Atherton Bikes latest teaser video hints at a new A.200G, where 200 indicates the travel, and G could stand for gearbox...
A short teaser video has appeared on the Athertons’ YouTube channel offering glimpses of what looks like a gearbox downhill frame project. Entitled ‘A.200G – Something’s cooking!’ the social video reveals a fresh set of titanium lugs coming out of the additive manufacturing printer and being bonded to a carbon tubes with a DW6 suspension design. So far, so run-of-the-mill Atherton, if you could call a printed and bonded, carbon and titanium suspension bike run-of-the-mill.
Where it gets interesting is a shot of an engineer walking downstairs carrying a black box, about the size and shape of a gearbox. Or a motor. Then follows a blurry shot of a large additive manufactured part with a mounting pattern for a motor or a gearbox. Followed by some blueprints of said part, and a blank used for testing fit and tolerance stamped A.200G.
What’s in his hand? Is it a motor or a gearbox?
Now this could be Atherton Bikes working on an e-bike, but given the construction technique, and the relative lack of space for a battery in a tubular down tube, we suspect it’s more likely to be a gearbox bike, particularly given the A.200 designation, as 200 in Atherton Bikes convention means 200mm travel.
This could be a blank for testing tolerances.
That doesn’t mean that Atherton Bikes couldn’t produce an e-bike with an external battery, as Cotic has done with the unconventional Rocket, but given that Gates Belt Drive has offered a cool €100k to anyone who wins a World Cup Downhill race with a belt drive (the Gates Belted Purse competition), we think this is all the incentive needed to start playing around with gearbox prototypes.
This large BB lug has a six-point mounting on it for attaching something drivetrain-related.
Just look at Intense with its prototype Pinion/Gates equipped M1 on display at Eurobike last summer. Sadly for Elenora Farina of the MS Racing Intense team, who won the Les Gets round of the World Cup on last year, she did it on a bike with a conventional chain and derailleur. Maybe 2025 will be the year that someone – such as Charlie Hatton – scoops up that purse. Now that would be some payday!