Martyn Ashton Inspires Again

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Martyn in the famous start gate with pukka UCI commisaires

Martyn Ashton continues to surprise, inspire, amuse and just flabbergast us. It was so impressive to see him back on a mountain bike in his Back on Track video. But he had more up his sleeve for us (and for himself). Having spoken to him when he entertained the Tweedlove Film Night last month, we knew there was something big in the works – involving an electric-assist Canyon downhill bike. And with Fort William World Cup looming, he wasn’t really thinking of… was he?

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We’re sure Aaron Gwin didn’t mind lending his number out for the day.
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Even this top section is mighty scary, let alone doing it sat down.

He was. Shot over a couple of days with the GMBN crew up at Fort William, Martyn Ashton rode the downhill course. A bit of artistic licence allowed for some splicing together of different runs and a couple of bits that just wouldn’t be possible to ride without legs, but that’s 100% Martyn Ashton there riding the fiercest downhill World Cup course in the world – and helped along by a couple of his rather famous friends. He rolled in to the arena at noon on the Sunday, finals day of the Fort William World Cup to deafening applause, having ridden the lower half of the track in one go in front of huge crowds.

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See that grin? That’s all you need.

An audibly choked-up Dan Jarvis spoke to Martyn after his run for the audience and everyone, without exception, roared their approval for this funny, inspirational part of the British mountain bike scene.

Here’s the video:

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Relief is visible.
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Everyone was emotional at the bottom, even veteran commentator Dan Jarvis
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We want to be in Martyn’s crew…

And that’s not all. Martyn says he has another video in the works for later in the year. How he’ll top this, we dread to think! Nice one, Martyn! And well done everyone who made it happen – including the normally unyielding UCI…

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Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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