The World Championship is a key event in the downhill calendar, with riders representing their country on arguably the biggest stage in mountain biking.
This year, the UCI World Championships were held together in Scotland, with the downhill taking place at Fort William for the first time since 2007.
As with other UCI World Championship winners, the victor will get to adorn his or her jersey with rainbow stripes for the next year.
Charlie Hatton took gold in the Elite Men's race for Great Britain, with Vali Höll taking the win in the Elite Women's.
The World Championships is also a time for athletes to test the latest and greatest tech innovations, with this year being no exception as many riders showed off prototype bikes.
Riders are also allowed to race in colours that are different from their usual sponsors, with the grid awash with patriotic paint schemes and custom graphics.
Here are 10 stand-out bikes from this year's UCI DH World Championship.
Matt Walker’s Saracen Myst prototype
Matt Walker's Saracen has an eye-catching British Racing Green paintjob with marbled finish and Shropshire flag (his Scottish teammate Greg Williamson’s is blue with a tartan motif), but the bike underneath is pretty special, too. It’s a new Myst, designed to remain more active under braking.
On the team’s previous race bikes, this was achieved by attaching a floating brake arm. Here, Saracen has added a concentric rear-axle pivot – a design also used by Trek and Pivot. This effectively turns the Myst from a single-pivot design with linkage-actuated shock into a four-bar linkage bike. The shock is now driven by a system of three links.
The first prototype of the bike was tested at European races early in the year. This is the second iteration, which, according to Matt’s mechanic Ewan Collier, should be in production soon.
“We wanted to improve the ride balance and separate the suspension from braking to suit modern shorter but increasingly fast tracks, without completely redesigning the frame,” he explains. Apparently, brake jack is much reduced compared to the old Myst, which was built with more of a focus on pedalling.
Neko Mulally’s Frameworks Racing/Cotic colab prototype
As part of Neko Mulally’s ongoing project to develop the ultimate downhill bike for himself and his Frameworks Racing team, the American has teamed up with Cy Turner of UK brand Cotic.
After a lengthy conversation with Turner about the benefits of ferrous tubing at last year’s Les Gets World Cup, Mulally was keen to see how the bike would ride with a steel front end. Apparently, he was looking to improve durability, but was also interested to see if there was any performance advantage in terms of grip.
Cotic created a steel front triangle for him, to be paired with the carbon fibre swingarm and alloy rocker link of the v1 Frameworks prototype.
Unfortunately, Neko never got to ride it, because he broke his hip, but other testers gave favourable feedback, so when Frameworks moved on to a v2 prototype, Turner offered to make a steel front end for that, too, creating the bike you see here.
The down tube and main pivot are the same as on Cotic’s RocketMAX enduro bike, the seat tube is similar but not quite the same, and the top tube is non-ovalised and thicker-walled.
In addition to the usual small gussets at the junctions of the head tube and top and down tubes, there’s a large plate gusset. Turner admits erring on the side of the caution with this, having never designed a downhill bike before, but points out: “They [Frameworks] had to add one to the V1 alloy frames to get them to last.”
Brook Macdonald’s Mondraker Summum prototype
We brought you news of a new Mondraker prototype at the season-opening Lenzerheide World Cup, but the shrouds have now been removed and MS Mondraker race engineer Jake Ireland was able to give us the lowdown.
“We started with a blank slate,” he explains. “Although it still looks like a Mondraker and still uses a twin-link design, it’s about as different from the old bike as it could be.”
There’s a new suspension setup, designed to get the best from modern coil-sprung dampers, with the shock now attaching to the rear triangle, not the lower link.
Plenty of adjustability is built in, too – you can change the reach of both sizes by 21mm and the chainstay length by 10mm, bolt on different bottom bracket shells to change BB height and location, and flip a chip in the shock mount to tweak the initial leverage ratio.
Bolt-in weights can also be added, to fine-tune the balance of the bike. These slide into the base of the down tube.
“The last bike was built with more of a focus on pedalling,” says Ireland. “We need to make sure it pedals well, but it’s more important that it’s balanced.” Geometry is similar to the previous Summum, although the team are taking advantage of the extra adjustability to run the BB higher, at 350mm, compared to 340mm.
Bernard Kerr’s Pivot Phoenix prototype
Another bike first spotted at Lenzerheide, we now have some more details on Bernard Kerr's Pivot – which was given a special World Championship paintjob to match the classic yellow Ferrari Testarossa he’s recently purchased.
Apparently, the bike handles a lot better than the car.
While its lugged carbon construction has seen inevitable comparison with the Atherton Racing bikes, Kerr is at pains to point out this is only so he can try out different tube lengths and thicknesses during testing, and that production bikes will be built using carbon fibre moulds.
Also, the carbon tubes are created in-house and the lugs are painstakingly machined – a process that took 90 hours for this bike, contributing to its high cost (tens of thousands of pounds, according to Kerr) – rather than 3D printed.
The Atherton comparisons aren’t quietened by the use of a similar DW6 suspension design – although Kerr argues Pivot’s version is more of a “DW5-and-a-half” because it uses flex-stays instead of a rear pivot.
It’s configured very differently, too, with a high main pivot for improved performance over square-edged bumps, an idler wheel to combat pedal kickback and dual chains. Links can be swapped to make the suspension more progressive or more linear.
Asked about the thinking behind the changes to the Phoenix, Kerr says simply: “I want to make a fast bike”. He’s running some special kit, too, including custom pedal pins, a new fork damper (which can’t be bought yet) and a WTB Gravelier saddle, which is aimed at gravel riders, but he likes because of its short back.
Aimi Kenyon’s Santa Cruz V10
Scottish Junior Aimi Kenyon may have narrowly missed out on a medal, finishing fourth behind the all-Kiwi top three, but her V10 stole the show. What could be more fitting for a World Champs in Scotland than an Irn Bru-themed bike?
According to Pinkbike Racing ‘team dad’ Ben Cathro, Kenyon herself came up with idea – partly because of the sugar-laden drink’s connection with her homeland, but also because she likes a can or two.
Fat Creations did the paintwork, which even incorporated the bubbles in the beverage, along with a flaming unicorn – a nod to some previous artwork by Kenyon’s dad, as well as Scotland’s national animal.
The bike itself is a stock size-large Santa Cruz V10, even down to the standard tune on the shock (Kenyon had been running a custom tune, but wanted a firmer setup, having built up speed during the season).
There’s some less common kit bolted on, though, in the form of an ‘upside-down’ Manitou Dorado fork, an EXT Arma shock and some spiky STFU Stay Guard chainstay protection.
Rachel Atherton’s Atherton Downhill.200
Rachel Atherton's DH.200 was one of the sleekest-looking bikes at the Worlds, with its gold decals/details and stealth-black frame. We’ve covered Atherton Bikes’ lugged carbon construction and DW6 suspension design in depth before, so we won’t go into that here.
Atherton rides a standard size-six bike, the most notable addition here being the Ochain Active Spider seen on a lot of riders’ bikes at the Championships. This enables the chain to move a small amount independently of the chainring, to help combat pedal kickback and keep the suspension super-smooth.
Atherton used this for the first time in Lenzerheide and is enthusiastic about its benefits, even if her brother Dan isn’t sold on the idea.
Unfortunately, Atherton dislocated her shoulder in practice – in her words, “I cased a jump and it popped out” – but she managed to roll down the hill in qualification, heavily strapped up by the Red Bull physio, and was determined to ride in the final.
Mike Huter’s Gamux Sego prototype
Gamux Factory Racing’s gearbox-equipped, belt-driven bike was one of the most out-there creations being raced in Fort William. While we were able to take this spy shot of Junior racer Mike Huter’s bike, we weren’t able to get any details from the Swiss brand.
It uses a Pinion gearbox and a Gates belt drive instead of a chain – something only allowed in UCI competition since the start of this year.
The swingarm appears to be CNC-machined from aluminium billet, while the front triangle has a similar look to the old cast-aluminium Empire bikes. Intriguing stuff…
Tahnee Seagrave’s Canyon Sender
Interestingly, while the Canyon CLLCTV and FMD Racing teams opted to use the German brand’s latest KIS steering-stabilising tech at earlier World Cup rounds, they ditched it for Fort William. This was on the basis that it isn’t well-suited to the Fort William track, once renowned as one of the roughest on the circuit.
The teams have access to a version that can be attached or removed, but performance manager Fabien Barel says on production bikes it’ll be built-in, albeit adjustable.
The tartan design on Tahnee’s frame is carried over onto her Fizik saddle – a nice touch.
Jordan Williams’ Specialized Demo
While teammate Loïc Bruni was riding the same shrouded, stealth-black prototype frame first seen in Lenzerheide, young Brit hopeful Jordan was no such shrinking violet with his tartan-inspired red and blue standard Demo.
Laurie Greenland’s Santa Cruz V10
The Syndicate team all had matching themed bikes – including Jackson Goldstone, missing due to injury. Greg Minnaar’s was South African green and gold, Bristol-based Greenland’s blue and red, and Nina Hoffmann’s the black, red and gold of the German flag.
Attention to detail extended all the way to coloured spoke nipples. Head coach Steve Peat was on hand to spur the riders on, along with his wife Adele and two sons, plus Santa Cruz founder Rob Roskopp and former team manager Kathy Sessler.
