH and distracting from the real shambles that is our government’s woefully late efforts at quarantining travellers.

Indeed.

Well no because this is his actual job.

By chance I’ve been directly on YouTube and because I looked at his video through here, it appeared on videos I might like……

If it’s his actually job…….he’s got a way to go to get successful at it! 81K subscribers and less than a dozen videos with more than 100,000 views. The current video we a bleating on about like very bored muppets (because we are 🙂 ) is on 36K views. That’s peanuts in YT terms. I teach a 15yr old kid who gets more views than that with videos of him playing computer games most weeks. It’s a very very long way to go to a living wage – more like beer money for someone on dry January.

That Olly Wilkins video of the same day came up in my feed too. 5 mins of filming himself holding his phone in one hand driving to Fat Creations. Not cool.

But as I’ve said already – I like his stuff. He’s very natural in front of camera. I hope it works and grows for him. Just get it right.

Not watched it all, but the quick hit through i’m not seeing a huge amount of rule breaking, as many say, his job is bikes and biking, youtube videos is one strand of that and not really something he’s thrown himself into that much, it’s just more in focus now due to Covid stopping a lot of the other avenues, so keeping himself busy, as many others are doing.

I’ve seen the same amount of ‘rule breaking’ down my local tescos when i do a shop, i honestly don’t think we’ll ever go back to the old ways after this pandemic, we’ve turned into a nation of ‘what about them’ now.

The 2 aren’t mutually exclusive.

They’re not but the government is quite effectively getting us all to turn on each other as a distraction. When they start slagging off instagram influencers going to Dubai as if that’s a big problem, when they still haven’t got their shit together over quarantine – it’s a blatant ploy, and it’s working.

I am really pretty careful I think but I doubt I’ve followed the rules precisely all the time, I doubt anyone has. So, you know, glass houses etc

we’ve turned into a nation of ‘what about them’ now.

We always have been but now it’s turned up to 11.

he’s got a way to go to get successful at it! 81K subscribers and less than a dozen videos with more than 100,000 views

It’s not easy to start a MTB youtube channel from scratch when you are heavily restricted on where you can ride and who you can meet up with. Half of the youtube content is filmed in his back garden which shows you how limited his profession has been during the pandemic.

If it’s his actually job…….he’s got a way to go to get successful at it! 81K subscribers and less than a dozen videos with more than 100,000 views.

It’s not massive but it’s pretty big and growing – and it’s just part of the overall picture of getting sponsorship deals etc. I doubt he gets paid much from YT/adverts on the videos

YouTube is not a place to make serious money if you’re doing small scale bespoke stuff, and i don’t see Brendan doing anything to get as much views as possible, if he was, he’d be hitting the big searches stuff, so ‘how do i manual’, ‘how do i wheelie’, etc, etc, the ones that’ll get searched loads of times, now how i paint a bike.

Same with all sports this size, i found the same on golf, the good one who are popular, they get 100k plus views, but that’s peanuts and hitting the ‘how do i gain distance’ stuff, reality is to make money in Youtube you have to be in popular stuff for popular crowds, my 5 year old watches some really crap stuff with no real ability shown in it, but the channel she likes has videos with 13m views, all of their videos are over 1m views for absolute powderpuff stuff.

I am not sure we can compare MTB with video games anyway, there are less MTB’ers, but we tend to have disposable.
Video games is about numbers, MTB I can see more quality viewers is better.

I was quite surprised when I looked into the numbers for professional YouTubers. There is a huge difference in revenue per view depending on the content. Property and share vids for Get Rich Quick schemes seem to make the most. Guys on there putting out a couple of vids a day and making 5 figures a month, at what I would consider the more interesting, but niche end the money is a lot less. Peter Milliard, for example, who is popular on here, still needs to do his carpentry day job to pay the bills despite having similar numbers of views.

They’re not but the government is quite effectively getting us all to turn on each other as a distraction.

Divide and conquer – it’s what governments do. Your government, most governments, even ours to a lesser extent.
Make people think that although naturally they’re following the “rules” their neighbours, work colleagues etc. are likely not to be and are “putting them in danger”….

Lass I use to date has half a million subscribers to her channel and as far as I know it barely pays the bills.

And needless to say, when your government’s killed 100000 people through incompetence and disinterest, they’ve got a pretty big interest in having you blame your neighbours. Lucky for them that so many people actively want to be divided and so are very easy to conquer

Posted 2hrs ago. Out for a ride with a bunch of ex pro’s. And I don’t think they all live in the same woods and bumped in to each other.

Of course it could have filmed months ago, but the patches of snow give it away a bit

I thought meeting more than 1 other person to go for a ride was against the rules ?

Are they going for a ride, or riding for their profile, and of course sponsors?

I don’t think this is a case of a few mates meeting up down the local trials bit just for a bit of fun, as i doubt they’d have filmed it!

I did notice at the start a cheeky reference to monetizing the video though, one of them must be watching ;o)

I’m not sure if the views/subscriber count is relevant to many athletes.
Their pro MTB contracts will be with regard to delivering brand exposure and a way of them continuing to deliver that contracted exposure is producing online content.
Ad revenue might be a bonus.
The better example of an pro athlete using his social media profile to leverage his contracts/income is Remy Metallier. I bet the cash he gets from Propain well exceeds his YouTube $$. Factor in the contract cash from dvo, 7mesh, Camelback, rotor, e13, time etc. There’s then the referral kickbacks and I’d suggest the YouTube money is pocket change.

However I assume he has to put out content and drive his subscribers/views up to justify the numbers he’s asking for from his sponsors…in the same way a pro racer would’ve had to use his podium finishes to justify his cash ask.

If these bike athletes wanted to make serious cash at YouTube whilst having a jolly good time, then Dudeperfect might be the perfect example?

Instead of whining about it here report it to the police if you’re that bothered.

Nice work OP. How does it feel to be directly responsible for people dying of Covid?

That made me laugh, thanks for being so ridiculous.

Just to stir the pot even more, would his sponsors not prefer it if he trained a bit more and possibly did some home gym work outs to improve his fitness and world cup results.

The pandemic is a self righteous persons dream event. No better opportunity to poor scorn on other people and feel morally superior.

They are/were proffesional downhill racers. Its fair to say that they are probably not the most risk adverse people around, otherwise they probably wouldn’t have been succesful in a sport based on taking risks.

From that vid above:

“Dave Millard 13 hours ago
Nice video but serious question, how do you get away with meeting people from all across the country, having loads of people in your garden (house jumping video), publishing it on YouTube and manage to not get fined by the Covid police? I’m not saying anyone should be getting fined or any of that, but more how do you get away with it? Round where I live you get told off by the police if you park your car up down the beach to eat your lunch.

Brendan Fairclough 10 hours ago
We are all professional cyclist working in an outside environment keeping a safe distance apart. We filmed just down the road from myself and warner and Steve was down as we have to talk business and I had to sign a contract with him👍🏼”

🤥

Its fair to say that they are probably not the most risk adverse people around, otherwise they probably wouldn’t have been succesful in a sport based on taking risks.

In case it’s not obvious, the difference here is they are taking risks with *other* peoples health, not their own.

I’m sure they were also checking their eyesight.

@greeny30 its not really stirring the pot. Its 1 or 2 vids a week. Its not a 24/7 life diary. How do you know what he’s doing the rest of the time?

I think the amount of coverage he gets is probably worth more than results.

They’re good to watch though and the warner/peaty ones are very entertaining.

@horatiohufnagel refer to my first paragraph. 🙂

I get the whole pro mouuntain biker/content maker thing and agree that they’ve got to keep sponsors happy. I don’t really think that they’re the problem.

There’s plenty of idiots around spreading the virus who aren’t on YouTube trying to get their sponsors in front of an audience at a time they can’t really undertake the main aspect of their job.

My girlfriend’s sister being one of them!

Just to stir the pot even more, would his sponsors not prefer it if he trained a bit more and possibly did some home gym work outs to improve his fitness and world cup results.

Yeah cause that really create “views” doesn’t it, sponsors want content that talked about, obviously everyone talks about training in MTB (>.<)

pointless thread overall, but I imagine it brought Bren video’s to an audience here, that wouldn’t normally have watched it, so maybe his video did work as expected

Great. I love these game of bike vids. Peaty and Warner are into their trials too so it’s always fun to watch.

You do realise that YouTube is more for us old codgers don’t you. My hip young Son sends me dozens of vids from Brendog, Brandon S, Matt Jones and the 50-1 boys and they are all from Instagram. These guys have done more to ensure my son is outside riding and building trails and generally staying active rather than sitting playing games in his bedroom. YouTube is no metric to how popular these guys are or the influence they have.

Zippy, I wasn’t referring to views or content, but why are people making out this channel plays a big part in his income and that his sponsors actually give a toss, he’s hardly bigging up those products so nobody’s rushing out to buy deity handlebars and I don’t think Scott would be impressed if he broke a few bones and missed a season trying to jump his house.

@inbred is spot on when it comes to inspiring young people to get outside and ride bikes.

Steve was down as we have to talk business and I had to sign a contract with him

He should have posted the contract.

Steve was down as we have to talk business and I had to sign a contract with him

What a weaselly, pathetic attempt at an excuse. Nobody has to travel to talk business or sign a contract.

All respect lost for both of them.