John Klomp's AM.170: "Beware you'll ride things you'd never dreamed of"
December 19th, 2023
John Klomp is a 37 year old guy from the Netherlands who rides XC, dirt jumps and pumptrack with his family, motocross… and most weekends you’ll find him at a European Bike Park or an Enduro, keeping up with the young guns on his awesome AM.170…
John is 177cm tall and rides a 470 regular (size 10).
JK: I’m from the Netherlands where most of the terrain is flat! It’s perfect terrain for motocross so when I was young I rode every day. For mountain-biking it’s just too flat, but luckily I live near the border of Germany and Belgium. And there are a lot of really good, technical riding spots within an hour’s drive, in winter (when the Bikeparks are closed) we go there almost every weekend with a group of friends to cycle up and ride Enduro tracks. Bikepark Winterberg, Willingen and the new Bikepark Greenhill are only two hours away from me so when those parks are open, you can find us there most weeks, I’m Head of Sales in a company that build Horse trucks and I can plan my time pretty flexibly so in summer we take our mobile home to the bike park! I have a wife and 3 boys, one aged 6, then 4 year old twins, luckily they all love riding bikes; on warm summer evenings you’ll find us all at the pumptrack having fun with friends.
I started riding bikes on XC terrain and did some competitions, we used to have weekly one hour races then when I got a bit older I entered some XC marathon races. Alps Epic was a six day XC marathon with some really technical descents, it was so much fun that I started searching for more and more technical stuff and now I only ride my XC-bike to keep fit! A long, long time ago me and two friends started making jumps, drops and northshore in the woods where we live. More and more bikers found us and we started an online chat to talk bikes and plan trips. Now there are around 40 enduro/dh bikers out of Netherlands, Germany and Belgium and it’s never quiet on this chat! Recently I’ve entered a couple of one or two day Enduro races in Germany and Belgium. I love racing, it’s nice to have some competition, it keeps you young… and now I have my AM.170 I can keep up with the young guns!
I first read that Atherton started making bikes back in 2019, then one time we were riding Bikepark Serfaus in Austria and met Gee Atherton and some buddys testing the AM200. From the start I was in love, what an absolute piece of art! I rode the black DH track with Gee, that day I couldn’t follow him, but of course he had the advantage of a much better bike… ;)
When it came to choosing my ride I wanted one bike that would do it all. I want a bike to ride bikeparks with uplifts, but also a bike that I can pedal up efficiently for enduro stuff.
I had lots of questions about sizes and performance, materials, delivery times etc. Buying the Atherton is something special, the team there are all are so passionate about their product. They always had good and more importantly, honest answers for me. There’s a very helpful Atherton Owners Group on Facebook too, it is nice to chat with other people about such a nice product! You don’t just buy an Atherton Bike it‘s a whole experience… and there’s a lot of flexibility – with options to change the shock or forks etc. I choose the 180mm fork because I love going fast it just gives it a little more stability than with a 170.
I think that when you have only one bike you’ll get more confident on that bike and don't need to adjust your style when you’re swapping bikes all the time so that’s the way I go. It is amazing how much confidence the Atherton gives you!
I like the adrenalin buzz that you get when you send something big or ride a perfect technical descent. And after just two months on the Atherton, I was riding features that I’d always thought were out of my reach. On other bikes I’ve felt out of control, but on the AM.170 I’ve never felt like that, it gives you so much confidence and that makes you a much better rider. I’ve owned and tested a lot of brands but have always felt that I was fighting for a good position on the bike. I ordered the Atherton AM170 without seeing one in real life, trusting that the 22 sizes they offer would fix that problem of position on the bike, and since the first time I rode it, I didn’t change a single thing about my body position, it was immediately perfect so you can push hard from your first ride! The AM170 is a race bike that wants you push it hard but with the mullet set up, I catch myself doing whips and tricks just because it’s so playful, riding it always puts a smile on my face. Add to that the unreal DW6 suspension platform and you have something very special. I ride with a Fox DHX2 and a Fox 38, I had a couple of small issues to get the Fox38 to work well, but in one ride everything was settled perfectly, and once settled, it rides like a dream. There is a “firm” lock on the DHX2 but I never use it because the DW6 gives practically no pedal bob.
Very soon after receiving my bike we set off on a riding trip to bikeparks in Germany, France and Austria. We also rode Austria’s Fernar trail, it’s rated S5 and known as the hardest trail in Austria.
I posted the 3rd best time of this year and 18th overall on their leaderboard. I never could’ve done that on another bike, the AM170 is an absolute beast!
You can ride uphill really efficiently for a 170mm bike, on flowy descents you can shred it really hard, it jumps easily and very predictably with butter soft landings. Very, very steep, technical downhill trails are no problem at all, the AM170 eats them for breakfast! The mullet setup is really helpful. But the AM170’s most natural home is on hard enduro tracks. You really only need the brakes to save you flying out of corners too fast, on all the rest don’t touch your brakes and the AM170 will bring you down very fast and controlled. Zero crashes in four weeks biking is also all credit to the bike, I love it.
"It’s the best bike I've ever had!!"
