Mountain bike trials legend and YouTube star Martyn Ashton continues to recover in hospital after an accident where he dislocated two vertebrae in his back – but has vowed to finish the video project he had almost completed.
Ashton fell backwards off a 3m-high bar and “hit the groud with significant force” at the Animal WD40 Action Sports Tour at the Silverstone circuit, according to a statement released Thursday.
The initial prognosis of the injury is not positive and Ashton is reported to have lost feeling below the point of injury to the T9 and 10 vertebrae – about halfway down the spine.
But the star of Road Bike Party video, which has more than 8.5 million YouTube views, said he is determined to see through a follow-up video he had been working on in secret. He said he felt like he had been doing some of the best riding in his career.
Road bike party showed ashton's extreme skills
In the statement the 38-year-old said, "Since the accident I've received so many wonderful messages and well wishes, I can't thank everyone enough for those – it has been hugely supportive."
"My main focus this year was to make my next video Road Bike Party 2 – this has not changed. I've been training really hard on the new road bike and I've felt like I've been riding better on this video than I've ever ridden in my entire life," he said. "I was so confident on that bike. Unfortunately we hadn't quite completed the filming – we were so close – but thanks to the team behind me and some great friends I’m excited that we are close to pulling the final edit together."
In 1993, Ashton won the British bike trial championship. Two years later, he went one better and won the world bike trial championship. Last year he made the phenomenally successful Road Bike Party in which he rode stunts on a Pinarello road bike.
In 2002 he set up his own company Ashton Bikes.