Decoding Athletes · Season 1 · Episode 1 · 27 October 2020
Danny MacAskill, trials and mountain bike legend
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It’s another of Scotsman MacAskill’s exhilarating journeys, this time as he goes through the highs and lows of his career on the Decoding Athletes podcast.
A career which has seen him jump from being an unknown bike mechanic from the Isle of Skye into one of the world’s most watched and admired sportsmen, an internet colossus.
It almost felt as if I was in the Truman show
MacAskill takes us through the story of how his life changed overnight 11 years ago thanks to one video of his street stunts in Edinburgh that almost revolutionised the idea of what’s possible on a bike. He explains the culture shock of how Inspired Bicycles, set to Band of Horses song The Funeral, transformed his life.
One second, he’s a nobody; the next, he’s turning down an appearance on America’s biggest TV show. He also reveals why the pioneering video, since viewed over 39m times, was almost thrown off the web at the outset.
I tried again, I failed again. I was just losing my mind
MacAskill’s perfectionist streak comes to the fore as he tells the story of the trick he refused to let beat him after about 150 failed attempts and how six days of filming just to capture footage of one trick lasting six seconds is always worth it in the end.
On a plane journey, Danny will note down stick men drawings of trick ideas
© Fred Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
How does the 34-year-old MacAskill come up with his endlessly imaginative and novel bicycle dance, be it over monuments in the Scottish capital, up in the mountains of his home island or in a giant playground of his imagination? He and Dandois spill their creative secrets.
In my brain, I’ve ridden this entire room
“Even on the way to hospital after you've broken something, you’re thinking about what you’re going to do when you get back on your bike…”
MacAskill’s ecstasy at pulling off the perfect routine usually comes after a whole heap of agony. He relates his conflicting attitudes to the occupational hazards of trying to entertain the world – at least 30 broken bones down the years – including one injury, incurred when jumping off a Glasgow bridge, that still plagues him today, 11 years later.
Danny's approach to bridges is stranger than most
© Dave Mackison
If I went home, trying to be Billy Big Balls, my friends would definitely knock me down a peg or two
Four hundred and fifty million internet views of his magic mean we may have all seen MacAskill the cycle legend – but what about MacAskill the man? He shares the details of how his modest lifestyle hasn’t changed despite success – and how his old mates would never allow it anyway.
What are MacAskill’s next great dreams and projects? He talks of the men he thinks are taking biking into new realms of excitement and of his own incredible opportunities – the ones he turned down, like a new life in a Korean circus, and the ones he didn’t, like a day weaving around the Playboy Mansion feeling, er, rather uncomfortable.
Who wouldn’t want to ride on the moon?
Does he have any regrets in his trailblazing career? Tune into Decoding Athletes to find out.
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