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00:03After three massive viral hits and over 60 million views, Danny McCaskill is about to embark on his most ambitious
00:10project yet.
00:12I met Danny McCaskill. He's been on the back of my bike.
00:17Pushing his riding to its highest ever level in a unique new film.
00:23I feel like I'm a kid. It's like the biggest toy ever.
00:26However, a series of injuries has finally begun to take its toll on his body.
00:32Threatening not only his new film, but his very ability to ride his bike.
00:36What's it do?
00:37I love it, Tom. Think of it.
00:53I'm not really too sure exactly how I first sustained a back injury. It's sort of reared its head in
01:01different ways. In most recent ways, it's been affecting my knee, which has been a bit of a problem.
01:08When I start losing the power in my leg, I'm not in control of my bike, so I can't really
01:13ride it.
01:14I seem to go from injury to project to injury to project.
01:19The riding I'm doing in front of the camera, I want it to be a completely different level than what
01:24I'm producing.
01:26The way back home, when I look back at it, I'm pleased with it.
01:28But at the time, you know, riding with back trouble all the time wasn't really that good.
01:40My riding should have been in a different place than it was for me, you know.
01:45I suppose I expect quite a lot from myself.
01:52You all right?
01:54Oh my God, what happened there?
01:56No!
02:00In 2011, I was asked to do some work for Channel 4 for a documentary called Concrete Circus.
02:05But then I had this leg pain, you know, around about May.
02:09And about a month after, you know, my leg pain started, it was getting quite intense, you know, I was
02:14struggling to walk.
02:15There was a little bit kind of, at that time, I was a little bit stressed out by the thought
02:19of having to film.
02:25I reckon the last two years, I've been off my bike for maybe a total of 20 months of injury.
02:29And this last one's been weighing me down, you know, I've been missing my bike a lot, so.
02:35I'm a little bit frustrated at the moment, you know, and looking, you know, I really hope that we can
02:38find out what exactly is wrong.
02:50After struggling to find the source of the injury, Danny has travelled out to Newport Beach, California, for some specialist
02:57treatment, in an attempt to get his plans back on track.
03:01We've kind of got a few things lined up this year, sort of project-wise.
03:05I mean, there's, you know, the one in particular for Red Bull, I'm really excited about.
03:10Just like the way back home, they're giving me a sort of real free range to do whatever I want.
03:15I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing for them, but it's definitely amazing for me.
03:24Yeah, it's just like I can't ride at 100%. You know, I can't really do backwards manuals very well and
03:29stuff.
03:31It's not like major, but it's, you know, I've got probably about 50% of the power in this leg
03:37that I do in that one.
03:39And that's my front foot.
03:41The trip to Newport is aimed at giving Danny the best possible environment to tackle his injury.
03:47As part of this process, he's meeting up with his trainer, Darren, and fellow mountain bikers, the Atherton family.
03:54Number one. Here he is.
03:58Tough at the top, D-Mac. He's tough at the top.
04:00My name's Darren Roberts. I'm the head of high performance at Red Bull UK, responsible for all their elite athletes
04:06and making sure they're going in the right direction.
04:09Today we're going to organise the, like a kind of gym routine that's going to sort my back out.
04:16Kind of wait to get into the gym. I'm so excited.
04:19Working with Danny, pretty much like most of the Red Bull athletes, which is herding cats, blindfold, using an air
04:29horn.
04:45The gym side of things for me is a bit of a, you know, a novelty.
04:50The skipping rope.
04:53You know, the last, I don't know how many years of riding, I've never ever been in a gym.
05:03It can jump off a cliff, but it can't do a dumbbell press.
05:08Training with Danny is always, it's always different, you know.
05:11It's not like when I'm training with some of the other athletes, you know.
05:13It's always a good laugh.
05:17I think it's super hard for Danny because you can't really categorise what he does
05:20and therefore there's no set training plan for what he does.
05:23You know, it's very much a natural talent thing, so to speak.
05:26You know, whilst the training can help him recover from injuries,
05:29there's not really an obvious training route that he needs to take to help him perform, if you like.
05:36He's a pretty big name, but he's not really good in the gym.
05:39Living the dream.
05:41You know, at the end of the day, he's just some funny Scots dude who's just like training
05:45and trying to balance on Swiss balls for as long as he possibly can.
05:50Dialed.
05:51That's simulating what he does when he flies off the back.
05:53I know, exactly.
05:55Colour bunt.
05:56I think he's learning that if you ride hard, then you've got to get injured,
06:01so that's just sort of part of the job.
06:04Squeeze it.
06:05Squeeze it.
06:06Come on, go.
06:07Squeeze it.
06:08He's got his own mind, he's got his own way of doing things
06:13and, you know, if he complies to 20% of what I ask him to do, I'll be amazed, but
06:19it's just the way they are.
06:22You know, you've just got to work with these guys and try and get them to where they need to
06:25get to.
06:31One of the benefits of visiting California is being able to meet up and take advice from one of Danny's
06:36heroes,
06:37trials pioneer and mountain bike legend, Hans Ray.
06:41I definitely see Hans as a role model.
06:43You know, he's kind of been and done a lot of things.
06:45It's good to talk to him about injuries and the different things and see how he can make a comeback
06:50as well.
06:51I had one big crash in 1993 when I punctured a lung and broke a lot of ribs
06:56and separated this joint on my shoulder here and lost a lot of skin that day.
07:02That kept me in the hospital for a week.
07:04It was gnarly.
07:05My role was, like, let's be really smart about this for the first, like, few weeks.
07:10You know, like, really rest it and not, like, re-injure it.
07:13But then start early with moving it so it doesn't have a chance to get stiff.
07:25We're here in Hans' garage full of all his old bikes and stuff.
07:31It's really cool to see all the stuff he used to ride and some of his current bikes as well.
07:38Can you slide up?
07:39Can you slide up?
07:48No bother.
07:50Cool. He's got to be right in his garden.
07:53I don't know when the hands are set up.
07:59Sorry.
08:14Can I have my face?
08:16I'm doing a bit of gardening.
08:18The trough lines are getting a bit overgrown.
08:22Duncan's using the excuse of the bush, so...
08:30Oh, nice!
08:31Yeah!
08:33That was awesome!
08:36Shit, I made it too easy.
08:37I cut too many branches.
08:41Oh, nice!
08:43That was really great.
08:45Hans is definitely a total legend.
08:47You know, he's the legend of trials and the legend of mountain biking.
08:49And just like, you know, you meet your heroes.
08:51It's definitely nice not to be disappointed.
08:53He's just really sort of down to earth.
08:55You know, he's been there and done it all, so...
08:57It's cool to hear about the experiences.
09:04Finding the source of Danny's pain has been an ongoing problem,
09:07so Darren has decided to take him to one of the world's top spinal injury clinics.
09:13This is this amazing, you'd say, like a one-stop-shop sort of clinic in LA
09:19with really some of the sort of top doctors in the world,
09:21and you can go in there with any problem,
09:25and they've kind of got the specialists to look at it,
09:28all the tools to get you back to full health.
09:32You know, they've been involved with the U.S. Olympic team,
09:35but also involved with a lot of the kind of movies...
09:37in the movie scene in LA,
09:39and the walls are just covered in all these signed photos of different people.
09:45It appears that some of my heroes,
09:47the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, are on the wall.
09:51I can't believe they've been treated. It's pretty amazing.
09:54Look at him. I can't believe even Rambo's been here.
09:56There's Sylvester Sloan. It's a big knife.
10:00I'm Dr. Robert Bray. I'm a spine surgeon.
10:03Five years ago now, I decided to start this facility, which is called DISC.
10:08We have multidisciplinary care.
10:11The Red Bull athletes are unique, yeah, there's no doubt about it.
10:14We'll just say they push the limits.
10:16They ask more for themselves, but we need to get a near-perfect result,
10:22because they want 110%.
10:24Painful in there?
10:26Yeah, a little bit, just uncomfortable, yeah.
10:28With reoccurring problems in both Danny's knee and his back,
10:32Dr. Bray has decided to use the state-of-the-art facilities at DISC
10:36to establish if the two issues are related.
10:40Danny has a unique injury in his lowest disc, a rip or a tear in his low back,
10:45and it hasn't healed.
10:47That's been complicating his recovery from his knee.
10:50He had a knee injury, but his back was actually bothering him a bit before the knee
10:54and probably causing some weakness in his leg.
10:57And now that combined with his knee has really stopped him.
11:00Regular physio and daily trips to the gym may heal Danny's injury over time,
11:05but it will always restrict his riding.
11:08However, there is an alternative.
11:11The other option is go in, find the tear, clean up the edges and put a stitch in it
11:16and anchor it down.
11:20And 90-plus percent of the time, that ends the problem.
11:25There is a recovery.
11:27I think if he doesn't do something about it, he's going to have limits.
11:32And limits are not a word a Red Bull athlete wants to hear.
11:35Well, what did I do?
11:37Hell, I didn't tell.
11:38Think on it.
11:39Yeah.
11:40Let's sit.
11:40Finding out that I'm kind of needing the operation on my back,
11:44it kind of leaves me in two minds.
11:48In one hand, you kind of think,
11:50surely there's something else I can do other than chop me up.
12:01On the other hand, it means I'm not in limbo anymore.
12:04You know, even though it's got quite a long recovery time,
12:06I can be, you know, at least back to my bike,
12:10you know, riding 100 percent, you know, by a certain time.
12:30I mean, I think my recovery is, I mean, I can actually start going back to the gym
12:34after like a week or two.
12:38But then, and then get back on my bike about six weeks after,
12:41which is pretty amazing, but I've got to keep it really low level.
12:45And I feel like I'm going to struggle.
12:52You know, I don't trust myself to stay at that kind of level.
12:56And I think it's eight to ten months before it's fully healed.
13:15I think I'm going to go ahead with this operation.
13:17And I'm confident that we're going down the right path.
13:19And, you know, I'm just looking forward to getting the procedure done.
13:33Oh my gosh.
13:53I really want these projects to happen in 2012, you know, I just need to really get
13:59the time to get back on my bike and get up to full speed before that happens.
14:06You know, with this project I've got such a free range that I can build the setups, you
14:10know, that'll allow me to kind of do the kind of tricks that, you know, that have just been
14:17in my dreams up until now, so, yeah.
14:20Some of them might be sort of big kind of banger tricks, other than they might be a bit quirky
14:25and sort of funny.
14:27I'd like to get a bit of fun into the stuff as well, so, I think, you know, I'm not
14:31a
14:31particularly serious person, so I'd like to sort of put that across in a video.
14:37The next few months for Danny are going to be crucial.
14:40His recovery will determine the scale of his new film, but more importantly, his very ability
14:46to do the thing he loves most.
14:51The next time, Danny's ambitions for his new film and its unique ideas begin to take shape.
14:59It's definitely something else.
15:00My tiger and my elephant and my fox.
15:02He'll be in there somewhere.
15:03What's the elephant?
15:04Just in case.
15:05Yes, there was a step.
15:06But while Danny's imagination is working better than ever, the question over his physical condition remains.
15:13As obvious as this sounds, I need him to ride.
15:15You know, there's only so much you can do in a gym.
15:17There's only so much jumping up and down on boxes you can do.
15:20And at some point, you need to get on a bike and ride.
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