x3

Solid dude. Two thumbs up.

---

Tech writer/support on this here site. FIST school instructor and certified bike fitter. Formerly at Diamondback Bikes, LeMond Fitness, FSA, TiCycles, etc.
Coaching and bike fit - http://source-e.net/ Cyclocross blog - https://crosssports.net/ BJJ instruction - https://ballardbjj.com/

He has like 30k subscribers and is an independent media member...the only person like that that makes money is Bob.

PO5T is still cranking. What he did do was cap his client number and gave himself more flexibility...but I'd rather hear about what it takes to be a working stiff and qualify for a WC event as an age grouper than be full of drama. Yes, I think he's full of drama and he doesn't engage well with his subscribers. He'd grow faster if he did comment back because youtube pushes your videos in the search function when you interact with commenters.

He probably puts me in the troll category when all of my questions are serious.

---

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

The thing is it’s all free content. It’s just a bloke giving it a crack, doing his best. As a result we get to see him gradually hone his skills in public, warts and all.

Personally for someone with no experience, training or quals he is doing great. I hope he reads this thread and can learn some pointers. For example he still has lots of poor editing in his Vida which comes across really amateurish and drives me insane. For example will have a clip of someone talking at a conference and cuts it off mid sentence-if what they were saying wasn’t important then use a music track instead of audio. In the latest vid he has like a 5 second grab of Mel walking around with a camera at the training camp-again pointless and ruins the flow.

He should do a short course on editing and polish his presentation and then he will fly ahead in leaps and bounds.

As for answering ur serious questions I think he has a q&a section so maybe post them there?

He's still a mix of how he/Mel edits his videos. Vlogs are meant to be more that way and aren't as formally produced

Pretty sure I've seen you on the comment boards (as long as the name is the same on Youtube)... Think some of the phrasing you use makes it hard to tell if you're trolling or not. Do think you've had a good amount of valid pts but yeah I can see where he isn't sure

Can’t agree-there are many many many daily vlogers who’s production value is top notch and they do it all on their own. Even Tarens new intro is half arsed imho-the writing is all blurry and it’s hard to even read what it says.

His intentions are great, his content is great but it just lacks the polish, especially from someone who wants this to be his full time gig.

Having just gotten into triathlon a little over a year ago and with the fact I move a lot with my job, I've found Taren to be a really good source of information for new/intermediate triathletes. I actually skyped with him about the channel when he was deciding to go daily and he was an awesome guy, gave me some additional information that I had been looking for, was super appreciative of my time and if you reach out to him via e-mail/social media he's pretty good about responding, he's got his preferred channels as we all do (insta/Youtube seem to be his place).

Think what he caters to is what triathlon needs in a way. There's tons of avenues for the enthusiast, but I think Taren does a good job of promoting new athletes and also encouraging people to just try it. Not a "you have to do IM" right away attitude is a good way to try and help grow the sport. I do hope that he continues to grow his content and branch out into some more advanced items but from getting to know him, I'd be willing to bet he's got plans of action to continue to bring in more people(evidenced from his recent addition of two pro day interviews). Also love his podcast because it's had some great pros but also some interesting convos with talented age-groupers and trainers

I would agree that the new podcast is a bit odd, I think it'd be best suited as a once a week Q&A spot on his YouTube as I don't think of podcasting forums as where I'd look for info, but so far he's made a lot of decisions and has consistently grown, so more power to him to try something new.

Ah, interesting. Only thought I got blocked because my girlfriend also watches his channel.

I just have questions, answering them doesn't take much. But I supposed coming to this forum will get me lot of those answers I'm in search of.

---

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Hope it's clear I've never been around marking troll comments, it's not my channel so I wouldn't do that unless it was egregiously offensive. Not sure that you care to, but if you e-mailed him, Taren's a pretty good dude and might clear things up. Like I said I've talked to him on skype and on social medias, prolly at like 80% responses, which doesn't bother me

FWIW - just did a podcast with Taren and his wife Kim. We recorded it about a month ago and it was just posted up this week. It was a pleasure to be a guest on their show.

We talk about my past, and the past, present and future of triathlon, and my Race/Event Announcing work.

Link is here - http://triathlontaren.com/stevefleck/

Comments welcome.

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Tarens really been hitting his stride lately, content has been feeling a lot more polished. I wish he woudl spend more time on the triathlon news segment, I really enjoy that.

That being said the other day he posted a video about how he might have to stop doing it and get a real job to make some money. He needs to step back and face the reality he mentioned in the video-the triathlon community is such a small segment that he is never going to make much money just concentrating on tri related stuff. If he wants to make money he needs to bring in apspects of a MUCH larger audience-cycling and equipment reviews. I really hope he pushed on though.

I really like Taren and his channel. As a tri noob it's been a huge help. I don't see how he's going to make it long term as a YouTuber with the views he's getting without some serious side-support, though. With YouTube ads you get about a dollar per thousand views, more or less, and I don't think he usually gets 50k views per week.

---

@brad_glasgow

Tarens really been hitting his stride lately, content has been feeling a lot more polished. I wish he woudl spend more time on the triathlon news segment, I really enjoy that.

That being said the other day he posted a video about how he might have to stop doing it and get a real job to make some money. He needs to step back and face the reality he mentioned in the video-the triathlon community is such a small segment that he is never going to make much money just concentrating on tri related stuff. If he wants to make money he needs to bring in apspects of a MUCH larger audience-cycling and equipment reviews. I really hope he pushed on though



I've been through a few of these Podcast interviews, where I'm being interviewed, and I've interviewed many people myself when doing Race/Event Announcing and Live Stream Commentary work - and Taren is good. He knows his stuff. Is comfortable on the mic and in front of the camera, and has great rapport with his guests. I thoroughly enjoyed my time talking with him and his wife Kim.

As for the business side of it - I know how hard it is to make some headway in the whole podcast, vloging, you-tubing world. It takes MASSIVE numbers to really start to make some OK money from it all, just on viewers. Now if you are working some other angle, with affiliate sales/marketing etc . . that's a possibility as well. Ray Maker has been VERY successful with that model - but it took Ray years to get there, and really be the GO-TO guru in a space.

I recall talking to a well known pod-cast producer about a year ago, and he was straight up with me - you don't start up a podcast to make money. It's typically and extension of your personal brand marketing, and you leave it at that. It's only the real super-stars of the world, say a Tony Robbins type of person who is going to make money from podcast or similar - main, obvious reason, he's pulling in millions of listeners/viewers right from the get go!

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

And now we have a kickstarter...https://www.kickstarter.com/...ct&term=trainiac

I don't understand this stuff...If you want investment, where's the equity?

---

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Normally the idea of kick starter is the 'investors' get the product cheaper in return for their risk. With this though I think its more of just a pre payment plan as the rates hardly look discounted...

Taren is starting to annoy me and I struggle to watch him any more. The content largely consists of him either pimping Tower 26, pimping his training plans, pimping a training camp with two weeks notice and then having a sook when no one signed up, having a sook that his gear supplier conned him out of $5 commission, having a sook that Wahoo wont give him discounts and having a sook about not making money and trying to guilt his audience into supporting him.

^^^^THIS

I don't understand this stuff...If you want investment, where's the equity?

The really big challenge here is that triathlon in the grand scheme of things is a VERY small market. With my Race/Event Announcing work, while I got my start in triathlon, I quickly realized, I can't do this JUST in triathlon, to make a real go of it - so I branched out to running, and cycling work as well. Albeit - sports that I have a great deal of familiarity with. That's led to more sophisticated work doing Live Stream Commentary work for outfits like RunnerSpace for high performance Track & Field - that's about 1/2 of what I do now.

Point here is that you have to constantly keep moving, and hustle like crazy to find the opportunities. The good news is that I continue to work in the space/business that I love - endurance sports!

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Got some how upset w/ the guy! He was my warm up video so I would be put my triathlon mindset on before going to Netflix on my indoor rides. Liked him, good w/ the camera and sometimes funny. Not sure if he is anyway qualified to subscribe training plans....but I wouldn't use it away!

Some time ago comment on something at Instagram and he mentioned I should share my story at the Newsday Tuesday when people share their stories.

One day I felt like doing it and send an email w/ my background as a swimmer and my back and forth triathlon story and a very personal thing that somehow I felt like sharing.

Guess what, not answer , nothing ! I sent free content, something incredibly personal and not even a thanks!

So nowadays I just avoid watching it. I could easily forget about Scoody, tower 26 and the odd buoy thing.

His "adjust your bike fit" series that dropped hit my feed because I watch too much GTN apparently...at no point does he say: Go get a bike fit...in the last one he admits he's not a fitter.

---

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

So you sent something in and expected him to owe you something? I get that you spent time sharing something personal, but there's no guarantee with this kind of thing. I can only guess how many people send stories in.

His video about Coke being the perfect blend of ingredients for race nutrition eventually turned me off. It became way too obvious of an endorsement. As if Coke is irreplaceable...

I really like him

Entertaining and some good advice

Don’t agree with 100% but enjoy the videos

Has quite a few big name guests.

Did you ever read Macca's I'm Here to Win? He pretty much dismissed all the nutrition scientists and said Coke was the magic bullet.

He has good advice until he starts talking nutrition-omg he hurts my head when he does that.

In one vid he said whey protein broke down muscle, and then the latest one today is all hocus pocus about how spirulina has increased his oxygen levels, how his mineral water in the morning is critical for flexibility....just destroys his credibility

And then in the same vid he brags about how he has enough free time to train twice a day with the whole afternoon off but just a couple of days ago said he would attempt a full distance until he had the time to train...whaaaat?

You sound confident in your knowledge of nutrition

If you are open to learning new things you may want to do some research on pubmed