DH Bike Review: Atherton AM.200M.1 - Pinkbike.com

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Anticipation built around the first ride on the AM.200M.1 after seeing them in action on the downhill World Cup circuit. Not to discredit the Atherton team riders' skills, but the AM.200M.1 displayed a magical way of sticking to the ground over bumps and not disrupting the riders' balance.

Out of the gate, the suspension lived up to the hype - holy moly was it active, but not in a disconcerting, overly-progressive manner. This DW6 system is incredible. It just performed perfectly, over any terrain, and at any time, whether you're on the brakes or not.

Seeing the team riders use the OChain active spider to isolate chain forces doesn't come as a surprise because I'd wager that they are looking for every possible solution to forget about the impacts their bike is taking, but the DW6 suspension frees up the chain tension massively. The best way to describe it is like a chain-less Horst-link design.

At the beginning of the travel, it's sensitive without plummeting deep past the sag mark. The progression is predictable and seems to come on early, instead of ramping too late and hard. The bike stays high in the travel to offer support to push against and generate speed too. Churning over the crankarms also produces instant speed. It's certainly not sluggish to sprint away on or cumbersome to pump through rollers either.

When you do get on the binders, the geometry doesn't falter by pitching forward from the braking forces and becoming steeper, like some Horst-link bikes can be guilty of. As a rider who stands tall on the bike and is more prone to those effects due to an upright position on the bike, I appreciate the settled, and active braking characteristics.

This isn't a frame that will rattle you to death as you hold on through miles of braking bumps either. Maybe there's something to those round tubes that reduces the vibrations. I thought some of that could come from the alloy wheels, so I chucked on a set of Reserve DH wheels to compare. Those added a fair bit of stiffness through the corners but I never felt any harsh feedback through the frame itself.

All of the cables that feed into the internal guides remained nearly rattle free, with the one exception of the brake hose along the chainstay. I noticed Rachel's bike had an extra piece of rubber tape here and along the drive-side, adding another level of damping to the frame. A zip tie took care of the little noise that the brake hose produced, and despite the chainstay protector looking on the thin side, I never noticed any noises from the chain slapping around.

As much as I loved how the suspension was taking care of business behind me, I thought the geometry could stretch out further. Entering steep corners wasn't so much of an issue, since the bike was plenty maneuverable, but when it came to blown out, high speed berms, I had the feeling that the front wheel wanted to tuck in and was less predictable than the longer, slacker bikes I'd been accustomed too.

I mentioned earlier on how I experimented with the fork pressure, bar height, and even backed off the rear shock's low-speed compression to help the bike tip back and relax. I bet I'd gain more confidence with the front axle further away from my feet, whether that would be from a longer reach, slacker head angle, or possibly both, is another question.

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