Behind the story: Filming a Mediterranean cycling adventure
When I was asked to join a week long cycling tour along Spain's Mediterranean coast, I thought the biggest challenge would be capturing beautiful scenery. I was quite wrong.
For the next three days I'd spend my time racing ahead of the group on an electric bike, launching drones from roadsides, chasing cyclists down the coast and trying to tell the story of what it actually feels like to experience an adventure like this.
Arrival
I arrived in Tortosa late in the evening, where the Exodus team had just finished the third day of the tour. Over dinner I met Guillermo, Adrián and the tour guide Miguel. Between my limited Spanish and their patience, we talked about the route ahead.
They all said the same thing.
"Tomorrow is the best day."
It wasn’t until the following morning that I met the tour group. There were ten people in the group, most of them from the UK, the US and Canada. Before taking out the camera, I wanted to get to know everyone.
We spent the first morning riding side by side, chatting about where they were from and what had brought them here.
I always try to do this before filming begins. Once people trust you, they stop thinking about the camera. That's when the most genuine moments happen.
Planning
Although I'd spent plenty of time looking at the route beforehand, I'd never been to this part of Spain. My planning was mostly based on Google Maps, and recommendations from the Exodus team. It gave me a rough idea of where the best viewpoints might be, but I knew I would need to improvise on a lot of decisions.
With only three days on the tour, every hour mattered. I wasn't just trying to capture beautiful scenery, I needed to create a complete library of content, including drone footage, photography, GoPro footage and cinematic video, all while keeping up with a group of cyclists covering around 100 kilometres.
Most of all I needed to plan my footage so that it wasn’t just a random selection of clips, it told the story of what it really felt like on this tour.
Setting off
For the tour I was given an electric bike fitted with a rear pannier bag to carry all of my camera gear. My plan seemed simple enough: ride ahead of the group, capture a mixture of drone shots, photography and video, then catch back up before anyone noticed I'd disappeared.
At least... that was the theory.
In reality, it proved to be far more challenging than I expected.
Day to day
Every day I had around three or four chances to leave the group, ride several kilometres ahead and prepare the next shot. It sounded simple on paper, but in reality there was very little margin for error. There wasn't really a second chance. If I missed the moment, it was gone
The riders only stopped twice a day, once for coffee and once for lunch. If I wanted a drone sequence, I had to break away, find a safe place to launch, get the drone in the air and be ready before the group appeared around the next bend.
The coffee and lunch breaks became my chance to quickly review footage, recharge batteries and work out where I needed to be for the next section of the route. It also meant resisting the temptation to eat too much paella!
Having Adrian share his GPS location became invaluable. It meant I could judge exactly when to launch and position the drone, rather than hoping I'd timed it correctly.
Even with an electric bike, I only had a small speed advantage over the group. Every minute counted.
I'd often arrive at a viewpoint slightly out of breath, chuck my backpack on the ground, unpack the drone and decide on the composition, knowing that if I took too long, the riders would already be passing below me.
Not everything goes to plan!
Just when I thought everything was running smoothly, I was about to capture what I thought would be one of the best drone shots of the tour, a winding road through a canyon, when an SD card error suddenly appeared. For a few seconds I was convinced I'd lost everything I'd filmed that day. Thankfully it turned out to be a temporary glitch, and after a quick restart everything was back to normal. Phew!
Why people sign up to a cycling holiday
Throughout the week I found myself asking people the same question:
Why spend a week cycling more than 300 kilometres when you could be lying on a beach just a few miles away? There was a common answer..
It wasn't the cycling.
It was the feeling of achieving something together.
What stood out to me is there is a real sense of camaraderie that develops almost immediately. By the second day, strangers were encouraging each other up climbs, and talking too each other as if they’d known one another for years. By the end of the week, they weren't just people on the same holiday anymore, they felt like a team.
Most of the members of this tour had been on multiple other cycle tours with Exodus. Some said that although it is a lot of physical effort, it refreshes you like no other holiday does.
As the tour came to an end the feel good energy of the group was sky high. You could feel the sense of accomplishment. We all shared a meal together at a restaurant in Valencia, during the meal myself along with the guides and the group all shared experiences from the previous days and there were even a few speeches thanking everyone for making the experience so special. It felt like a family.
On the road back to Madrid and reflecting on the tour I realised that the reason I love this work isn’t just to create stunning visuals of landscapes, but to meet and tell the stories of people like this, to inspire others to experience similar adventures.
A few weeks later, seeing the photographs and promotional film featured on the Exodus website made the whole experience even more rewarding. Knowing the work is now helping inspire future travellers to book the tour is exactly what good storytelling should do.
Notes:
Tortosa to Valencia, Spain
150km
3 days filming
Canon R6 Mark II
GoPro Hero 9
DJI Mini 2
Client: Exodus Travels
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