Back in April, a young bike rider and his film-maker house mate posted a video of his riding exploits on YouTube. 8 weeks later, Danny MacAskill now has a full-time job riding demo’s and has appeared in a video for the Doves. Oh, and 7,840,271 views.

It is interesting that a movie of the nichest of niche sports went viral like this – 8 million views is a massive achievement. An amazing talent obviously helps, but it was down to a small, very specialised community spotting that their non-bikey pals would find this amazing. I even sent it to my mum.

That is a lot of exposure for his sponsor – even if most of the viewers are not going to buy a bike from them. No prizes for guessing where their marketing budget is going to be spent this year.

Even if you are not into bikes, take a look at this guy’s sheer nerve and creativity on a cycle. I guarantee you’ll be forwarding the link within minutes!

He tells his story in this month’s MBR magazine.

PS. The view count has gone up by 2000 since I started writing this.