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Atherton Bikes goes crowdfunding, micro investors to share risk & rewards of growth

Atherton Bikes #FirstFifty custom carbon 29er Enduro DH DW6 mountain bikes
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The real world availability of full custom carbon Atherton Bikes has remained limited since their debut last year, so the Athertons are turning to crowdfunding – not to Kickstart a new bike but to give mountain bikers a chance to share in ownership of the company as micro investors. Investing in the company through a Crowdcube funding campaign brings the obvious risk & potential rewards of any other investment would. But the Athertons are betting on success, have already been delivering on their custom bike business model, and have already garnered almost twice their investment target… with a clear path forward.

Should you invest in the Atherton Bikes crowdfunding campaign?

OK, so we clearly know that the ex-world champions Dan, Gee & Rachel Atherton can race mountain bikes faster than most people on the planet – even our own Jessie-May. And they can build some killer bikeparks too! But over the last couple of years, we’ve also seen Atherton Bikes churn out some beautiful custom carbon bikes – based on 3D-printed titanium lugs and Dave Weagle-designed suspension.

Why are they crowdsourcing investment?

Atherton Bikes crowdfunding campaign, custom ti lugs

Their sales pitch talks of the booming cycling industry valued at over £37 billion a year with 20% of that for mountain biking. Yet they remain small and nimble, with design & development entirely in the UK, and ready to go beyond gravity bikes into even producing kids bikes & e-bikes, too.

While they were cautious to start slowly with taking their bikes into production – telling us they wanted to be sure they could deliver bikes capable of riding to match their gravity legacy – now it seems the Athertons are ready to go full speed.

Atherton Bikes crowdfunding campaign, Rachel

To make that shift from 50 bikes in one year, to bigger UK production capability has meant it was time for Atherton Bikes’ crowdfunding to seek additional capital investment. And instead of looking for a single big investor, they’ve turned to crowdfunding micro investment platform Crowdcube to leverage their millions of mountain bike followers, and let us get in on the action.

Atherton Bikes crowdfunding campaign, 3d-printed titanium lugs

Of course buyer-beware, this in an investment where you share in their risk and opportunity for reward. Atherton Bikes was seeking at least £600,000 from investors and said they’ve locked in £944,000 in financing if they got to 500k. Yet as it stands now, they’ve already blown past their target with more than a million pounds from the crowd-investment campaign. With targets of 2500 bikes in 3 years, and 7500 at 5 years, Atherton Bikes has mapped out a set of goals to challenge big established brands within these next five years.

Atherton Bikes crowdfunding campaign, Rachel Italy

Does that sound like something you want to get in on? If so, and you are eligible (sorry, not open to US residents), find out more over at Athertonbikes.com, then head over to CrowdCube.com to put your hard-earned money on the line – and get in on #AthertonEquity as a micro investor. Equity investment is open until the start of December.

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2TurnersNotEnough
2TurnersNotEnough
3 years ago

I like the idea, and I wish them the best. But you can have all the capital you need lined up to get started, and if you can’t find manufacturing capacity, your business plan isn’t going to go far. I wouldn’t invest in something like this until I could see who their manufacturing partner(s) is/are, and the partner’s written commitments to production quantities.

alloycowboy
alloycowboy
3 years ago

I don’t get why you would choose to laser print titanium 3d lugs when you could just as easily machine them from 70705 aluminum which would produce a lighter lug.

NC in SC
NC in SC
3 years ago
Reply to  alloycowboy

I had a very similar thought as alloycowboy, why use 3d printing for manufacturing? It’s the most expensive and slow process available, besides the difficulty of getting consistent results.

Josh
Josh
3 years ago
Reply to  alloycowboy

The whole idea is that you can make a design with 3D printing that is nearly impossible with machining. The deep, narrow, annular slots would be nearly impossible to machine consistently with aluminum. Don’t even think about it with titanium. With 3D printing you can maximize the strength to weight ratio that Ti gives you relative to Al. And the titanium will never corrode.

alloycowboy
alloycowboy
3 years ago
Reply to  alloycowboy

The 1992 Specialized S-Works Epic Ultimate used Ti lug and carbon tube construction, this seems like dejavu all over again. If your going go through head ache of 3D printing I would be looking at Mark Forges Continuous Carbon Fibre process which has equivalent strength of 6061-T6 Aluminium.

josh
3 years ago
Reply to  alloycowboy

The specialized design only had contact between the lug and one surface of the tube. The magic here is that there is contact on the ID and OD giving 2x the shear area with no additional weight. The Mark Forged machine has eight short chop carbon fiber in the filament (onyx) or continuous cf in a single layer. This is strong but only in one plane and pretty useless for a bike.

Nick
Nick
3 years ago

It may have to do with the galvanic reaction between carbon and aluminum, but I’m neither a scientist nor a cowboy

captain derp
captain derp
3 years ago
Reply to  Nick

that’s a bingo. which is also why carbon wheels are only built with brass nipples.

Ol' Shel'
Ol' Shel'
3 years ago

When people are willing to spend X-times the amount of the most advanced production frames, they want it to work better and/or to look amazing. The round tubes look like what you find on budget models.The large premium buys you the family’s racing prestige and some neat 3D-printed internal features that don’t change the ride, and are hidden from view. It’s hard to see how they thrive without changes to the product.

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