Georg Fechter is the man behind Masters of Dirt. The first Austrian rider to land a backflip and a 360 backflip on a mountain bike. His godfather is David Hasselhoff, he owns the legendary KITT car from Knight Rider, and in 2008, he drove it in the Gumball Rally. For his 14th birthday, he received brand copyrights as a gift. This is the story of Georg Fechter and Masters of Dirt!
Yes, the bio about myself and the history of Masters of Dirt is pretty unreal! We are living in a crazy age, moving thousands of people every year who are thrilled to be entertained. For me, a dream came true—I get to make a living doing what I love. Riding bikes and working with my idols is always a blast and gives a completely different perspective on work. Owning KITT, having The Hoff as my godfather, and driving the Gumball Rally is just the cherry on top.
Sometimes, it’s really hard to stay on top of the game and fully appreciate the life I have. I’m always hungry for more, but at the same time, I’m really happy with how things are going. And as Hoff would say, "The best is yet to come."
I am a Masters of Dirt and I have the most amazing family in the world. The Skullbunny Tatoo was created by Stoica and me from Stoica Graffix. We love Skulls but we never ever want it to be connected with negativity. Other brands use bullets, guns, and other bullshit next to their skulls. We don't, we hate guns and have a strict no-gun policy in our designs. Guns are just lame. We also wanted to make a bit of fun of all the „badass brands“ by putting bunny ears on top of the skull. The sparkplug on the bottom indicates that even when we are not on this planet anymore the spark will still ignite us so we have never-ending love and passion to ride.
True, that it might be a door opener. The good thing is that over 2000 people love the bunny so much that they got it tattooed!
I was born and raised in Vienna, Austria. I was a little kid who was just getting up to no good in school and found my way into freestyle at the young age of 14, through the company of my dad, who helped build the first bricks of Masters of Dirt.
We started in 2003 with freestyle shows, and in 2007 we started calling them Masters of Dirt, changing the concept because I never liked freestyle being packed into a competition. It gets boring for the crowd after a while and doesn't represent the spirit of DIRT. Looking back, it’s just crazy how everything evolved, and also crazy what happened. All the world’s firsts, crazy parties, cities, shows, problems, memories, girls, fun—it’s simply insane that we’ve already done over 200 shows in more than 18 countries. But also here, the best is yet to come. We have digitalized the show, the athletes are extremely professional, and the riding is on another level. Also, my team, especially Desmond, is doing such a great job pushing hard on all ends to make this an even bigger success! Due to our way of working and the constant growth, we’ve also become more attractive to big corporate sponsors, which help grow the company. Almost everything gets reinvested into making our show bigger and pushing our vision to become a reality.
Masters of Dirt became its own cosmos over the years. We are constantly striving for new challenges and business models, but we try to never forget where we come from: riding and having fun, going in the opposite direction of everyone else. We host parties, have our own fashion lines, produce great content for our partners, and have just started the next big step for Masters of Merch, which I can’t quite talk about yet, but it’s going to be super cool. What surprised me the most was that we were going to have so much fun producing stuff for other people, like Fabio Wibmer with Sick Series and many more that you can check out on www.mastersofmerch.at, and how much potential all this has. I feel blessed with the team around me, constantly pushing hard to grow the portfolio of Masters of Dirt.
As mentioned above, we’ve been around more than some groupies haha! We’ve done it all — from shows at Horseshoes in Ajman (UAE) to snowmobile backflips at the beach for drunk students, festival openings, and big tours. But I’m pretty sure the best is yet to come!
There is, of course, a big bulk of organizations behind it, and it gets pretty tricky when stuff gets postponed, stuck at customs, or, like in Chile for instance, when we just have to move our show back 6 months because of the situation the country is in, minutes before we are about to board the plane. But it’s awesome because we are a family, and we get to travel the world making people happy, being heroes for kids, and taking people on a short holiday. 99% of the people on tour get along amazingly with each other, so it’s very different when you work your ass off with people you connect with, rather than working for a superstar that you don’t even see on tour.
There is a big selection of riders we like to work with and who like to work with us, so that never really causes an issue.
I would say I ride about 20 times a year, which really sucks. But I’ve reached an age and position in the company that doesn’t give me enough time, and when I ride, I want to ride rad stuff, not just a little shit skatepark around the corner. And living in Vienna, that’s a big bummer—there’s nothing just around the corner I can quickly go ride! But there are some nice trails! And, of course, the M.O.D Backyard in France with everything I ever dreamed of!
Well, back in the day, I was a classical, sprung video type of guy, or cranked. I loved those even more than New World Disorder. Now, my favorites are probably all the nice edits from Fabio Wibmer and some quick-edited, rowdy old-school content.
Szymon Godziek, Andreu Lacondeguy, and Sam Reynolds are my favorite styles. Favorite showman and trick machine, of course, Nicholi Rogatkin. Also, I love how much Bienvenido has made out of himself!
I like the rise of Erick Fedko— that dude has some serious skill!
Hopefully, much more to come, including more pump tracks, skateparks, and bike parks being built so the scene can grow, and kids can go out and ride bikes or watch us ride bikes rather than staring at their stupid computer screens.
Personally, I just want to ride and send according to my mood and feel better on the bike by riding more. With Frontiers, Dub Flips, and 360 Flips, I’ve ticked quite a few off the list already!
Futko is our facility manager from Bosnia. He has been working for my family for over 25 years and is like a full-on family member, kind of the middle finger, and probably in the top 5 of M.O.D's most wanted, which tells a lot. The guy would take a bullet for anyone in our family, and so would we for him. Futko is the father of Chuck Norris and became an absolute star via my Instagram, although he hates me for putting him on the internet, haha.
Never give up, because the best is yet to come!
When you achieve your dreams, it always seems unrealistic to go for even bigger things. But I guess the next step will be more work on an international level and making more people happy. Also, we want to push the next generation to go for it!
I guess do what you want! Dream big! Dreams do come true, but trust me, it is and will always be a rocky road! When you are or feel all the way down, you have to be the strongest.
Not when you're all the way up! Be humble and nice to everyone who crosses your path! If you feel angry, turn your negative energy into a positive one and use it for your life or projects! I thank you for these wonderful questions. I wish I would have more time to answer in detail. Ride one!
Georgie