There’s a new Atherton bike out, called the S.150 it’s made from aluminium, gets 150mm travel and is the most affordable bike yet from the Machynlleth brand… although at £4,499 isn’t what you’d call entry level.

The S.150 uses the same aluminium design we first saw on the longer travel S.170 when it launched earlier this year, where 7075 aluminium tubes are bonded into CNCd lugs. This helps drop the price from the carbon bikes Atherton started with, which can only be 3D printed and in batches of 300 a year.

Update: Atherton has just told us its bike weights, complete builds will start from 16.0kg in the smallest size, while the mid-sized 7 is 16.4kg. That’s heavy for a trail bike and makes the S.150 heavier even than the latest enduro bikes we’ve tested, like the Trek Slash and Hope HB.916. The suspension tune is lighter than that of the S.170, it’s designed to be more nimble and less of a park bike.

The flagship Atherton S.150 1 gets Fox Factory suspension

Atherton S.150 need to know

• Travel set at 150mm, with a 160mm fork
• Mullet wheels throughout the three bike range
• S.150 3 costs £4,499.00 (€4,480.25, $4,742.70)
• Frame and shock option
• 12 sizes in the range, from 415mm to 525mm reach
• S.150 could prove one of the best mountain bikes of 2025

The distinctive DW4 suspension design is easy to spot on the Atherton S.150’s back end, it’s simpler than the DW6 but less tuneable

Details on the bike are as yet pretty slim, but we do know it delivers 150mm travel through the same DW4 suspension design as the S.170. That’s one of Dave Weagle’s older 4-bar DW-Link designs, which is presumably cheaper to make than the more tuneable DW6 on Atherton AM bikes. It’s easy to spot with a more normal looking triangular swingarm.

Why bother with a lug and tube design at all, when you can just weld aluminium together though? Atherton Bikes says this lets it use 7075 aluminium rather than the more common 6061, and it’s 60-70% stronger in “fatigue, tensile strength and hardness.”

The CNC’d lugs included the head tube allow alloy tubes to be slotted and bonded in place, with no need for welding

This is no idle boast either, the brand backs up that claim with a lifetime warranty on the frame for the first owner. The frame’s have all passed the Cat 5 EFBE testing for enduro riding, “but more importantly the Atherton field-testing, which encompasses the toughest bike park trails in the UK and plenty of off-piste gems.

“The S.150 is hand-built in Machynlleth, UK and uses the same state-of-the-art technology as the bomb-proof S.170 which launched in March this year,” the press release says. “As you’d expect it is super durable, using lug and tube construction andAtherton’s bonding technology (patent pending).”

Rachel putting the S.150 to the test

“From the beginning of Atherton Bikes’life as a company, we knew we wanted to make a range of bikes that could be ridden by kids pushing up at their local woods or up to the heights of theWorld Cup podium,” Rachel Atherton says. “We love the S.150; Brownie’s son Sennen has been one of our testers he’s already taken a few wins in his first races onboard theS.150, but I love it for a long, exploring trail rides that clear my head, then I finish with a couple of wild and fast descents at the Bike Park. I’ve already clocked up some of the best days riding I’ve had in years; this bike goes so well!”