“I need to know the track”

One man who an generate more power than anyone out of the landscape – Dan Atherton.

Unless you’ve been stuck in the Voronja cave then chances are that ‘Four By Three’ is a very recognisable film title. But Dan Atherton heads into the season as a very big contender for the World Enduro series title. We talked to him about both.

Pretty much love/hate thing. Some races I think ‘what am I doing here, this is like going back ten years to when downhill was finding itself’, but then you get a race like Finale where I didn’t stop smiling all day and it’s the most fun I have had racing bikes.

Yeah I really don’t like riding blind, my riding style definitely lends itself to knowing where I can hop into a downslope or set myself up for something that’s coming up, after 10 years of riding World Cup downhill I guess it’s ingrained pretty deep to know the track inside out.

No, I hate social interaction, pretty happy to travel with just my mechanic, but Martin was kind of too good a kid to not help out. He is super chilled out and doesn’t worry what other people are doing or what they think of him, just pins it everywhere and loves every minute.

I think it’s a tough one, downhill is so exciting and cool that every kid wants to be the next Steve Peat, but enduro is maybe a little more about the actual riding so people usually come to enduro from downhill, this kind of gives the impression that enduro is for the guys who can’t do downhill anymore. However as Clay Porter pointed out, Martin Maes is a definite sign of the times, a super fast 15 year old kid who has come straight into enduro and not even given downhill a chance.

No matter who you are you cannot argue that downhill will always be the pinnacle of our sport, it’s where the technology has to be the fastest, the strongest, the lightest. However that’s not to say that enduro might take over as the mass participation sport, maybe a way for people to get started in downhill.

Yeah for sure, 2013 will be a year where all the pissed off companies and designers who have been trying to guess the future of MTB wheels will finally find out what’s faster and what works for each discipline.

For the first time in my life my heart is fully into just riding my bike. It feels like my whole career has been spent trying to find every second I can to get better, and in doing that sometimes I would forget why I was riding, but now suddenly I don’t care anymore. Maybe it’s cause I am older or whatever, but when I ride my BMX at the skate park or dirt jumps on my hardtail suddenly I am riding infinitely better than I ever have. I see a lot of kids these days taking their riding so seriously and worrying about every little thing and I just want to say, ‘chill the f–k out, enjoy what you’re doing and it will come’, but that’s exactly how I was and nobody can tell you, you just have to learn from experience…so I ignore them.

I bloody love digging, I have always enjoyed it but this last winter has reached new levels.

Yeah it was a big project, but Gaz Brewin and The Revolution boys, James and Tim, formed a right crew. It was definitely not just my work, those guys worked super hard and didn’t get pissed of with me when I made us change stuff. I am sure there where other ways that we could have built the line but I think to get something that really works and flows you need one person who can ride what he is building and has a really clear vision of how he wants it to feel when it’s done.

For sure, everything I ever build is about having flow, I hate one hit wonder jumps that people can roll into without needing to generate speed from the previous jump. It’s really tough when it’s on a hill like the quarry line because it’s so easy to get speed, but I guess you just make them bigger until you need every ounce of speed.

An epic Clay Porter, John Lawlor, Robbie Meade, slow motion, Red camera, 300 frames a second, eye shot, piano music, game changing fan–fare shot on five different cameras and that took Clay Porter seven days to edit.

It’s shit.

Yeah, I got my shovel with loads of MTB stickers on and a MTB grip on the handle…ha, f–k no. They only last a few weeks before they snap, so whatever, as long as it’s not one of them shitty long handle shovels that they use in America, them Aptos boys love them.

Ask me in January when I am blow torching the ice of the take offs I would say never. Ask me on a summer’s evening when I am riding dirt jumps in the yard I would say for sure.>>