- [Martyn] If you wrote it down, it wouldn't be believable, you know.
Like, it's almost a cliché. Isn't it? Stunt man, career over,
and you know. But I've never really thought about it. Like it was career over
actually, when I had the accident. That career stopped as it was.
Obviously, it was a shock at the time and it was a huge change in lifestyle,
because there's awfully a lot of things I can't do and a lot of things I need help
with. I think one of the really big hurdles that anyone in my situation has to
go through is like asking for help, because, you know, I'm a biker, I can do
everything. Then, having to ask for people's help, that's one of the hard
things that you have to go through and there's lots of things like that,
lots of adjustments which are really difficult. There's no other way to
describe it. It's really hard. Sometimes you're like, "Oh, my god." You just
can't... My injury level is T7, so it's right here. So from there down,
I can't move or feel anything. It, to me, sounds as crazy as that sounds.
you know, I don't get any more used to it. What that means,
I remember the first day I was put into a wheelchair after I'd been on bedrest for
like 10 weeks. I hadn't moved, and they sat me into a wheelchair,
so you kind of learn to be upright. You feel awful sick, because your blood
pressure is weird and your body is not pumping blood around like it should.
As they were lowering me into the chair in a sling, like your backside is
coming down onto the cushion of the seat, but to me I hadn't hit the bottom yet.
I hadn't hit the cushion, because I was kind of still that far away.
That's how it is. I'm floating. So if I move anywhere, I'm like just floating in
midair. This feels like someone else. So when I've got my hands on the handlebars
and the seat is holding me, basically from my injury downwards,
really in a strong position, I'm kind of like gliding through the air.
I'm not getting the same feedback from suspension you normally would,
because you feel so much through the pedals and in your knees.
I'm not getting that feedback. I'm getting a different kind of feedback.
I don't know. You sort of feel so awesome. You're just like...
You're just gliding along in it. It's just the excitement of that,
and they're like, it's getting nearer to it that has driven me on.
But in all honesty, the motivation for getting back on a bike and we talked about
it before, the determination, isn't quite as like, "Oh, I'm going to do it," as it
sounds. It's always been like, when I was in the hospital, when my friends were
coming in to visit me, myself and my friends, we all, and my family too,
were like, "I wonder how we will do it." In the hospital, you're being told about
like you're not going to walk again, and they're teaching you acceptance.
Because that's what you need to leave hospital with, is like you accept the
situation and you're going to move on. I've been through that thing of like,
"Oh, will I ever walk again?" Because that's an obvious question,
and I don't know. I don't know. But I don't really think about it that much day
to day. But with the riding bikes again, honest truth is it was never like,
"I'll never ride a bike," and then someone said, "Maybe you can, Martyn."
It's just like, I guess because of the people bike riders are,
we're like, "I wonder if we'll do that." It was almost fun straight away.
It was instantly like, "I've got to learn to ride bikes again.
So that's going to be pretty funny. But how are we going to do it?" I don't ever
take a risk I don't feel like I'm comfortable with. I never did on my trials
bike before. I never did anything I wasn't 100% sure about. When I had my accident,
it was that. I had an accident. I wasn't trying some incredible stunt.
Something just went wrong and that's life. I got out of it lucky,
as far as I'm concerned I was still here, so I was happy. I think in this
situation, I'm a bike rider and I can't do anything about it. I did it for so long
and loved it for so long. It was the sport that ignited my interest when I was a kid.
How do you change that? We all love different things. Don't we?
I love driving bikes, so I can't change it. Having an injury like this doesn't
turn off what I think. It maybe only makes me want it more. Getting it back feels
like when you started riding a bike, but now I really know what it [meant]...
As an adult, I've learned to ride a bike again a bit, and it feels incredible.
I like it more now than I did last week. The team that's got me to the point to
ride down a hill is actually not just those guys riding, but obviously Lisa and
Alfie are emotionally engaged in it as much as actually having to be there and
help me do it. Well, they know me more than... They know what I want to do,
and I'm always talking about what I want to do to them. If it was a terrible idea,
it wouldn't get much further than that because they'd be like,
"Well, hang on a minute." Alfie is quite... I don't know if it's the right
moment to tell you something Alfie said the other day. I was sat on the doorstep
of my house like this, looking out and Alfie is out the front,
and he's having a go on a trials bike which he's just found in the garage.
He doesn't really ride trials. He's sort of into loads of stuff.
He was having a go on his bike and he was doing some tricks, "Oh,
God. My glasses keep falling off. I should've put contact lenses in." I said,
"Your eyes aren't that bad. You don't need to wear glasses to ride.
I never used to wear glasses when I rode." He looked at me and he was like,
"Well, maybe you should have." I was like, "Good point."
- [man 1] [inaudible 00:06:16].
- We filmed it in sort of sequence. So I did ride off the top and we were kind of
like, "Okay. [inaudible 00:06:26]." But we were really confident about it.
But we haven't done something you still... We knew there was some like,
"Well, I don't want to fall off." We want to have a good time.
That's what we wanted. A crash that early would've been like, "What were we
thinking?" It might put some doubt in and I think we all wanted to believe in it,
because we put so much effort in. So that first moment where Chris and Danny are
pushing me, and Blake, who's just down the track waiting for me to catch him up and
it's get going in my little group of four riders. There was quite a lot of nerves
there, and it kind of built up over the day, because we'd filmed the opening scene
and, "Oh," everyone is getting nervous. So yeah, I think we were probably scared,
not nervous. Like, "Oh, this is serious." But it was serious because we really
wanted to have a good time. We didn't want it to be horrible, because they probably
knew what it would mean to me if it didn't work well. The riders is Chris Atcrick
[sp], Danny McCaskill [sp], and Blake Sampson [sp]. So the two guys who helped
me finish "Road Bike Party 2", Chris and Danny. Then, Blake Sampson has basically
been one of my best friends who rode on the bike tour with me,
which is where I had my accident, for years and years, but since my accident has
basically been my wingman. In the video, two people lift me on the bike.
Blake will do it on his own just like, "Come here, Martyn," and chuck me up.
"Go on." So they're three brilliant, brilliant people to have with you today.
When you've got Blake in front of you, Danny McCaskill, and Chris Atcrick on your
side, how bad could it be? When I'm in the seat, my feet are kind of like on the
pedals and they move still, the pedals. So when I'm hitting jumps,
I still get that kind of leverage with my ankles, which I love.
I really want my feet on pedals. I didn't want like stirrups or a bar.
I really wanted the bike to be a bike I could look at and go, "Man,
that is cool." That was really important. So the electrical tape just kind of
works. I know it looks nuts. It looks like, "Honestly? It's Sellotape."
But it's all good. Just tape me on. Go! Well,
I'm back riding, so that's cool. I think this is open-ended as anyone riding bikes
is riding bikes. I want to ride. I want to get as many opportunities as I can to
ride. I don't know much more than that, other than I just want to enjoy riding my
bike. I think that's just such an awesome thing to be able to say.
I'd love to see if someone else has a go, someone in my situation.
That would be pretty cool, because it works really great. So it'd be good to see
if someone else will try it. I think I could do some quite cool stuff on it.
I think so. I mean, I'm looking at downhill tracks and stuff at the moment,
because that's the obvious thing because it's gravity. So I'm looking at tracks and
thinking, "Could I get down there?" I don't know, like a well-cut course,
what do I need to be able to do on the bike to get down one? Because to get down
a well-cut course would be epic, or something beyond that. But I don't know.
I think the next thing is to ride with my friends and enjoy it,
and then the ideas will start coming like what I can and can't do.
But the most important thing is to ride bikes, and just enjoy that and revel in
how awesome it is, and hit some corners and all that stuff.
♪ [music] ♪