This week, Cody Matechuk is the lone Canadian and hometown favourite among five extreme athletes wowing crowds with whips, flips and assorted tricks inside the Monster Energy compound
A little more than 10 months ago, Cody Matechuk was laid up and recovering from a broken back he suffered in a shocking freestyle motocross show crash.
Weeks after his first Calgary Stampede appearance, the Cochrane daredevil was at a Washington state fair performing what’s known as the Holy Grab when his chest protector got hooked on the rear fender.
Arms fully extended, his body horizontal and off the bike, Matechuk grabbed onto the rear frame and held on before slamming into the air-filled landing pad. The impact buckled his body in an unearthly way between the fender and rear tire.
Matechuk, who posted shudder-inducing video of the spill on his Instagram account, fractured the L3 vertebrae in his lower back.
“Nasty” is how he terms the crash. Remarkable might describe his recovery.
Six weeks after the accident he was back on his bike, performing at a Monster Jam show in Vancouver.
This week, he’s back soaring 10 metres above the scorching Stampede pavement; the lone Canadian and hometown favourite among five extreme athletes wowing crowds with whips, flips and assorted tricks inside the Monster Energy compound.
He credits the healing powers of Chinese medicine and the care team with him this week in Calgary for his quick recovery. But flash back to late last summer and Matechuk, who turned 30 in March, wasn’t sure what his future held.
What the layoff did provide was time for him to reflect and refocus mind, body and spirit; the beginnings of what he termed “a new relationship with myself.”
“Some shows here now, I don’t feel certain tricks and I don’t do them, instead of pushing myself when I’m tired, or pushing myself when something doesn’t feel right,” Matechuk said between performances Wednesday.
“It’s just learning to respect the natural gut feelings, and when it’s time to go it’s time to trust yourself wholeheartedly. But when it’s time to pull back, know that you’re doing it with intention and reason.”
Snow bikes, base jumping among adventures
Matechuk began riding dirt bikes at age three, on his way to becoming a provincial champion. At 12 he was competing in Spain, in the sport of mini road racing.
He took up full-fledged road racing in 2008, and turned professional two years later, at 16, piling up records and trophies along the way.
In 2016, the snow beckoned.
Seeking a new challenge, Matechuk swapped the streets for the slopes and took on snow bikecross — picture a motorcycle with a large ski in place of the front tire and a snowmobile-like track on the rear.
“For some reason I keep getting pulled in all these directions and I kind of just go where the wind blows me,” he says. “It was more that it found me, I think.”
He was working in the oilfields of northern Alberta and had built his own bike for backcountry pursuits when he got the idea to drive to Minnesota and try qualifying for the sport’s debut at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colo.
Matechuk not only qualified, he would win bronze and introduce himself as one of the world’s best.
Three consecutive X Games gold medals — in 2018, 2019 and 2020 — would follow.
“I always looked at it as just work harder than the next guy, and the guy who’s going to put the most work in is going to get the most results,” he said of his success. “The amount of time we put into learning the craft of snow bike racing, I really believe we put more time in than anyone.”
It was around that time, in 2017, that Matechuk began base jumping. Because, why not?
“I think I’ve got to blame YouTube on that one,” he said. “I was watching YouTube wingsuit flights as a minor, and when I was 18 I hooked myself in for a tandem skydive; my first jump and basically my first 10 jumps.
“I’d take my credit card there and they were trying to advise me against it but I was like, ‘no, I’m coming. I’m learning this stuff,’ because I always wanted to get into wingsuit base. It took me seven years to do my first wingsuit base jump and learning all the sides of the craft.”
Matechuk recently completed his 700th base jump, an annual pursuit that’s taken him to the heights of Brazil, Switzerland, Norway and the United States, among other locations.
“There’s a lot of fun cliffs to jump off in a lot of places,” he said.
‘We’ll see where it takes me’
Snow bikecross racing faded after 2020 when the Winter X Games ended all motorized events.
Matechuk still rides and works on snow bikes. He builds custom chassis and is exploring other ideas, but it’s his newest passion that commands much of his focus.
“I’m just playing with it at this time and letting the freestyle (motocross) blow me around this continent and see where I go,” he said.
He admits last year’s injury, and age, have affected his once all-out approach to his extreme pursuits.
“I survived a lot of crazy things in my life so far at full push mode,” he said. “It’s not that there’s no days for that anymore, it’s just the days have to be on my time and not on someone else’s clock.”
As for what extreme sport box could possibly be checked next, Matechuk says there’s no immediate goal beyond continuing to learn and advance in freestyle motocross.
“I’m loving every aspect of it,” he said. “It’s made dirt bikes fun again because it’s something new for me on them. I think that’s what snow bikes was, too.
“Finding these new ways to use the same machinery is a lot of fun and I’m addicted to it for now. We’ll see where it takes me.”
When he’s not on the road Matechuk can be found at home with his girlfriend and their dog just outside Cochrane where his large practice ‘compound’ divides the rolling property he shares with his parents.
“We’ve got wingsuit jumps to the west, I’ve got dirt bikes in my yard. We can go ride a bunch of different tracks. I really do love this place,” he said.
Matechuk and the rest of the well-travelled Monster team — leader Keith Sayers, 16-time X Games medallist Jeremy “Twitch” Stenberg, Vicki Golden (herself an X-Games multi-medallist) and Brodie Wilson — perform daily at the Monster Energy compound near the Saddledome.