Blog
The First Atherton Bikes Owners Day
20 May 2024
Dyfi Bike Park
8th May 2024
Wow! What a day!
We rode with 40 Atherton Bikes owners from as far afield as Sweden, Switzerland, Germany and the USA. It was a day to celebrate our amazing customers who are the best ambassadors a brand could ever wish for and Dyfi delivered with blue skies and actual dusty trails!
Huge thanks to the wonderful Henrik Hedberg who was hugely instrumental in organising the day and the inspiration behind and admin for the Atherton owner's Facebook Group – if you’re an owner or a prospective owner with any questions take a look!
HH: The story of the first Atherton Bikes Owners Group Meet actually begins back in November 2022, right after I had ordered my A.150. I’m the kind of person who likes to read facts and reviews about the products that I’m getting in to so the natural path was to see if there was a group for Atherton bikes on Facebook. There wasn’t one, so I figured I better start one! to get in contact with people sharing the same passion for these amazing bikes or for potential new customers that are just interested in knowing more about them from the owners’ perspective. The very first person joining the group was another Swede, as far as I know we’re still the only two owners of an Atherton bike in Sweden. Pretty soon people from all over the world started to join the group. On the first year mark we hit 365 members and we’re now up to 437 members.
Naturally talk about bikes spilled into private chats about different topics so since I’m also quite curious I started to wonder what it would be like to meet up. Then others started to ask about the same thing … The natural place to meet of course to bring all of the bikes and their owners home to Dyfi Bike Park. Eventually, we found a date that worked and piece by piece, with a lot of help from Gill at Atherton Bikes the meeting started to come together. It’s been a really fun process planning this event.
So date was set, the agenda was in the works so it was time to start planning for my own trip! I got quite a few offers from people living in the UK that was willing to pick me up at the airport but soon after René Mathys from Switzerland and Frank Stehmann from Germany showed interest in both sharing an AirBnB and to rent a van together from the Airport.
I guess a good thing about flying with your bike is that you can quite easily recognize your new friends by their bike travel bags. The conversations flowed immediately as it does when you meet with people that share the same interests and passion. I don’t think we had a single quiet minute in the van during the drive over to Macynlleth where we were supposed to meet up with Richard Lempicki and Iain Hill to ride the ClimachX trail
I couldn’t have asked for a better start. Riding with people having fun on the climb while starting to get to know each other. I started to feel like this was going to be something very special.
I guess a good thing about flying with your bike is that you can quite easily recognize your new friends by their bike travel bags. The conversations flowed immediately as it does when you meet with people that share the same interests and passion. I don’t think we had a single quiet minute in the van during the drive over to Machynlleth where we were supposed to meet up with Richard Lempicki and Iain Hill to ride the ClimachX trail.
I couldn’t have asked for a better start. Riding with people having fun on the climb while starting to get to know each other. I started to feel like this was going to be something very special.
I’m still a bit overwhelmed by all the appreciation from the group …but it’s thanks to everyone that showed up and made this day in the sun such a special day.
So cool to meet everyone and to hear their stories… you could start a conversation with anyone. It was so cool that people that had never been to a bike park before decided to show up just to meet other Atherton bikes owners.
Meeting Dan, Gee and Rachel
And Charlie Hatton too!
What a day in Dyfi Bike Park! We had the park to ourselves, the sun was shining and everywhere you looked there was an Atherton bike. Outside of Dyfi it’s still quite unlikely that you get to see another Atherton out on the trails so getting to see around 40 of them in the same place was so cool. Having the World Cup race mechanics from Continental Atherton help and give advice on bike setup was awesome.
Personally I couldn’t have been happier with the fact that Rachel, Gee, Dan and Charlie showed up and made this day very special for everyone. I believe that shows their passion for these bikes and I believe a lot of us has bought these bikes exactly because of the story and passion behind them.
The fact that they’re such great to ride, confidence-inspiring machines just adds to that. I took the chance to take the new S.170 on a few laps…. It’s a great looking bike that turns and jumps well.
There were a few bruises on show at our post ride beer and BBQ but considering all the smiles on people’s faces it couldn’t have mattered less. It was a day that I will never forget. So many cool bikes, friendly people, happy faces, awesome riding, good food and good weather … can’t wait till next year!!
