Some say that the glory days of MTB on YouTube are over. With more and more creators moving to clips on Insta, brands using their athletes’ socials as marketing channels, and prominent creators including BKXC and MTB Alan recently hanging up their action cameras, it might seem like times are hard out there for the independents.
Tommy Huynh, or T_Wrex to his 30K+ followers, has been riding, shooting, and posting on YouTube for 13 years, and shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. Despite — or perhaps because of — his willingness to include all the warts, from crashes to mechanicals, he’s built a loyal online following, sold a ton of merch, and helped show the world of MTB that LA County’s trails can be a hell of a loose, dusty, and thrilling place to ride if you’re willing to take risks.
Tommy’s story is a crazy ride, one that includes jail time, making and losing a million dollars, and barely surviving several brushes with death. I sat down with him in July this year to hear about gangbanging, finding faith, and the redemptive power of riding a mountain bike.
Your channel’s been around for well over a decade — how does it feel to have over 30K subscribers now?
I never actually wanted to make a channel! It was me and three or four of my friends with a GoPro, and it was for us to watch, so we could get better. So we’d leave the crashes in, talk shit to each other on camera, and then slowly people started subscribing, which was freaking weird, because I didn’t even know people did that on YouTube when I started…
Sometimes it’s overwhelming. It feels weird. I’m grateful, and I have so much love for it, but sometimes I’m kind of over the editing part. I love mountain biking, but when I’m done, the editing takes time away from my family. A lot of times I’m up late. But I’m a mountain biker, and I know the people who watch my channel want to see mountain biking.
What do your family think about all this?
They trip out. My son did a marathon in California last year, and a mountain biker from YouTube recognized him — the most random thing. Then three weeks ago he FaceTimed me from a party because one of his friends there knows me from YouTube. He has another guy he went to school with in Arizona who watches my channel. On the first day of school, my daughter’s homeroom teacher asked for an interesting fact, and she said, “My dad’s a YouTuber.” He recognized her last name: “Don’t tell me your dad’s Tommy Wrex.” “Yes.” “No way — I watch him.”
You and I have been out on the trails here at Park City today, and a lot of people were yelling out to you — how does that feel?
It’s crazy. It’s still hard for me to get used to. It blows me away. And honestly, that’s what keeps me editing. For a lot of people, mountain biking is an outlet — I’m one of those people. I get comments all the time from people who are injured and can’t ride, but they watch my videos, and it hypes them up. And the craziest thing is, every single time I think, “I’m over this editing shit,” the next morning a comment pops up and it’s exactly what I need to hear to keep going. It always happens. I don’t know how much longer I can physically do this, though.
One of the things that’s unique about your YouTube is your crew — how important is that family vibe for you?
Very. We’re all from different backgrounds and skill levels, but we have a love for mountain biking. I’ve met almost all of them on the trails, or they came to my restaurant, and some people just click. We’ve been to Vegas together; our wives know each other, our daughters know each other. Sometimes on road trips we take our wives or families. We have barbecues. I had a big 50th birthday at my house. And it’s crazy, because here I am, an ex-convict, and Casey is a sheriff — he just retired.
You talk on your channel sometimes about getting into trouble when you were younger – what happened?
I’ve been shot at. I’ve had a gun put to my head. There was a time I should have been murdered. I think I’d be dead if I’d never got locked up.
From 12 to 14, I hung out with my brother, who’s two years older, and his older friends. We grew up in a really bad area of Huntington Beach, and I was gangbanging. We had guns, we’d get into fights. At 15, I was locked up for a gang-related shooting. I wasn’t the shooter, but I was in the car. The police offered me a deal to get out and be a snitch, but I didn’t want to snitch on my own boys, so I did almost as much time as the shooter, around five years.
Where did they send you?
Orange County Juvenile Hall, and then they sent me to CYA, the California Youth Authority. It’s no longer there, but Tupac rapped about it. A lot of rappers did back in the day. They called it Gladiator School. It’s worse than prison.
In there, it’s not what you see on TV. It’s all about respect, and I think that’s why it’s so easy for me to get along with anybody — white, black, Mexican, doesn’t matter. I respect everybody’s culture. Those are things you learn.
It took me about a year and a half to open a Bible. I was in lockdown, getting into fights, and I wanted to go to Bible study just to get out of the room — I had no intention of learning. But the people genuinely cared about me — you could tell. I think that was the first time I felt loved.
Did you have a plan when you came out?
All I knew is I was never going to come back. My whole life I’d played the victim, and being locked up switched that off. When I got out, I knew these were the consequences of my own actions. And you can’t undo it. I got out at 20, got into the mortgage industry, and by 26 I bought my first house. Me and my wife opened our own mortgage company and did really well, I made my first million by the time I was 25. Then in 2008 the whole industry collapsed. We went from making over $100,000 a month to nothing.
What did you turn to?
I’d always wanted to open a restaurant for my mom. My grandparents have a house in Garden Grove, and every weekend my mom would go there and cook with my aunt for the whole family. Everybody would come, eat, and gather.
I told my wife, “Let’s do it” — but we had no idea what we were in for. No restaurant experience at all. I didn’t even know how to cook. The first two years were rough, and we knew going in it would be. But we just had our 10-year anniversary, a huge celebration. People came from the offices of politicians at the state, county, and city level. We got nine awards. I wasn’t expecting it.
I can’t think of anybody else in mountain bike culture who’s as openly Christian as you. Can you tell me about that?
My relationship with faith completely changed when I was locked up. Now I’m constantly thanking God, and to this day I can’t pray for myself. I never do. I’m always thanking God, even in the roughest times. When I was locked up, I was thanking God that I had two legs, because I’d see guys arriving in wheelchairs, paralyzed from whatever happened on the streets, people who were dismembered… I had to change my way of thinking about what God is — a higher being, and purpose in life. I’ve been shot at point-blank, and I know the bullet was supposed to hit me and it didn’t, for a reason. There’s a purpose for me in this life.
Have you ever been invited back to prison to talk?
I have, and I’ve gone back. I have a soft spot in my heart for kids, especially the young ones gangbanging — they don’t have anybody teaching them the right way.
When you’re grinding up that hill, and you want to get off and stop pedaling, you’ve got to push through it. You’re scared to go off a feature, you’ve got to push through it. There are so many things in mountain biking you can correlate with being successful in life. And mountain biking is addictive, and so fun. – If I’d had that when I was young… mountain biking is better than any high. A drug wears off, but mountain biking will always be there.
So next time you’re watching a pro roosting in slo-mo as water drips from Squamish leaf , and you feel like seeing something a little more real, take the time to hang out with Tommy and the rest of the Wreckless Riders crew. Dust, rocks, slams, blood, swearing, and a healthy dose of faith might be all you need to get fired up and out there.
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