MTB
Unfinished business
When trials-riding master Danny MacAskill started filming an ambitious edit dedicated to the city of San Francisco, little did he know it would take five years to get it in the bag.
But, says the Scot, the blood, sweat and tears were worth it.
In this age of instant gratification, what kind of person takes on a challenge and refuses to accept failure—even after two dozen unsuccessful attempts, or a hundred, or perhaps even double, triple that? What about completing hundreds of those challenges?
Trials-riding legend Danny MacAskill, who turned 37 in December, has been perfecting the impossible for more than a decade. When he released his “Inspired Bicycles” video, filmed on the streets of Edinburgh in 2009, MacAskill created one of the first bike videos ever to go viral. Since then, he has released multiple landmark videos and short films, racking up millions of views as he takes his tires to places no one else could.
MacAskill’s riding looks casual, born of natural talent alone, but in reality it takes steely determination and a laser focus to overcome what are almost unachievable feats: riding up and down a tank gun; balancing on a windmill blade a couple of hundred meters up; sliding your wheels lengthwise down a fallen tree (this took well in excess of 350 tries to nail). These videos are testament to MacAskill’s apparently endless ability to evolve his riding.
“I always want to try to do something to the best of my ability,” he says. “I realized quite early on that, rather than trying to just one-up yourself, [I wanted each] film to have a different feel. In my thinking, it’s like, ‘How do I create something that’s different?’ ”
“San Francisco is an interesting place to be, to ride, to look around.”
© Dave Mackison
His latest film project, Danny MacAskill: Postcard from San Francisco, was initially different for the wrong reasons. Filming began way back in 2017 but was cut short when one of the city’s iconic skate spots bit back, hard. “The second day of filming, we went to this famous San Francisco spot called 3rd and Army. I found the line at the very end, where I planned to do something ambitious. I tried one attempt and slipped and broke my kneecap.”
Five years later, MacAskill—fully healed and displaying characteristic resilience—felt it was important to finish what he’d started despite the challenges. San Francisco has mythological status when it comes to BMX and skateboard spots; its geography and terrain make it unlike anywhere else in the world. The city is unforgiving, brutal and unconventional. And you can’t simply roll up and expect to film where you like at any time—you need a to-do list, a planned strategy and legal permits that come with time limitations.
“I’ve spent a lot of time scouting in San Francisco, so outside of the U.K. it’s the city I know best in the world—a beautiful, really interesting place,” says MacAskill. “With your mind completely open to everything around, you see potential in every edge, so you just make a huge list. And then we tried to get permissions to ride, which ended up being a pretty hard part of this project.”
After 40 or so locations were selected all around the city—from the well-known skate spot China Banks above Kearny Street to the infamous former prison on Alcatraz Island—MacAskill’s team applied for permits. Some of these were turned down, while others allowed access only for a limited amount of time at strange times of day. As these spots were spread across a wide geographical area, this meant MacAskill couldn’t easily switch locations, as he normally would, if one trick wasn’t working; instead he’d just have to knuckle down and get it nailed. Often with an audience of curious onlookers.
“It’s been a long time,” says MacAskill. “When you’re trying to do stuff you’ve never done before— or stuff that sometimes nobody has ever done—you can easily spend two or more days on what ends up being 10 seconds on film. I’ve usually got a good idea of what I can do, and it may take me hundreds of tries to get it, but 98 percent of the time the clip gets landed. But on this project I didn’t necessarily take into account what it’d be like filming on a permit, where you’ve got just four hours to learn the trick.”
Despite all the rejections, disparate locations and thousands of unsuccessful attempts, the resulting film is a jaw-dropping watch. MacAskill seems to effortlessly glide, jump and flip his way around surprising parts of a city that has long inspired his riding—with just a few hints at the pain that went into getting the final cut at long last. So does he feel he’s done what he set out to do? It seems that for MacAskill there’s no such thing as finished business. “You think about some of the set-ups you wanted to ride, that would be cool to find,” he says. “Rather than think about what I’ve achieved so far, I always think about the ones that got away.”
Check out the premiere episode of the series Danny MacAskill: Postcard from San Francisco.
16 min
Redemption
Danny MacAskill returns to San Francisco, five years after plans to film there were derailed by injury.
Up ’n’ over
“The idea was to hop over the rail and then onto the bridge support beam."
© Dave Mackison
“The idea was to kind of hop over the rail and then into this bridge support beam [see above], which must be about a foot wide,” says MacAskill. “I tried for a couple of days to kind of get myself up and over it, but the rail itself is about an inch off my maximum bunny-hopping height. It’s not easy, I can tell you, and I had a really short run-up. One time, I got so close that the stress level was quite high. I mean, it was really funny—my arms by the end of it were actually trembling, like my brain had gone into some different mode. It was weird trying to get the instinctual part of my brain to kind of get on with it. I mean, it looks cool, but it was hard trying to get my brain to chill out a bit while hopping up on that 25-foot-high rail, especially when you couldn’t see the landing until you were up there.”
Stairway to hell
"I broke another wheel, then eventually landed it.”
© Dave Mackison
“I had a bit of a time there. Originally I had planned to 360 off a certain point on the Alcatraz steps, but I thought, ‘Well, it’d be quite good to front-flip on— that would be a cool thing to get to do in that iconic yard.’ The step I was going off was just over 6 or 7 feet—right on the limit of how low you can front-flip to flat, especially having to clear out that kind of distance—and I ended up blowing up a couple of rear wheels. I had to go back two days later to get it done. I broke another wheel, then eventually landed it.”
Rec time
"It’s interesting old concrete and it’s kind of a mad place."
© Dave Mackison
“This one is in the rec yard at Alcatraz, which was a very cool place to be able to film. This was like a nice, relatively straightforward bit of riding: a hop up to the rail and then down, kind of going into the yard itself. I think there was quite a famous clip at the very bottom of the banking with [skateboarder] Mark Gonzales. It’s interesting old concrete, but at the same time it’s got this history and it’s kind of a mad place. It was very cool to get to ride on it.”
Dropping in
"If I dropped my front wheel, I was looking at going over the bars."
© Dave Mackison
“That’s down on China Beach, a really cool part of the city. The drop off that little pillar at the very top actually ended up being really disgusting, especially when we built this landing that was almost too far, so I’m trying to drop, you know, 6 and a half feet to land on this thin wall. If I dropped my front wheel, I was looking at basically going over the bars into the back of the landing we’d built, 17 feet down to the beach, and then landing in a pile of driftwood. So it wouldn’t be fun. I’d actually thought it would be quite easy and within my limits, but in reality it ended up being a pretty hard day. I had a bit of a mental battle with that one.”
Nothing but net
"It took me 300 tries to get across."
© Dave Mackison
“[Before returning to S.F.] I had four months in this warehouse in Inverness where I was able to build replicas of some of the spots that I was hoping to clear [in S.F.], to practice on. It didn’t exactly instill confidence in my ability [to do this one]—it took me 300 tries to get across. It’s not actually the balance that’s the main issue, it’s how the tennis net moves on the cable. It twists, which then pulls my tires off the side. But in the end I managed to do it ahead of schedule. If I hadn’t been practicing in the warehouse, there’s no way I’d have been able to do it in that time frame.”
Tunnel vision
"The main thing was just trying to do the coolest riding I could find.”
© Dave Mackison
“I’d say this has to be one of the most visited tourist spots in the whole of San Francisco. I mean, the idea of the film ended up being to visit some of the most scenic parts of San Francisco and give it a rough theme of this postcard from the city, to tie it together. The main thing was just trying to do the coolest riding I could find.”
Top of the line
“China Banks was one of the lines I was most excited about."
© Dave Mackison
“So this was one of the lines I was most excited about, just in terms of how iconic China Banks is, and how it features in so many skate films. Originally I had a cool line that went out the opposite side of the banks—you know, basically jump off the side of the wall, go over that lantern and then jump off the wall and land on a ledge. However, during those five years [between the first and second shoots] they put some kind of extra ledge on the ledge I was going to jump on. So I changed my plans and went in the opposite direction, but it was still very cool, just getting to ride it. I’ve heard rumors that it’s gonna be knocked down and the whole square is getting changed, so it’s cool to get to do something on it before a spot like that disappears forever.”
Inside Alcatraz
"I put myself in the prisoners’ shoes, going into cells and whatnot."
© Dave Mackison
“It’s a funny place, Alcatraz. I think people get different emotions from the place. I put myself in the prisoners’ shoes a few times, going into cells and whatnot. It’s got that vibe, but then on the other hand it’s an iconic tourist attraction, so it’s weird—there are two sides to it. I’ve spent a lot of time on islands in Scotland that are kind of similar to Alcatraz, with World War I and II defenses, so it felt a little bit like home in some ways—all that concrete and the smell of seagull shit. It just has this vibe that’s like, OK, this is kind of my scene out here.”
Chain reaction
“It’s not the hardest trick," MacAskill says, though others may disagree.
© Dave Mackinson
“I mean, it’s not the hardest trick,” MacAskill says, though others may disagree. “It’s a big, thick, chunky chain, but with a slight twist in it ... and OK, it was rocky down on the side. But obviously it looks quite beautiful. We had a tight time limit, and there were lots of tourists around in the morning, so we went down first thing to try to ride it. It was definitely a little bit frustrating, but it was also very cool to be riding the Fort Point chain in such an iconic part of San Francisco.”
