Mountain bike trials rider Martyn Ashton tells the dramatic story of how even paralysis couldn’t prevent him from finishing his incredible cycling stunt film, Road Bike Party 2

“If there was more spin or less spin that was needed to land wholly on my neck and head […] I’d be dead for sure. I know it. I just know it.” Martyn Ashton, mountain bike legend and YouTube star with more than 9million views to his name for his Road Bike Party video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZmJtYaUTa0) – which saw him take the same road bike that Sir Bradley Wiggins used to win the 2012 Tour de France on, a Pinarello Dogma 2, and spectacularly ride it well beyond the limits of what was commonly thought possible for a road bike – is talking openly and honestly about the recent accident that snapped his spine and very nearly saw him riding the big bike in the sky. 

The aftermath of his accident has undoubtedly changed his life by leaving him a paraplegic and a wheelchair user, but Ashton is not one to languish in self-pity, instead preferring perspective, pragmatism, and positivity. “I was immediately just so grateful,” he explains of his reaction to the accident; “I just felt lucky, you know? ‘Fuck, I nearly killed myself’. But I hadn’t, so I felt really chuffed.” It also hasn’t diminished his passion for somehow seeing his vision for Road Bike Party 2 through – a project that he had been working on in total secrecy.

Besides his YouTube success, Martyn Ashton is an extremely accomplished athlete and the best bicycle competition trials rider Britain has ever produced: he has won a World Trials Championship, dominated the British trials competition scene for over a decade, was inducted into the UK’s Mountain Bike Hall of Fame, became a Guinness World Record Holder for the side-hop [sideways high jump], created his own innovative and influential bike frame designs, and masterminded and starred in more than a decade of a travelling extreme sports show – the Animal WD40 Action Sports Tour (http://actionsportstour.animal.co.uk) – touring the UK.

Then on Sunday 1st September 2013 at Silverstone’s Moto GP, England, Martyn’s ride came to an abrupt and premature end.

During one of his shows, he crashed heavily from a 3m high bar: “I hovered and fell backwards as I had nowhere to step to,” he recalls, “I fell headfirst downwards with a lot of rotation as well, so as my head and neck hit the ground my legs were still spinning round – they effectively snapped me in half,” he says frankly.

After paramedics stabilised him at the scene, Martyn was swiftly airlifted to Coventry Hospital where he received emergency treatment and was admitted to Intensive Care. There the prognosis revealed that the impact had caused severe damage to his spine, dislocating the T9 and T10 vertebrae – leaving him paralysed below the point of injury.

“I just wanted to be with Lisa [his wife and childhood sweetheart] and Alfie [his 13-year-old son who was watching the show] and I knew I’d be alright, you know?” he says earnestly, “I’ll be alright. Things will be different for sure but the things I planned in my life aren’t that different to the things I planned for before…” He considers this for a second and then corrects himself, “The things I hope for; the things I hope for in my life aren’t that different to the things I’d hoped for before.”

He’d hoped for a relatively modest 100,000 views for his first YouTube film, Road Bike Party, but within hours of going live on his channel in 2012, it had already far exceeded that. Within just a day it had cranked up over a million views, and the views kept on climbing, fuelled as much by social media shares and chatter as much as by national and international news headlines. 

The success spawned a plan for a trilogy of films, with the second “going to be all about laying it on the line for my riding and putting everything down I can do,” reveals Martyn, “I was going to make my final video – my biggest.” 

For well over a year, he planned and planned for his career swan song, a fitting and dramatic finale to a life lived on the limits of traction and nerve. His vision for Road Bike Party 2 was to leave an indelible mark on the viewer via a visual onslaught of shock and awe by “punching viewers in the face” with incredible riding, again, and again, and again. And all on the world’s first production disc-braked carbon fibre road bike: the Colnago C59 Disc. That, at least, was the plan. Then came the accident and with it, one mighty stick in the spokes.

Following his hospital prognosis and when he knew that his wife and son were safe, his first night in hospital brought him the time to regroup and time to nurture a new plan for his film. “It’s pretty obvious really,” he explains simply, “I need more footage and I need a level of footage that’s absolutely the best it can be so I have to go to my ‘competitors’ for it.” He smiles at the absurdity of using the word ‘competitors’ to describe the two fellow British trials riders who have become strong friends, “So I have to go to Chris [Akrigg] and Danny [MacAskill] – who else could I ask? There is no one else.” 

A few days later, the three came together to plot the bike equivalent of Marvel’s Avengers Assemble at Martyn’s hospital bedside. 

“They shouldn’t do the scenes and the riding that I had planned [as] I wanted them [Chris and Danny] to do what they do – not try and be ‘me’,” Martyn explains. “I didn’t want them to double for me. Chris is very much off-road, very gnarly, and doing things you wouldn’t expect a road bike to do,” he continues. “Danny is much more ‘street’, a bit more tongue in cheek I’d say.” 

As Martyn was learning how to balance all over again – “You’re like on a ball balanced wobbling around,” he chuckles, “[as] wherever I lean my head, my body goes because my stomach muscles and my hips don’t work so I’ve got no balance and suddenly I’ve got to stop myself falling over in different ways. But I’m getting loads better – it’s like a normal thing: you learn to adapt to it and it becomes normal.” – both Danny and Chris were learning to ride trials from the ground up on a road bike. “They’ve each said, ‘God it’s brilliant – but you don’t want to do trials on it! You don’t want to do street riding on it!’” Martyn reveals. “But they’ve both got on it and their level of riding is just so high that they’ve been able to adapt to it quickly. They’ve just got on with it and really pushed themselves.”

For both Chris and Danny, time was a luxury that weather and shooting pressures quite simply didn’t allow: Danny had all of a minute or so “To give it a shot in a car park”, he recalls, before climbing onto a wind-battered bridge in South Wales and riding across the top of its tied arches for the cameras. “You can tell from my stance that I was uneasy and nervous on the bikes,” he suggests, “but that was the first time I had ridden the bike – it really was a baptism of fire!” And so began three intense days of shooting.

“I was blown away to be asked and helping in anyway is a really big deal,” Danny says, explaining that saying ‘no’ to Martyn could never have happened: “I think the film’s really awesome and definitely a bit special. It’s definitely...” he stops, and starts over: “I think the whole film has turned out…” and tails off again, wrestling with the context. “It’s a real mix of emotions you know? Martyn is my all-time riding hero and I feel really honoured to be part of the project and to ride alongside Martyn and Chris – another of my riding heroes – but I wish the circumstances were different,” he says simply. 

The emotional project has affected everyone involved, including Robin: “It’s been a mixed bag of ups and downs: I wanted it [the riding in the film] to be Martyn as Martyn and myself had been planning some other stuff and I wanted to finish what we’d planned to do,” he explains. But Robin also suggests that the film has become more than just a record of riding: “It’s helped Martyn’s rehabilitation and I think that’s a great thing.”

“It’s very different to what I had intended,” says Martyn of the finished film, “but I don’t think there’s any point in me pretending that it is [what he intended]: but it is very special and I’m really proud to be in there next to those two. It looks like a brilliant collection of riding. You can even forget that we’re on a road bike: the stuff that we do collectively is beyond what would be ‘normal’ for a trials bike. It’s exceptional. That was my vision: it was supposed to be as good as it can be, and that’s a good sign off.”

The video may be finished and one goal achieved, but that is not the end of Martyn’s tale. What follows will certainly be different to his life pre-accident, but he remains steadfastly positive: “I’m not focusing on what could’ve been,” he says, “– I’m focusing on what will be.” What will be is whatever he makes of it and, although the cameras have stopped filming for now and he has swapped two wheels for four, his story will undoubtedly continue to roll on. 

press release SHIFT Active Media