Danny Macaskill is a man in demand and has been since he burst on to the international scene a couple of years ago with his first Youtube video. And for good reason for his riding exudes class, style and individualism. Which is precisely why he has recently been signed by Lezyne as their latest sponsored rider. We took the opportunity to catch up with him in his adopted city of Edinburgh where he was recently shooting a promo video for his newest sponsor who have just launched their 2012 range of workshop tools. While the video may not be quite ready to air on Pinkbike, read on for the exclusive interview:
Danny, how did the Lezyne deal come about?I’d been working on my bikes in my flat for a while with really cheap, nasty multi-tools that my friend had from decathlon or somewhere like that, real nasty things, and after working in a bike shop for a while you get used to using nicer tools. But I had a little Lezyne multi tool, and I’d also seen some of their other stuff on the net, so I thought they’d be a cool company to approach. I liked their brand image and more importantly I knew they made good stuff. So we got in touch and it’s been cool that we’ve managed to work something out.
It didn’t take long to sort things out either, they were really easy to talk to and I’m just delighted to have all the products – it’s gone from having the bare essentials to having all the tools to tune the bike up and keep it in good working order. It rounds things off for me – I’d got my bike setup all dialled and now it’s nice to have all the right stuff to maintain them properly too.
What are your plans for 2012? I’ve been off the bike for a while, pretty much since Crankworx. I’d been carrying a knee injury for a while before that, but then I tore my meniscus. I’ve had a really weak leg for the past eight months, through the filming of my last video as well. It turned out I’ve actually got a torn disc in my back too so I’ve really been trying to get that sorted out without an operation. I had a steroid injection into one of my discs, but I’ve not really felt the benefits of that so I’m going to go back out to the US to get it sorted. Once that’s fixed I’ve got a really exciting year coming up. I’m hoping to get into a position so I’ll have a good setup to learn new tricks and do some new videos. I hope to be hanging out down in London for a bit which’ll be cool. It’s going to be a really exciting year, I just need my health to catch up.
Got any plans for riding outside of trials? I’d love to do some mountain bike races in amongst all my trials riding. It tends to be quite hard as a lot of my free time between projects is taken up with injuries at the moment. Things are stacking up and then a few projects end up going back to back. But I’d love to do some races, I’d love to go out to the mega this year, it’s been a couple years since I’ve done that. Some friends are also going out to do the Trans-Provence race which is a 7-day enduro. It’s the Enduro stuff that I’m into the most and it’s just a lot of fun, a lot of time on the bike. Other than that I’ll just see what I can do, maybe some local races in Scotland.
Are you getting much enduro/all mountain riding in just now? It’s enduro/all mountain riding that I do the most, you just can’t beat playing about in the mud. And I mainly ride my (Orange) Five for that when it’s pouring with rain and blowing a force ten hooley (Translation from Scottish: very windy or an unreasonably strong wind). And it’s been blowing like that all winter here, so when my knee and back are feeling alright I’m trying to get out to cruise about as much as I can, I really can’t get enough of it.
It’s just really nice to be able to pedal back up and smash back down them on the same bike. I absolutely love it. I’d say I get more of a buzz out of riding my mountainbike than my trials bike, you know, because you get more adrenaline which you don’t really get in trials because you’re really in control. Whereas I’m completely out of control on my mountainbike, I’m just a passenger. That’s definitely how it is, I ride it way out of my skill level most of the time – feet flailing about the place, as long as I make it down to the bottom with the bike it’s ok.
I’d like to get some night riding in this winter too and Lezyne are hooking me up with some of their lights to cut about with so it should be fun, it’s just really good fun. I like that feeling of not quite seeing round the corner, it makes the same trails you ride every day completely different.
www.lezyne.com 
just got famous for his riding rather than his wrenching!
