- By VeloNews.com
- Published 3 hours ago
Editor’s Note: “Behind The Barriers,” the popular web show that follows U.S. cyclocross champion Jeremy Powers through his racing season and other exploits, is back for its third season. In a new feature for 2012-13, we’ll be running an exclusive “Director’s Cut” journal along with every episode in which Powers and videographer Sam Smith will recount the funny, interesting and sometimes bizarre stories behind the show. Today’s first episode follows Powers and company to Las Vegas for the season-opening Clif Bar CrossVegas and to the Planet Bike Cup in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.
Sam Smith, Director:
For the inaugural Behind The Barriers “Director’s Cut” entry, I figured I would give a little background to how I actually became the “Director”. We’re going to be doing one of these posts for every episode, and don’t worry, Powers will be doing some of them. But for now you have to listen to the Sam Smith story.
I’ve been filming cyclocross racing for a long time. It all started because I was bored during my sophomore year of college. I shot all the New England series races that year because Fitchburg, Massachusetts, was no place for a 20-year-old to hang out on the weekends. I ended up doing a majority of the work on the 2003 New England Series recap DVD that Adam Myerson was producing at the time. My cyclocross output chugged along in the subsequent years with “Transition”, “Transition 2”, “Cyclofile 1” and “Cyclofile 2”, and “CrossNatz”.
But by the time 2009 rolled around I was burnt out on the whole bike racing thing and wanted to spend my time in other ways. I joined a band, my hair grew long and I became a legitimate rock n’ roll dude.
It was September of 2010. The band was playing shows regularly, traveling around the east coast and trying to finish an album. Cyclocross wasn’t even on my radar. CrossVegas was two weeks away, but I wasn’t planning on being there. I got a call after work one day from Jeremy Powers. We hadn’t talked for a little while, but we had become pretty tight over the years. It wasn’t abnormal for us to call each other out
To read the whole story, visit here: http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/09/video/behind-the-barriers-directors-cut-vegas-baby_240051
