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Matty Turner is a Professional British cyclist who mainly practices mountain bike street trials. He is a creative genius and has a unique way of moving on his bike with a wide range of tricks.
With some world firsts in his sport, he’s already established himself as one of the best up-and-coming talents in UK street trials scene today. This has seen him in 2021 set a new Guinness World Record, and leap to fame with over 40 million views on his TikTok.
When did you fall in love with what you do and how did you get started?
I do a sport called MTB street trials. I first got introduced to trial biking when I was away at my nan's house in Devon. There was a lad outside her house hopping around on one and instantly from there it interested me. Shortly after that, in 2011 I headed to a festival called ‘Bike Radar’ where I had the chance to have a proper go on a trials bike called an Onza Mini Master. That’s where I fell in love with the sport. I begged my parents to buy me the same bike after that day and I’ve been riding ever since!
What was your earliest childhood ambition?
Ever since a young age I’ve always enjoyed being active and sport, whether that was athletics, scootering or football, you name it, I loved it.
When I found street trials at young kid, it became an ambition of mine to be able to make a career out of it. I’m lucky enough to be a part of a stunt team (Fusion Extreme) and travel around riding my bike putting on shows at events. On the side of that, I love to create content and videos to showcase tricks and my new ideas to also add to that idea of a career.
Ambition or talent: which matters more to success?
That’s a tough one! I believe you need to have a mixture of both.
Without ambition and only talent, I think you’re just relying on luck and for opportunities to come to you as you know you are talented at something.
Without talent and only ambition, I think it could be a bit of a dead end in most cases. I feel working hard towards something can make you achieve a certain amount but, if you’re not naturally a bit talented at it, it’s going to take a lot longer to achieve success, if ever. But I could contradict those points by saying everyone’s idea of success is different.
In my case, I believe a mixture of both is needed, because if I had the talent and wasn’t ambitious, I don’t believe I would ever succeed.
What career advice would you give your 16yr-old self?
Find something you love doing and doesn’t feel like ‘work’. If you are lucky enough to know what that is (in my case, riding my bike), keep chasing it until you achieve it and always believe in yourself. Consistency and never giving up. I’d rather try my whole life at something I love and say I tried, then look back and say I wish I hadn’t given up.
What is the greatest challenge of our time?
Finding peace and being content. The majority of people nowadays, especially the younger generation, are somewhat addicted to their phones and social media (including me), which I think is what makes it difficult. You can spend 10 minutes scrolling on Instagram or TikTok and see someone living their best life with loads of money or in their Lamborghini, which is fake most of the time. This leads to a lot of pressure on people as they then compare and believe they aren’t succeeding in their own life, when in fact they’ve got a lot more than they think. As a result, making people more stressed and less satisfied with life, that’s what I think!
What secret ambitions do you still have?
That would be a secret! ;)
