Aaron Gwin’s list of sponsors made for some interesting reading at the start of the season and among the most unusual was Onza tyres.

Today Onza unveiled its new prototype downhill tyre designed with input from the world’s fastest downhill racer and we picked up these spy shots from Eurobike.

The story goes that at the exact same event last year Onza first got into conversation with Gwin, but it wasn’t until the deal was confirmed in January that they could really begin developing the tyre. The whole process took seven months (about half the time it would normally take to design a tyre) and although Gwin has been using blacked-out Maxxis tyres, he hopes to use the tyre this weekend.

Gwin’s tyre weighs 1.3kg but Onza are hoping to reduce this weight for the production model that is due out early next year. The tyre certainly looks similar to a Maxxis Minion DHR, but there is only one version of this tyre that Gwin will be running front and rear.

The tyre is likely to get off a winning start as Gwin needs just a top ten to claim the World Cup overall, but only time will tell if it will live up to the exacting standards of this generation’s fastest rider.