Danny Butler achieved a world ranking on Number 3 in bicycle trials, but in a twist from the usual story he actually started in moto trials and had a very promising start becoming the British Youth Champion and Cheshire Centre Champion. He then went on to bicycles trials around the time the UK were having the Foot & Mouth outbreak and the ability to pursue trials was limited.
As you will hear, Danny doesn't come across as someone that does anything in half-measure and so once he found bicycle trials he became the First British rider to make it into a UCI World Cup final, and 5 x Men’s elite British champion as well as achieving a World #3 ranking.
So extreme was Danny's training that he had a serious injury from all the effort exerted by his body that is results in surgery that only gave him a 50% chance of being able to ride again.
We discuss how Danny overcame this adversity and pivoted from competitive trials to building a significant business: The Extreme Mountain Bike Show which saw him have hundreds of booking a year and working along side Diversity (the dance crew who were winners of Britain's got talent).
And when that was stopped in it's tracks due to Covid we chat about how Danny refocused to start TrialTube...a TopGear-esq YouTube channel focused on reviewing trials bikes plus a whole heap more to come.
This was a long one so I ended up making this a two-part episode again. I hope you enjoy Part 1 of my chat with Danny Butler.
Links:
http://extrememountainbikeshow.co.uk/
https://www.youtube.com/c/TrialTube
https://www.gofundme.com/f/tim-coleman
Feedback: podcast@trials.com.au