Customer Review - 19 December 2024
A.170 - The Engineer's Choice
"It’s like the difference between buying a suit from high street department store or from Savile Row"
Owner number 432, Si Wright knows his stuff when it comes to engineering – he’s the technical manager working with customers from F1 teams to spacecraft and satellites, and he knows his bikes too – he rides bike parks, trails, gravel and raced BMX at an international level over 30 years ago…It’s fair to say he’s slightly obsessed with his Atherton A.170, the building methods, the buying experience, the looks, the ride …and he’s put it to the test everywhere from Dyfi Bike Park to racing Ard Rock or pedalling up Snowdon! Si says what got him so hooked…
SW: I was a BMX rider back in the early 1980’s I rode to a high level for a kiddie, riding in the British Championships and a couple of international events. I got my first mountain bike in 1988, it was a Falcon Sierra, shortly followed by an Alpine Stars Almega XT, I entered a couple of races which were like time trials with obstacles, but by the early 90’s I had found beer and women and my riding came to an end.
I barely touched a bike for nearly 30 years. I was golf mad, got down to a single figure handicap, but I got more and more frustrated with it. I had been though a couple of very rough periods in my life which I had never managed to come to terms with, my hyper fixation on golf was my distraction, but when I fell out of love with it, at the same time as the whole COVID debacle, I suddenly found my mental health was beginning to spiral. I was suffering from depression and anxiety and I couldn’t shake it.
My son had got in to mountain biking and he suggested that we could do it together, I grabbed a second hand, bright yellow Caliber Beast Nut on Facebook Market Place and we headed for Llandegla…
That was the start of my love affair with MTB, I got back to the car, exhausted yet exhilarated, the dopamine was flowing and I felt amazing, I had found a way out of the darkness.
The Beast Nut lasted 3 months, I then bought a Nukeproof Mega and 8 months later a brand new MTB, a 2022 Transition Patrol, it was insane how good it was compared to my previous bikes, I spent the next 18 months heavily customizing it, so that in the end the bike owed me nearly £10k and the only original parts where the frame and forks
All I wanted to do was ride, my Patrol was the love of my life, it was a bike park shredder, but, boy oh boy, was it shit on tight singletrack! I remember riding Turns in the Ferns, Racetrack and even Super Swooper and thinking it was like trying to get a canal barge down the track. I was by now truly fanatical about riding, to the point where had sold my beautiful car and replaced it with a van and even though I had only just finished building my Transition, I was on the hunt for the next bike.
I live in a beautiful little corner of Cheshire at the gateway to the Peak District, so I have loads of riding right out of my door, lots of single track and some proper scary steep stuff ( I live very close to the 50:01 lads) I help run a big MTB club, we’ve built some cracking trails so I wanted a bike I could pedal out where I live and round the Welsh mountains where we have a static caravan just down the coast from Dyfi as well as shredding the Bike Park. I ride Dyfi often and there were a couple of times on my previous rig (150mm, rear, 160mm forks) that I had bottomed the suspension out on the rear of the bike, so that extra 20mm was at the top of my shopping list.
On my demo I rode the bike Gee rode in the Dolomites, how cool is that? The bike was slightly on the small side, 480 reach I think, the guys told me to just take it easy and get used to it.
We started with Lovey Dyfi in to Super Swooper and within a couple of hundred yards of riding, I remember thinking “WTF, where is the bike?” It felt like it had become part of me, almost symbiotic. I wasn’t taking it easy, I was wringing its bloody neck, it was so quiet, so solid and planted that it just begged to be ridden harder and faster, but the best bit was, dropping in to Super Swooper, I was no longer trying to navigate an oil tanker down the trails, instead I felt like I was riding one of those speeder bikes in Star Wars!
The agility and grip was staggering and the precision was something I just wasn’t expecting, 3/4 of the way down my first run on the A170 and the deal was done!! I wanted this bike and that was that. My strava PBs were smashed on that demo. One thing I realized is that not only do you have to confidence in your own ability, but you also have to have confidence in your bike.
One thing I realized is that not only do you have to confidence in your own ability, but you also have to have confidence in your bike.
With an Atherton, you can pretty much take the spectre of frame failure out of the equation. I have watched Dan, Gee, Rachel and all the Atherton crew thrashing these bikes down Dyfi and I know that they’re subjecting the bike to far more than most normal riders ever will; that’s a great thing to know when you are upping your own game to send bigger, longer and higher features.
I work in very high-end engineering, I have a lot of knowledge of materials, engineering processes and structural design and simulation. I know enough about carbon and have seen enough bikes being carried of mountainsides in pieces to know that it can be a lottery as to whether you get a dud. Trying to use carbon fibre to make an entire mountain bike frame is very difficult, the complex shapes, especially round the bottom bracket and head tube aren’t ideal you’re going to subject it to shock loading and big impacts. Mass produced frames are susceptible to manufacturing defects and inconsistencies, pivot mounts and bottom brackets especially tend to suffer cracking and failing and I just didn’t want to go down the full CF route with or without a life time warranty. I don’t want a frame failing on me when I’m riding big jumps and drops.
When it comes to alloy frames, no matter how good or how high spec the material is, the weak points are always going to be the welds, heat affected zone and the stress raisers that welds cause will always be the weakest link. I worked at JCB for 15 years so I learnt lots about structural welding. All this means that when I first saw the A series bikes, not only was I blown away by the stunning looks, but I knew instantly that the CF tubes bonded in to Ti lugs meant these bikes were going to the strongest bikes on the planet. I knew that I had to have one.
And here’s another great advantage that additive manufacture teamed with the whole Atherton expertise and experience brings. I’m 6ft 2in but I have ridiculously long legs, The website offered me a 500mm reach, tall frame, one of 22 standard sizes! But after some further discussions with the team I actually chose a 500 regular and changed the dropper from the Fox transfer to a 240mm One Up dropper as part of my 170.1 build. Perfection. It’s like the difference between buying a suit from high street department store or from Savile Row.
I’m lucky enough to live close to the HQ, so going there, having the factory tour, meeting the team, and even bumping into Dan Atherton all add to the experience. Most people, including myself, buy a bike, even expensive ones, and within a very short space of time, they have spent thousands making it their own. With the A.170, I took delivery of my dream bike, and it needs nothing changing.
I remember driving down to pick it up, although the 20 week wait was a killer, it made it so much more special, I reckon it must be how women feel when they go to try on their wedding dress! And where else in the word can you go to pick your new bike up from the factory and end up chatting to a World Champion? Amazing, just amazing.
I have 5 different bikes, but I still wanted to be able to take the 170 on a big pedal, so not long after I took delivery, I took it out for the biggest climb I have ever done and what better place to ride than Snowdon or Yr Wydffa as they call it locally? We rode up the Llanberis pass and I was blown away by just how well this big travel bike pedals, I rode the entire way except for the parts that were simply unrideable; we didn’t quite make the summit as the weather turned, but I climbed over 800m without any problem, absolutely incredible for a big long travel rig.
The bike delivers confidence in spades! I love jumping and drops rather than tech and roots. The Atherton jumps so well that I know that when I send it off the drop on Flowstate or the drops on Oakley, the bike will take it in its stride.
I love the rush of riding places like Dyfi. Black holes have something called “the event horizon”, it’s the point of no return, it’s the same sending a big drop or a big double, there’s no coming back, if you don’t commit, then you are fucked. It’s those couple of seconds where your adrenaline spikes and then is replaced by a feeling of complete euphoria. I live for that, I love that feeling, no other sport has ever done that for me and doing it on an Atherton is insane, as I said, you know you are riding the best kit on the planet. The bike is so precise; I can’t get over how much grip it has, how quick it is through the corners, the chassis and suspension is more forgiving than a catholic priest, you can commit all sorts of sins, and the bike just sorts your shit out it’s like it’s hewn from a single billet of space-age material, there are no creaks, rattles, vibrations or noise except the roar of tyre as you cover ground and demolish mountains with ruthless efficiency…
Even though they are understated and stealthy looking, these bikes draw attention, I’m exceptionally fussy about how my bikes look. I use a Cane Creek Shock and asked a local powder coater to do my spring in two tone silver and black (it looks sick AF). One thing that you don’t really see on photos is the carbon weave of the tubes, people always comment on good they look. I asked for my frame to be signed by the Athertons which makes such and exquisite bike even more unique and special. I have a mate who last year bought a top end bike from another boutique brand and he’s already toying with upgrading and is questioning his life choices.
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As amazing as everyone says it is... Jenn Biestman lives in Oregon. She’s a confessed nerd who is incredibly picky about her bikes! So her review of the 170 is all the more satisfying for us here in Machynlleth.
We take our lifetime guarantee VERY seriously and we are well-known as the most uncompromising set of perfectionists you’re ever going to meet! So it goes without saying that the testing for our prototype bikes would be absolutely brutal for both man and machine!