Matty Johnson is a pro baseball player turned MTB YouTuber. He’s on a mission to make people see mountain biking differently and get everyone out on the trails.
.
Matty Johnson is a professional baseball player turned mountain bike YouTuber. His videos caught my eye because he seemed to be saying a lot of things that made sense. Very much ‘it’s about the ride, not the bike’, or ‘spend less, ride more’ type stuff. I could also see from his videos that his riding had changed – earlier videos were much more about big drops and jumps, whereas recent ones have him rolling around trails on fully rigid bikes. I wanted to know what had brought about this change in habits, and what had informed his perspectives on bikes, so I caught up with him for a chat.
First up was baseball – something I know next to nothing about. What I did know was that he’d played for the Red Sox, probably the only team I might have actually heard of, which probably meant he was a fairly big deal.
..
Matty Johnson: I grew up in Arkansas. This was way before mountain biking, though. I didn’t know anything about Bentonville. [Now a hot new trail destination thanks to extensive investment from the Walmart dynasty, which has its HQ there]. I grew up playing baseball. It’s just something that I loved my whole life and I focused so much on it to try to be a professional athlete and it eventually worked out. In high school I was so focused on baseball that I didn’t get to play my senior year because of my academics. But my coach made sure I graduated high school so I could still get a scholarship to play in college. So, I went and played college for four years, but never got drafted. I went to a pro tryout and they pretty much told me I sucked! It was three cuts and I didn’t even make the first cut, I got cut right away. And I was like, ‘I feel like I’m pretty good. I don’t think I’m that bad!’ So, one of my coaches said, ‘I know of this semi-professional league that you can go try out for and they’re looking for a player because one was injured.’ So, I tried it out, and they said, ‘You can play here until this guy gets back from his injury.’
I was playing a completely different position so I was kind of nervous. We started the game and I think it was the first inning, the very beginning of the game, the guy in my primary position broke his wrist running for a ball. So they moved me to that position. And six months later I was the number one prospect in that league and the Red Sox signed me. I literally caught a break! So that’s how I ended up with the Red Sox, I ended up being the number one prospect in that league. I played with the Red Sox for I think five years, but then that ended quicker than I thought because I had a shoulder injury and teams didn’t really want to invest in that because they didn’t think that I would fully recover from it.
That kind of ended my career and that’s when I moved to Colorado.
A change of scene
Attracted by the mountains and the weather ‘I grew up in a lot of humidity and I’d never been anywhere with low to no humidity’, Matty set his sights on Colorado. A relatable ambition, perhaps. ‘I said I don’t know what I want to do but I know I want to live in Colorado. I was here about a year and a half and then COVID hit.’
Matty wanted to explore the city where he lived without getting in a car, so he bought himself a ‘super cheap bike at a pawn shop just to ride around town’. He’d wear his GoPro as he rolled, and eventually it filled up, so he put the footage on YouTube. There was no big plan – like many during COVID, he was just figuring out how to fill the days.
Matty: I just put it on YouTube and a couple of people watched it. And I said, ‘This biking thing is kind of fun.’ So, it just snowballed from there.
…I get nervous though. I hope these companies don’t hate me! I’m just saying what I feel and I’m speaking from my perspective of getting into biking… it’s hard to make videos day in and day out, especially if you’re not being yourself. There’s no way that you could create something and it be awesome and people really enjoy it if that’s not really who you are… So I just be myself on camera. I get nervous sometimes, but at least I can make a video knowing this is who I am.
...
It’s fairly easy to imagine why someone living in Colorado might enjoy mountain biking, but I wondered how he made the leap from rolling round the streets to exploring the trails.
Matty: I was on a hybrid bike and I just went into the bike shop one day and I said, ‘Hey, I don’t really know anything about bikes. I just want something with some bigger tyres’ because every time I would hit a bump, it felt like I was about to shatter my wrists! So they put me on a Trek Marlin and I would ride that around. I don’t know where I got the idea to ride a trail – maybe because I live in Colorado. I wanted to go ride a trail and see what that’s like. And then I would look around. I’m like all these mountains and stuff everywhere and I can ride a bike out here? That’s what really got me hooked. Just the nature and just being able to ride a bike within that nature.
Matty gets quite poetic as he describes that feeling of riding in nature.
Matty: I’m just looking around and thinking, ‘What did I do to be able to deserve to be out here?’. That’s how I feel when I’m on the bike. I just want to be out there within the nature. And I just look at everything around me and I’m just like ‘I don’t know if I lived a good enough life to deserve to be out here on the bike’. I’m not saying I’m a bad person, but it just feels like this is too good to be true.
Making the leap
....
Matty discovered this wondrous world on his own, with no mates to drag him along or show him the way. However, once out on the trails, he did find there was a warm reception – it’s just that from the outside, it all seemed a bit intimidating. I wondered if, coming into mountain bike culture from baseball in particular, he had seen any things that surprise him?
Matty: Not really because I’ve been in that kind of culture before where it’s kind of like I guess a ‘bro code’ or whatever – bros doing things and they all just stick together. I wouldn’t say they don’t like outsiders but they are more willing to talk to people within the circle than outside the circle. Everybody I’ve met has been super nice. But at the same time, if you’re not within the community… most people who are just getting into it don’t really know anything about bikes. And they definitely don’t have the bikes that the people already in the community have. So, I’ve noticed… it’s like a bond that brings people together. And if you’re not within that circle, it’s kind of hard to get in there. But once you get in, it’s fine.
I wonder if he still feels like an outsider?
Matty: No. I can see how people can get intimidated, but I’ve been a professional athlete, so I really wasn’t intimidated getting into the sport. They were super welcoming, but I was on a cheaper bike and not able to do the things that they could – but I was still okay with that. And they were okay with bringing me along on trails and stuff. I think a lot of people get intimidated and they think that they don’t have what it takes to do it. But I think a lot of riders are willing to bring you under their wing and show you the ways if you let them. But I think a lot of people are just intimidated initially.
This is a topic that a lot of Matty’s videos touch on. He thinks that once someone actually gets on a bike and tries mountain biking, they’ll discover how welcoming and accessible it is. But from the outside, before you get anywhere near the trailhead, it can all look a bit much. He tries to show mountain biking in a way that makes it seem like something anyone can do, whatever bike they have. Having been the outsider looking in, stepping into the ring, and discovering the reality, he’s conscious of how, without that professional athlete’s confidence, he might never have made it to the inside.
Matty: I’d see them having super expensive bikes and I’m like, ‘dang, I do I need that to actually ride? Am I out here on the wrong bike? Are people looking at me wondering why am I riding this bike?’ So, those were my initial things. But everybody was super nice and I didn’t have anybody saying any bad things. So, I think my perception was I had to have the bikes that they had. But once I started riding, I thought ‘I don’t think I do because all I’m doing is riding a bike on a trail. I don’t have to ride the trails they ride’. But it would be nice to have bikes like they have! I just think that people see what they see on the internet, and see people riding expensive bikes, and people automatically assume that that’s what they need. And that’s what I thought until I actually started riding and I realised there’s levels to it. You can pick and choose whatever level you want to ride.
Matty has been on something of an arc, progressing through riding trails on that first Trek Marlin, onto bike park features and eventually Moab’s notorious Portal Trail.
Dialling it back
Matty: The guys I was riding with, they were pretty good. So, I just did what they did. And I progressed. I wanted to get as good as I could get and just see what happens. After I got my first full suspension mountain bike, I got to a point where I wasn’t riding as much. I said, ‘this is kind of not fun anymore’. I got to a point of ‘I don’t know why I’m doing this, and I don’t even know why I have this bike, and I don’t want to have to search for the craziest trails that I can find every time I want to go ride.’
It was just a lot, and I didn’t really want to go through all that just to go ride my bike. That’s when I sold my full suspension bike and went and got a hardtail. And that’s when I started liking mountain biking again!
The Portal Trail was the thing that really took me over the edge. I was like, ‘Okay, I don’t even want to know what’s after this because I feel like I’ve done the hardest thing. So, I don’t even know if I want to do anything else harder than this.’ That’s what took me over that tipping point where I was like, ‘Yeah, I think I’m done pushing the limits. I’m going just get on a hardtail and just ride. I was just doing it [the hard stuff] because I thought that’s what it was cool to do and that’s what they wanted to do. But I just want to enjoy the outdoors and enjoy the trails. I want to soak it all in. I don’t even have Strava on my phone. I’ve never downloaded Strava. I just go out and ride.
His YouTube channel provides some income, but he still has a day job doing food deliveries so that he has a steady income to rely on. Keeping the balance in favour of creating authentic and honest content is important to him, and affects how he works.
Matty: I still have a day job, but I do mostly YouTube. I have the day job just because YouTube fluctuates, and I don’t want to solely depend on sponsorships or brands or anything because the way I do my content, it’s kind of hard to keep it honest and just be myself if I know I’m getting paid for certain things. I focus on making the best videos possible so I get views over sponsorships because if I’m getting paid by the sponsors, I can’t really be as honest in my videos as I want to be. I’ve got work the day job to level it out.
Keeping It Real
He does have people who he partners with to help him cut the cost of making videos – figuring that them helping him with products is money he doesn’t have to go out and spend. He’s currently working with Hunt Wheels, PMW Components, Bikes Online, Hand Up Gloves, and Kali Protectives.. Plus, he’s doing a piece of work with Walmart and their new $500 full suspension bike. No, that’s not a typo.
Matty: I was in Bentonville and they [Walmart] saw that I was there, and they said, ‘Hey, you want to come to the headquarters and meet with us? We got these new full suspension mountain bikes coming out and we want to see what you think.’ So I went there and I looked at it and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I said, ‘As long if this frame doesn’t explode on you, I think this is going to be a big deal.’ What got me into it was the standards. It had a tapered head tube, rear through axle – which is hard to get on modern mountain bikes for under $1,500 for some reason, I don’t know why – and internal routing for a dropper post, internal cables, and all that. Just a super modern mountain bike for under $500. And that’s what really drew me in: $448, full suspension. As long as this frame doesn’t fall apart on the trail, this is this going to change a lot.
In just two weeks, Matty can see through his affiliate link that 25 people have bought one of these bikes, so it seems to be catching people’s eye. He’s currently working on a video where he upgrades the components, just as you would if you owned the bike and wore bits out.
Matty: I put on a new fork which was $149, new bars, new stem, new tyres and wheels, and I’ll put the dropper post on today. So, I think I did the math and I’m at $1,400 right now… Oh, I got to get the brakes put on today, too. Those were $30 each. So, $60 for the brakes…
Matty is clear there’s a balance between having a bike that works – he rides enough that poor quality components will wear out – and spending more money than is necessary to just have fun. Many of his recent videos have him riding around on rigid flat bar or gravel bikes – because he wants to illustrate that you can get out there without needing a whole lot of kit. He’s hoping the Ozark Trail will be the kind of platform that can help get people into riding, not make them feel like they’ve wasted money if they’re not out there shredding every weekend, but be upgraded later if they do get into it. I wonder if he’ll be putting it to the test on some of the bigger bike park features that I know he’s capable of. The answer is pure America:
Matty: I got health insurance, so I can do it. I finally got health insurance, so yeah, I’ll do it!
Matty’s story is pretty ‘America’ too. Living the dream and making it to pro baseball, then forging a new career on YouTube. He certainly seems to feel fortunate and appreciate his position. His advice to others eying up the pro rider life is a nice mix of American dream and ‘stay in school’.
Matty: As a kid, if you want to be a professional athlete, I say go for it. Give it all you got because it’s possible. I did it. But at the same time, just know it’s probably more than a 90% chance it won’t happen. But just do it. I always tell people, put yourself in the best position to succeed and no matter what happens, even if you don’t get the outcome you wanted, something else will come from it. So, I say pursue it, give it all you got, and if it doesn’t work out, it’ll translate to something else in life.
I never thought I would be saying this, but I feel like school is more important than the sport. Make sure you do what you’ve got to do in school.
The American education and sports selection system meant that because Matty didn’t get the grades needed to enter his senior year of high school, he missed out on the draft, making him fairly invisible to team scouts.
Matty: They didn’t even really look at me anymore because they were like, ‘He couldn’t even pass his grades to play his senior year in high school. Why would we still look at him?’… I would say that’s my biggest regret in life is being ineligible to play because of my grades. Yeah, that’s my biggest regret in life is not working hard enough in school. And I never in my life thought I would be saying that.
Fresh eyes, new perspectives
Coming into the bike world with fresh eyes, he think he sees missed opportunities for getting people onto bikes, and it’s this he’s trying to address with his YouTube content. He hopes perhaps the bike industry will get there too.
Matty: I get all the expensive mountain bikes and how it’s being marketed, because I love a nice bike, don’t get me wrong. But my mission is to get more people on bikes, and I don’t think hitting them from that angle will get them into it. I think there needs to be more emphasis on the entry level riders where you’re selling more of the experience over the product. That’s what I try to do in my videos. I try to sell the experience.
I want you to be able to picture yourself doing what I’m doing, just riding out on the trails and enjoying nature, because it’s really mentally relaxing. You can just get away from everything. It’s not even about the mountain biking part – it’s just about being out there on the trails on a bike. I think companies need to somehow get to a lower barrier to entry for people and show more relatable stuff. People like me can do it, but… I think there needs to be teams focused on that marketing angle… where you’re showing people the benefits of riding and how it’s changed people’s lives. Not just showing them how sick this jump is or something like that. It’s more about the life changing part of it.
He has a few loose goals for his new career – he’d like to understand more about how the bike industry works, partly so he can learn more which engineering innovations might be worth spending a bit extra on. He enjoys learning about different bike communities, and seeing the different bikes people ride. He’d quite like break a wheelie record – the furthest he says he’s done is five miles. If the opportunity arises, he’d like to try bike packing and do something like the Colorado Trail or even ride across the United States. But these personal goals aren’t what gets him out of bed, onto the trails, and into the editing software. It’s getting people on bikes that does that, and an encounter on the trail makes him already feel pretty fulfilled.
Matty: I was riding and this guy came up to me and he said, ‘I watch your videos all the time, and it got me back into biking. Since I’ve been back biking, I lost 300lb.’ I don’t get real emotional, but that kind of got me emotional. Just to know that I impacted somebody’s life – that he was living one life and [my videos] took him to a whole another life. That’s when I felt like I’d made it.
If hearing Matty’s perspective has you all fired up and ready to go and explore the trails, then that’s another day’s work done. Let’s give him the last word:
Matty: Just get out there and ride. Don’t think anything into it. Just go ride and all the things you need to feel will just happen.
Replies (1)
Comments Closed
Very Good read. Like his attitude, it’s about riding and the journey, it’s definitely Not About the Bike.