Scottish mountain bike and trials superstar Danny MacAskill enjoyed a busy and quite frankly jealousy-inducing year. With travel options limited for the majority of the year, Danny spent his time at home doing what Danny does, riding his bike. The thing with Danny riding his bike is that it’s virtually impossible for him to contain his creativity. The result is a seemingly effortless onslaught of content that wows his millions of fans and presents his partners in an organic, natural way. Well, that is if you don’t consider his skills to be out of this world.

CONTENT – Back to where it all started

Danny’s first highlight of the year was quite literally a return to where it all began – Scotland’s Isle of Sky. ‘The Slabs’ saw Danny return home to tackle a project that had been on his mind since the filming of his legendary video ‘The Ridge’. In his own words: “The last few years I’ve really been inspired by rock climbers – finding and developing new routes on cliffs unchanged for millennia.”

‘The Slabs’ saw Danny tackle one of the UK’s most scenic climbing routes, the Dubh Slabs, but in reverse. Bringing his unique blend of trials and mountain biking to the 500 vertical meters of uninterrupted slab rock, Danny once again left viewers with their jaws dropped to the floor as he descended a mountain face most of us wouldn’t climb without a rope – on his bike. This video really left us wondering what the most spectacular part was. The view, the riding, or the cinematography?

X-Games and new audiences

Following up ‘The Slabs’ was Danny’s entry for the first-ever edition of the X-Games Real MTB competition. Broadcasted nationwide on America’s ABC Network as well as on YouTube, Danny’s entry not only placed second in the fan vote but introduced his riding as well as his partners to a whole new audience that doesn’t traditionally follow mountain biking.

Extending his reach further were interviews and appearances in TV shows like BBC Breakfast as well as on TV channels spanning the globe from Austria’s Servus TV to America’s CBS and Germany’s NTV as well as countless magazine features ranging from the mountain bike press to major national and international daily papers like The Sun (UK) or Bild Zeitung (Germany).

EVENTS – More edits for his partners and the Drop and Roll Tour

Following up on the success of his first two major short films (which also were backed-up by  separate behind-the-scenes edits), Danny set out to specifically film for his partners Endura, Magura and Red Bull, resulting in ‘This and That presented by Endura’ with BMX-Legend Kris Kyle, an episode for Magura’s ‘Who stops you’-series and ‘The Ultimate Red Bull Rampage Experience’.

As travel restrictions eased, Danny also took to the road with his ‘Drop and Roll Tour’ to bring his riding directly to his fans whether that was the Eurobike show in Germany or the season-closing festivities in Austria’s Sölden.

COP26 – Riding 70m high in the air to fight climate change

Closing out a year of highlight-edits and spectacular content, Danny took to the skies for climate change ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. Challenged by YouTube Originals to highlight the potential of wind energy as key piece of the puzzle to fight climate change ahead of COP26, Danny took his skills and custom Santa Cruz trials bike to a wind turbine factory and performed a trick for each percent of the energy mix that wind energy currently has. Combining his entertaining, spectacular riding with educational facts for a worthy cause, the video ends with what has to be one of the most breathtaking visuals ever recorded in cycling – riding on the blade of a wind turbine 70 meters in the air as the sun sets over Scotland.

Supporting Danny every step of the way

RASOULUTION has supported Danny for 12 years to make sure that he can focus on what he loves most – riding his bike, coming up with crazy ideas and producing breathtaking content for his millions of fans around the world. Next to support with the planning and scheduling of his various shoots as well the logistics of the projects themselves, RASOULUTION’s work includes partner acquisition and communications, securing the financing of his projects, taking care of travel arrangements and bookings as well as supporting Danny and his projects through media placements, interviews and handling his PR and media communications.

Wondering what’s next for Danny? We’d love to tell you, but you’ll have to wait to find out. One thing is for sure – it’s going to be spectacular. What we can tell you is; that one lucky fan gets to be part of it.

Danny is supported by Red Bull, Santa Cruz, Eberspächer, Adidas, Five Ten, GoPro, Endura, Lezyne, Continental, Evoc and Lizard Skins.

Header image by Dave Mackison.

Gabriel might be the young-gun in RASOULUTION’s roster of athletes but he packs quite a punch. A dual-threat with his technical trials riding and adrenaline-fueled downhill racing, Gabriel continues to perform in between the tape as well as in front of the camera.

CONTENT – Racing and spectacular videos

Gabriel excelled in what was a uniquely challenging 2021 season. Attending school whilst managing a packed schedule of downhill racing and filming would already be difficult enough without the special challenges a global pandemic brings with it, but Gabriel breezed through all obstacles as effortlessly as his riding appears in his edits.

Attending the UCI Downhill Mountain Bike World Cup in Leogang and Les Gets as well as competing at Crankworx Innsbruck and at the Downhill European Championships, Gabriel delivered solid results despite a challenging pre-season of lockdowns, shifting schedules and studying from home. Far from letting outside forces hold him down, Gabriel focused on improving his riding and used the opportunity to plan and execute several projects. With hundreds-of-thousands of followers on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok awaiting spectacular edits, Gabriel released Late for School 2 in partnership with Canyon and a TV advert for his new partner NEOH that ran nationwide in Austria in the process- just 2 of the standout items on his busy channels.

PARTNERSHIPS – New partners and signature products

Gabriel started the year strong with RASOULUTION’s support, acquiring a number of new partners. The young Austrian’s switch to Canyon bikes was accompanied by a video detailing Gabriel’s new ride and strong campaigns developed by RASOULTION on social media as well as traditional online and print media. Further new partnerships acquired were Fizik, Private Sport Shop and NEOH who were all introduced in a similar high-profile fashion.

Adding to his partnerships, Gabriel and his partner SICK, introduced a signature ‘Late for School’ clothing line. There was also a signature product of Zanier gloves, which he promoted at Crankworx Innsbruck.

RACING – Stepping up into the Elite category and even bigger projects in the pipeline

As the 2021 season drew to a close, Gabriel started his mandatory Austrian military service, an experience that is bringing something new every day. He already has his sights set on his second season in the Elite category and racing the European stops of the 2022 UCI Downhill Mountain Bike World Cup and UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Les Gets, France. Alongside this, RASOULUTION is working closely with Gabriel on his strategy on and off the bike for 2022 and beyond.

Gabriel Wibmer is without a doubt one to watch out for in 2022.

Photo credit: @marianassmair, Hannes Berger

It might have been delayed by a year, but Tokyo 2020 was worth the wait for Swiss Freestyle BMX star Nikita Ducarroz who took a stunning bronze medal. She followed that up by taking the European Championship title in Moscow in November and now finishes the year with RASOULUTION at her side.

When Nikita and RASOULUTION started talking about her joining the agencies’ roster of athletes, we immediately felt like there was something truly unique about her.

Born in Nice, France, to a Swiss father and an American mother, Nikita grew up fluent in French and English while spending school months in Northern California and summers in Geneva. Scrolling through videos on YouTube, Nikita discovered BMX: “I’m not sure if I found BMX or BMX found me. Through some YouTube videos, as an anxiety-ridden 14 year old who couldn’t leave the house, I ended up finding my passion, and the thing that kept me going. From the moment I stepped on my BMX, I couldn’t stop. Everything from the challenge, the creativity, the freedom, to the family and community that came with this amazing sport. I haven’t been able to look back since.“

After spending days and nights at the skatepark, Nikita took the big step and started competing. Since then, the 25-year-old rider has finished on the podium overall three times in the UCI World Cup Overall podium three times. 2021 was a huge year for Nikita, taking the European championship win, following 2^nd at the World Championships and the 3^rd at the Tokyo Olympics.

Mental health struggles are unfortunately quite common among youngsters involved in top level sports, and Nikita had to deal with her fair share of it during her teen years. While it still is a topic that lacks public awareness, Nikita uses her personal experience every day in order to help shed a light on that situation and improve the lives of those affected. To do so, she created the Instagram account @m1ndtricks, showing anyone going through a similar situation how she overcome it and that they are not alone.

RASOULUTION will be putting all their efforts into assisting Nikita be at the top of her game while being able to focus on her riding. We will use our knowledge and experience to establish a partnership strategy for her as well as provide advice on her communications strategy and press relations. It is not every day that you get to work with an Olympic medalist and it brings us a lot of exciting challenges and opportunities.

We’ve been working with ABUS since 2018 and from the start our mission was clear; supporting developing their product range and the move into a new segment – the full-face helmet market. Throughout the years, we’ve assisted the world-renowned German home & mobile security brand with exactly this wish and we’re excited to see what lies in store for the future.

ATHLETES – Matching the right names with the right message

In order to expand and renew their existing helmet range, we were tasked with not just finding the right faces for the brand, but also the right character with the necessary motivation. We found this in two of the world’s most renowned freeriders, known from video segments in classics like Cranked and New World Disorder. We’re talking about Cedric Gracia and Richie Schley.

Additionally, we’ve worked on expanding their athlete roster within the MTB segment and assisted in bringing Max Schumann, Micayla Gatto, Steffi Marth and Gabriel Wibmer to the brand, further helping grow their footprint within different MTB sectors.

CONTENT CREATION – From crafting concepts to producing campaign launch videos

One of our goals for our cooperation with ABUS was renewing their outward appearance when it came to the MTB market and bring it closer to the core audience. Since our first content production in 2018 which took place in Utah, we’ve also completed productions, both video & photo, in France, Austria, Germany and on the island of La Palma, which was one of our biggest ABUS projects to date and the results of which will be published in the coming months.

PR & MARKETING – Putting the word out to the right people

With all the work being done with regards to athletes and content creation, it would be a shame if the public didn’t see all of the results that came from that.

Breaking out into a highly saturated market segment makes what you do more important than ever. We had our work cut out for us when it came to building brand trust and brand awareness, especially as ABUS wasn’t yet well-known in the gravity MTB segment (enduro, downhill, freeride). Using their position within the road riding and racing segment and building upon that, we successfully executed numerous PR campaigns, renewing brand recognition and letting the right people know that ABUS is serious about their expansion.

Pictures by Piotr Staron.