About Motorcycles & Pancakes

Hello! I'm Ian, although around here, most people know me as Pancakes.

Motorcycles & Pancakes started with a motorcycle, a camera, and a desire to see what was down the next road.

Somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn't nearly as interested in simply showing where I went as I was in discovering what happened there.

Today, Motorcycles & Pancakes is about exploring the stories hiding throughout Oregon, its history, landscapes, forgotten places, small towns, strange corners, and the people and events that helped shape them.

Sometimes I get there on my motorcycle, the Moody Queen. Sometimes it's in the Tacoma. And sometimes, the road ends, and I have to continue on foot.

However I get there, the adventure is part of the story.

This Is My Oregon

Oregon is full of places we drive past without ever knowing what happened there.

An empty meadow might once have been part of America's Cold War defenses. A quiet desert might preserve evidence of people who lived here thousands of years ago. An abandoned piece of machinery in the mountains might be all that's left of a community built around the promise of gold.

Those are the stories I want to find.

This Is My Oregon is my documentary-style series exploring Oregon's history, geology, landscapes and forgotten places, usually with a motorcycle somewhere in the equation.

I'm not a historian, geologist or archaeologist. I'm just endlessly curious.

I research these places, travel to them, walk the ground, talk with people who know their stories, and try to understand what remains today.

Because we're not just exploring where a place goes.

We're discovering where it's been.

And yes, there are still motorcycles.

Motorcycles & Pancakes hasn't stopped being a motorcycle channel.

The motorcycle just isn't always the entire story anymore.

I still love backroads, forest roads, motorcycle camping, ridiculous detours, questionable navigation decisions and finding out what happens when I look at a road and think, I wonder where that goes.

You'll still find those adventures here.

You'll also probably find me talking to myself, arguing with my motorcycle, getting distracted by something completely unrelated to what I'm supposed to be filming, making terrible dad jokes, and occasionally doing something that seemed like a much better idea beforehand.

Some things don't need to change.

Help Make the Stories Possible

Motorcycles & Pancakes is independently created. Every film involves research, scouting, travel, fuel, camera equipment, countless hours of editing, and occasionally riding a motorcycle an unreasonable distance because I found something interesting on a map.

Patreon helps make that possible.

Members get to come behind the camera with me through early access to new films, scouting trips, research, project updates, behind-the-scenes footage, Patreon-only videos, and, unfortunately for my dignity, the bloopers and outtakes.

More importantly, Patreon members help me continue going out and finding these stories.

This is my Oregon.

Stories Told Different.

And because some traditions aren't changing...

Eat. More. Panckes.