Continental and The Athertons

The Continental Atherton MTB Race Team Has Been Launched!

 “Continental Atherton” is what they’ll be known as for the 2020 Downhill World Championships. The Athertons have a massive following right from the top echelons of MTB racing down to the many thousands of school kids and week-end warriors who’ve followed their careers for the past 16 years or so. And for 2020, they’ll be riding their own newly developed Atherton Bikes  

Collectively the Athertons have won dozens of National and World Championshiptitles, most of them on Continental tyres. There’s a good reason for their successes on Conti products. The Athertons (and other top cyclists), have worked closely with the factory for years doing  advanced  field testing of tyres and giving race quality feedback to the R&D team in Germany.

Bikers who work with Conti R&D to develop top racing tyres, have mountains of fun doing it. Most of the fun over the past 10 years was arranged by Conti’s then Marketing Head, Jorg Malcherek, a master at creating fun in the work place. Here’s an example of one of Jorg’s fun breaks.

He rounded up the Athertons and a few other long time Conti MTB tyre developers like, Danny MacAskill, Richie Shley, Kenny Belaey, and Martin Soderstrom. He took away their MTB bikes and transported these Conti tyre testers to Conti’s huge car and truck tyre test track, The Conti Dome. The riders were given 4-wheeled vehicles, and told to spend the day enjoying themselves on the Dome. Jorg Malcherek was never short of style so the cars he organised ranged from serious high speed sports models to things that were impossible to drive.  Check:

And this video of Rachel Atherton in Pietermaritzburg in 2013 will give you an idea of her ability.

Keep an eye on the developing Interac website. It will have up to date news on the Continental Atherton team as well as many other events locally and internationally as well as our Events Calendar which covers local cycling and motorcycling events and functions.