This article first appeared in issue 101 of Singletrack Magazine. Subscribers have full access to all Singletrack articles past and present. Learn more from about our subscriptions offers:
Subscribe To Singletrack Magazine For More Amazing Content!
Chipps takes a look at the inspirational rider behind the 2015 Singletrack Legend Award, Martyn Ashton.
Photos by Steve Behr.
Ever since Martyn Ashton was young and impressionable, watching his heroes – on motorbikes, on trials bikes and mountain bikes – he knew that he wanted to become a professional sportsman. He saw Hans Rey performing and thought ‘Yes, I want to do that. I want to ride bikes for a living’. And slowly, bit by bit, he has achieved what he set out to do, in the most apparently casual, cheerful and laid-back way.
Step by step, he ticked off the qualifiers to getting what he wanted out of life. Although his start in magazines was a lucky accident, it was also reasonably inevitable and everything else since has been choreographed with the aim of performing for the public.
And, although he’s a different sportsman now, in a wheelchair, he’s just getting on with life as before. And he’s entertaining millions of people, thanks to his videos and appearances.
Hoppy-hop beginnings.
Bicycle trials was an easy transition to make for Martyn and his friend and riding buddy, Martin Hawyes. Martyn had been riding motorbike trials since he was about ten years old, with people like Hawzee and Rob Warner and following his two older brothers. “Trials is a very old boy, flat cap kind of world. My dad said we should go to a mountain bike event – it was young and full of colour (probably too much colour back then!).”
He took up riding bicycle trials when he was 18 and had been riding for about a year when he went to a mountain bike national round at Caesar’s Camp, Bracknell Forest, back in the early ’90s, with the aim of racing cross-country, as that’s what everyone did back then. The national stars were there, racing: Tim Gould, David Baker, and that crowd, but there was something else going on that Martyn hadn’t counted on – there was a bicycle trials competition as part of the weekend. Jez Avery, an early British trials pioneer was riding there, as were a few other top riders.
Coming from motorbike trials, Martyn and Martin “came in at a high level”, which is a modest way of saying they were loads better than the other riders. And as luck would have it, a young mountain bike photographer (perhaps THE mountain bike photographer back then) Steve Behr was there, and before long, the Martins, as they became, were in the magazines.
Getting printed.
Martyn started riding bikes for magazine features and thinking of stories and stunts that would look good on paper. “We were copying Hans Rey – definitely copying! He was so enthusiastic and such a showman, having such a good time and I just wanted to do that.”
The hard work, and there was a lot of hard work and honing of craft, paid off and the Martins were regularly in the magazines and also did well on a national and global level in trials competitions. But Martyn wasn’t in it for the competition, he just saw that trials results helped bring sponsorship and magazine exposure. “When I won the World Champs I thought ‘Box ticked, I don’t need to do that again’ – and went to my sponsors with it. It was the next rung up the ladder in getting to ride bikes for a job. I knew riders that had 13 world champs titles and who still weren’t doing it for a living.”
Part of what made Martyn appealing to sponsors was his character. Open and friendly, enthusiastic and energetic, he made any crazy plan sound like a good idea to magazine editors and he made sure that every single fan was made welcome, whether they wanted an autograph or some trials advice. He’d been there as a fan and he knew what it took to be a hero to people. It was part of the job, but a part of the job that he loved.
“I know what it was like watching the bike riders I wanted to meet. And I thought that to have that opportunity to be uplifting to people must be bloody hard work.”
He enjoys being, what he calls ‘cycling famous’. “I can wander around a bike show and people know me and I can chat to them, but I go ten metres round the corner, to Martins Newsagent at the NEC and they haven’t a clue who I am. It’s really easy to be cycling famous because it’s not all the time. It must be really hard being actual famous!”
A fall with a twist.
Of course, he’s a lot easier to spot these days with, as he puts it, “wheels attached to my arse” since his accident in September 2013.
Martyn was living his dream and performing, as he did often, for a crowd. This time it was at the Silverstone MotoGP event. He fell backwards off a three-metre high bar and hit the ground with a lot of force. He was quickly attended to by medics and airlifted to intensive care in hospital.
Talk to him about this part of his life and he gets a little more serious, but only because he doesn’t want to play it down.
“I don’t like to be dishonest about this bit. In all honesty, I wasn’t thinking ‘I’ve got to get back on the bike’ – I knew immediately what had happened. And if I was going to be paralysed I was going to be the best at it.”
Read that again. Not just ‘make the best of it’, but ‘be the best at it’.
Happy days and dark days.
Martyn isn’t resentful about being in a wheelchair these days. It’s another page in the book and something to enjoy, just like bikes and friends.
“My wheelchair is amazing. It’s a beautiful object and, like the bike, hasn’t changed much in 100 years. It’s just so clever; just so good. I can sit and stare it all day, just like I would a bike. You can’t better it. I enjoy my wheelchair and I’m pretty into it.”
Although he’ll admit that there were some dark days in hospital, he knew he’d get out and get back to doing things he enjoyed. And anyone who’s seen the video of him with his friends starting him downhill on a full suspension bike with a sit-ski seat attached will know that, boy, is he back.
“The bike riding bit – stupidly, I just knew would happen some day when it was right. I knew I had the trust in the bike industry and I thought ‘someone will probably help me out’ – and they did. I just didn’t have the answer to start with, but it was already there: the sit-ski. It’s usually used for downhill monoskiing. Chris Porter from Mojo helped me get one fitted to a bike. He got really excited about it. And then we talked about geometry and he got REALLY excited.
“I’d love to take some credit for it, but I can’t. It just happened. I sat on it and someone pushed. I didn’t do anything. And now I have wheelchair users posting videos to me about them doing it too, and that’s great!”
The new blood.
You’d think that he might be a slight bit jealous or resentful about the riders that are still performing to the new crowds on YouTube, like Danny MacAskill and Chris Akrigg. Far from it.
“The moment I saw Danny Mac’s first video… I saw that and thought ‘I need a YouTube video’ and spent two years trying to work out how to make a winning video.”
That video was the original Road Bike Party (currently at 12 million views…). The medium of exposure had changed from front covers to YouTube and Martyn knew he needed to keep up. But even now, he can’t praise riders like MacAskill enough: “He’s the greatest gift to cycling. People see his videos and think ‘I need to go and ride a bike’.”
What is unsaid too, is that people see Martyn’s videos – both before and after his accident – and think exactly the same thing.
So what’s next? Whatever it is, he’s looking forward to it. And he’s in good hands. “I’m really lucky that Simon Wear and the guys at GCN and Global Mountain Bike Network have been really supportive. A lot of the reason I didn’t have as much stress as someone might have done – was that they said ‘don’t worry about work, we’ll find something for you to do’ and I’m hoping to do more of that. There’s lots to talk about and I can do a lot of that.
“And I’m hoping to ride my bike as much as possible. I’m not desperate to ride my bike – I just want to enjoy being with my mates and when the opportunity comes, we’ll ride bikes. That’s the gift of it – that I can go and ride bikes.”
