Bike
I was at the peak of my riding ability when an innocuous back injury set off a chain of events that almost stopped my most famous films from being made. Here's how I found a way to make them happen...
It was 2009 and I was at peak fitness and confidence on my bike. I’d just finished filming Inspired Bicycles in Edinburgh, which kicked off my career, and I’d been riding pretty much every day of my life.
But, after shooting an advert in Glasgow, I suffered an innocuous back twinge, which led to a year of problems, putting my fitness and creative plans in jeopardy.
This is the story of how my films Way Back Home and Imaginate almost didn't happen...
There wasn’t a big, ‘Ooh I’ve done something’ moment and I didn’t feel different in any way, I just felt a twinge in my lower back.
The injury set off a bit of a chain reaction. In the weeks and months after, I started having some silly little crashes...
Within a month I broke my left collarbone on a pump track in California. I wasn’t paying attention and slipped on one of the corners and landed on the hard dirt.
It wasn’t a clean break, the collarbone had been compressed and was kind of rainbow shaped. Amazingly this was the first time I’d done my collarbone and it was fairly debilitating. It really stops you using your core muscles and it’s difficult to get in and out of bed or do simple tasks.
I came off, landed on a rock and broke my collarbone for the third time
Six weeks later, back in Edinburgh, I broke it again. I ended up needing a plate on the collarbone which made it more stable, but added to the healing time.
Thirteen weeks later, I had the all clear to go to Newport Beach in California and train with the Athertons. We ended up doing a little bit of downhill riding together. It’s not really my sport but if you’re hanging out with world champion downhill riders that’s what you do! I ended up getting a slow front puncture and it slid out and I came off, landed on a rock and broke my collarbone for the third time.
After this one I was like, 'Oh for goodness sake.' Luckily I didn’t have to have an operation, but the plate in there is now all bent and kinked and gnarled. I’ll probably break my collarbone again at some point which will straighten it out again.
I was off the bike for six months
Injuries are a part of riding, so I am used to them, but this was frustrating. I’d signed to Red Bull about two weeks before I broke my first one and I was wanting to produce my next film. It was frustrating to have this opportunity and not be able to make the most of it.
The collarbone injuries started to play a big part in my riding health. I was off the bike for six months. I tried to use the time wisely by driving around Scotland looking for locations for the next video I planned to do for Red Bull, called Way Back Home. I wanted to do a film in Scotland and I was trying to find lots of manmade concrete features with grand views in the background. It was the first time I’d really set my sights as high as that for a film.
It’s funny how it works. When I am off the bike with an injury, in my mind my riding carries on on an upward trajectory. I'm constantly thinking about what new tricks I'm gonna do, and I can visualise them and almost learn them without actually being on the pedal. So it was a bit of a shock to the system to get back on the bike and for this twinge in my back to really start giving me some problems.
In hindsight I probably spent a bit too long sitting on the sofa in Edinburgh, but with a broken collarbone you can’t do any core work because it’s just too painful. It’s hard enough to get out of bed, let alone do any training, so this started chipping away at my core strength and I kind of let my back go.
By now it was nearly the end of 2010. The date for starting Way Back Home was getting pretty close. I’d spent some time in the gym to try and keep my body going, but for me the main thing is getting back on the pedals.
If my body feels good, I ride the hell out of my bike
I was spending time on the streets of Edinburgh trying to get back up to strength, and that’s when I really started pushing a little bit harder, for two or three hours a day. I started noticing that something was up with my lower back, and it started really affecting my left leg – there was a real weakness there that started causing problems with everything.
I’m not like an Olympic athlete where there are coaches closely monitoring my training sessions. So, if my body feels good, I ride the hell out of my bike. You’ve got music on, you’re pushing yourself, and you’re doing bigger and bigger riding. But I would suffer after those sessions. It’s the worst when you have a good session, but then for the next day or days you’re hobbling trying to get to the toilet in the morning.
There was no pressure from any sponsors or anything, I just had this amazing opportunity to drive around Scotland, getting permission to ride on anything I wanted, and I wanted to put everything I had into it. We drove 17,000 miles around Scotland making Way Back Home, so yeah, it worked out.
I rode through the pain and filmed the whole of Way Back Home carrying that back injury. When you’re younger and someone says, "You’ve gotta watch your back," you’re like, "Aye aye aye, I’ll be fine." But when you actually get a bad back you’re like, "This is actually rubbish."
In 2010 into 2011 I made some more films, including Industrial Revolutions, and started having some real leg issues with weakness in my left leg. I was able to do 40 piston squats on my right leg, but on my left leg I couldn’t do one.
I was okay on the bike but struggling to walk off the bike, and really not in a good way. I had lots of people look at my left leg, and lots of people tell me it was something to do with my left knee.
In 2011 I went to the mountains in north Vancouver for what was going to be my next big film, Strength In Numbers. It was one of the biggest films that was happening in bikes at the time and involved loads of other riders. It was really an honour for me.
On the second day of filming I was doing a trick in Stanley Park, Vancouver, off an old dead tree, and I messed up one of my attempts – which is very common – and landed in some goose crap, twisted my knee and tore my meniscus in my left knee.
The torn disc was leaking acid into my spinal cord
It was a silly little crash – I mean, honestly, it’s always the way. I’d been riding on top of a multi-storey car park, and then to have this silly little jump off my bike was just...
But again I didn’t know what was wrong because I didn’t get my knee MRI’d until a few weeks after, and now my body was really in a bad way but I wanted to make the most of the opportunity.
After filming Strength In Numbers, Red Bull flew me down to Marina Del Rey in LA to a place called the Disc Sports & Spine Center, a really high-end clinic. These doctors were the first to scan my lower back and they found the torn disc which, by this point, had been giving me hassle for a couple of years. It was leaking acid into my spinal cord, and trapping the sciatic nerve that goes from my spine to my left leg. The leg weakness was the real problem, because your legs, as well as your core, are where your power comes from. I think I had about a fifth of my power.
So yeah, two weeks later in January 2012 I was on the operating table and I had a lot of time on my hands, a year off the bike.
In my mind I was gonna go bigger than ever, but the reality was that my body was going to take a while to catch up
And that’s when I developed these really big aspirations to do this next video, called Imaginate, which was the first film I was ever going to do indoors with artificial light and a built set. Red Bull really gave me free rein to do whatever I wanted.
I hadn’t really ridden a bike at all until a week before we started filming
I knew there was this old museum in Glasgow called Kelvin Hall, and that at the time it was probably lying empty, so we managed to get that. I had to commit to a lot of different riding setups while I wasn’t riding at all. In my mind, my riding was progressing massively, and I was gonna go bigger than ever, but the reality was that my body was going to take a while to catch up.
The deadline to start Imaginate was January 2013 and I was very conscious of making my back properly heal. I hadn’t really ridden a bike at all until a week before we started filming, not even on the streets of Glasgow.
By that point I’d worked on a few films so I knew what it would take to achieve what I wanted to achieve, which normally involves hundreds of attempts per trick. And with Imaginate there were no other riders, so if you’re having a bad day filming because of an injury or how you’re feeling, it’s all on me.
I had to work about three times as hard physically and mentally on Imaginate than I had on other projects
I remember the first day back on the bike, in Kelvin Hall on the Imaginate set, and it became pretty clear that my back was still giving me problems and I still had a weakness in my leg. The operation was not a eureka moment.
I had to work about three times as hard physically and mentally on Imaginate than I had on other projects, but I had the time and I was working with my friends and we just chipped away at it for the next few months.
Halfway through the project, I got labyrinthitis in my ear – it affects your balance and makes you feel like the world is spinning
There were bumps in the road. Halfway through the project I got labyrinthitis in my ear. It affects the fluids that are in charge of your balance and makes you feel like the world is spinning, which isn’t ideal when you’re trying to balance on things on your bike, so filming came to a standstill for two weeks. But that two weeks was great for me, to help me gather myself mentally and give my body some time to catch up a bit.
I could feel myself getting stronger throughout Imaginate. I was on the bike every day in the morning with a trainer, and then for six to eight hours a day doing tricks, so that’s always gonna make you stronger. I wasn’t 100 percent, but I wasn’t too bad.
We left the hard tricks until the end – that’s how it always works on these films.
One particular elephant in the room was a loop-the-loop which was supposed to look like a Hot Wheels track. There was this huge bit of canvas which was meant to look like a bedroom wall which had an air vent in it, and outside that air vent there was a ramp. I had to backflip off this ramp onto a giant Dandy comic book, then round a loop-the-loop and onto a little bit of runway, and then I was going to front flip over an F1 car. It was quite an elaborate setup.
Even if your body isn’t feeling great, if your head’s in the right place you can do anything
All the videos I’d watched on YouTube of people trying to loop-the-loop had gone terribly. It was harrowing, so I was a little bit scared of that one. But when I came back from my time off with labyrinthitis, that was the first thing we got stuck into. I felt ready.
That two-week break gave me time to ride the streets of Glasgow. It was good seeing the progression my body had made during the filming. Even if your body isn’t feeling great, if your head’s in the right place you can do anything.
Initially I learned how to do the backflip and then incrementally worked my way around the loop-the-loop using air bags and mats and all sorts of stuff. It actually went very smoothly. Eventually we got to the stage where we took all the stuff away and I went at it and just glided round it. It ended up being quite easy.
There was other riding still to do, but that was a really big moment in the whole project.
I finished Imaginate in April but my back and knee were still not ideal – that hasn't changed in the last 10 years really. I’ve had plenty more injuries since then, lots of operations, many, many MRIs and X-rays. I had a good run of it from 2013 to 2016, and I got loads done, but I actually ended up breaking my left kneecap in 2017 while filming in San Francisco. That was a big street project for Red Bull and I was putting everything I could into it, so it wasn’t a stupid crash – I was at the top of my abilities. But a broken kneecap is not an ideal injury and after two years I’m finally getting back to 100 percent.
I’ve not felt more ready in the last 10 years to start a project again
I’ve got a few projects planned this year to push my riding limits. We’re going to revisit a lot of the locations we visited in Way Back Home and really up the ante with some of the tricks. The pressure will be off because I’m gonna have some of the world’s best riders with me, and that’ll be a nice change for me.
I’ve not felt more ready in the last 10 years to start a project again. I’ve definitely had my fill of riding for myself, and I feel a bit more like my 23-year-old self right now.
I’m excited about that, and I’m ready to go.
