[Words by Steve Thomas photography by Atherton Racing]

The Atherton family is Britain’s most famous downhill racing dynasty and they have, in recent times, turned their racing success into something of a growing all-round mountain biking business.

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Dan, Rachel and Gee are the three stars bearing the Atherton family name, and yet, as with all success stories – there is often a wise guiding force behind the show. In the Atherton’s case, this lead directorial role has long since fallen to Dan Brown, a 43-year-old former downhill racer and Shropshire bike shop manager who has steered the Atherton Express for almost 20 years, through rough and smooth and from hope to glory. This is his story.

Where are you from and how did you get into mountain biking?

Shrewsbury has a good heritage for mountain biking as a whole. There was a good solid cycling club (Mid Shropshire Wheelers), that founded some of the early MTB events in the UK. Cycling clubs have taken a bit of a back seat now but that was my road into mountain biking. And some of the original UK mountain bikers were, and still are part of that club. It was a good solid grounding.

How did you get into the business side of cycling?

Dave Mellor Cycles (Shrewsbury) was where I went to dream and look at bikes and then I did a work experience there and later joined them after finishing college – basically a part-time sales and ordering job. 

That developed into a managerial role while Dave was still working there. When he took a full-time job with British Cycling, he gave me the opportunity to run the shop on a profit-share basis. This was a huge opportunity for someone in their early 20s (very early 2000s). 

It was a big responsibility and I grabbed it and ran with it for four to five years, which was a really good insight into the broader business of cycling retail. Handling the ordering for what at the time was about a £1.5 million turnover business, and which is probably a lot more than that now – it was a big shop for the area.

How did the Atherton connection come around?

I was racing downhill during my time at the shop. We had the opportunity to support some pro-elite local riders who then made it to the World Champs, and we also had a couple of promising juniors and myself on the shop team. We were able to come up with support from Giant on bikes and Fox on clothing and so I got a taste for team management on a shop level.

With racing, I was just on the cusp of making it to World Cups with getting enough UCI points to do it but I missed it and got a bit disillusioned with the UK scene. I wanted to be racing at World Cup level but didn’t make it.

I went off on a bit of a different path, got into surfing and really enjoyed it. I then went off travelling and took a bit of a break: about 12-18 months, with Cornwall in the summer, Morocco, Indonesia and Australia in the winters, which was great. 

When I came back, I was looking for an opportunity and luckily the Athertons were looking for a road manager to organise them. Gee and Rachel had just won their first World Cups, and it got to a point where they couldn’t manage their travel and logistics alone. Neil Donoghue (GMBN presenter and Shropshire-based friend) introduced me and that’s how it started, as a travel organiser/road manager (around 2005).

After a year I was looking at their agent doing the sponsorship deals and thinking I could do it better, and so I suggested it to them. The guys were keen to give it a try and that’s when I started picking up the sponsorship. It started in 2006 with Animal/Giant, and in 2007 Animal/Commencal, which is when it all really kicked off, and that was the first sponsorship I brought in.

What is your job description today?

My day-to-day role is as CEO of Atherton Bikes, where I have the responsibility of delivering the Atherton Bikes vision and handling the day-to-day running of the business, all supported by the board. The board comprises the Athertons, Ben Farmer who is the CTO and is a very clever materials scientist and Piers Linney the Chairman.

Beyond that, I’m still one of the directors of the race team and I manage the commercial elements of that. I’m also a director of DYFI Bike Park, and kind of co-owner Esgair Forest (where the park is located), 650 acres of beautiful Welsh hillside. 

How involved and hands-on are the Atherton family in everything?

Dan is hugely hands-on with the bike park and handles the day-to-day running of the business. He has two great managers in position, but he drives the vision on that side.

Gee is flying the flag for us globally, getting out to events and making awesome content and doing projects that scare us all. Rachel and all three are very involved in product development and they’ve done that for years, which is such an asset for us. 

They know product and content and are very passionate about the Atherton name and their brand, so they want to be involved in the broader brand direction, and it’s working well.

They don’t have day-to-day roles (apart from Dan), but they’re very much involved in the key decisions and the finer points on the product.

Red Bull Hardline - are you personally involved?

Hardline is a Red Bull entity. There’s an understanding between Red Bull and us – there wouldn’t be a Hardline without the Atherton's involvement. For me, I’ve stepped away from that one but stay in touch a bit. Dan is driving a lot of the technical course decisions and Gee gets involved to ensure that the riders are happy and that the essence of Hardline remains.

We’ve spent 10 years building that event up in Wales and need to keep it on the right path as it potentially expands; Tasmania, and who knows where next.

Having taken the whole team to where it is today as an all-round MTB brand, what have been the biggest learnings and issues from your side?

The problems just change as the company develops. The biggest issues? I don’t want to blame or lean on COVID-19, but, we basically had two start-up companies that launched in 2019 (the bikes and bike park), and then COVID hit in 2020, so we’ve not had an easy run of it by any means. 

We weren’t ready to capitalise on the buzz and sales through the pandemic and now we’re trying to expand and develop in a time when the market is challenged by the hangover from COVID and so lots of the challenges we’ve faced have been a little bit out of our control.

That has probably been the biggest learning of all; you can adjust strategy and business models as much as you want but you can’t control the bigger picture, and that was frustrating in some ways. I think the business has not developed as much as it could of because of what we’ve been through, but ultimately, I think it will make us stronger. 

I guess it’s the same as with racing – you can put in your best performance on the day, but you can’t control what somebody else is going to do, similar issues just on different scales.

Over time, how have you taken things with the team beyond it primarily being about the Atherton family racing to a full-on team?

We’ve always invested in new talent on the race team. We brought in the Atherton Academy and developed riders through that from a young age, which was always something we wanted to continue beyond the Atherton’s racing careers. 

We brought on riders such as Martin Maes, Kade Edwards, Taylor Vernon and so it’s nothing new when we need to look at new talent and have a succession.

In terms of Charlie (Hatton) and Andi (Kolb) it’s about giving them the tools they need, and it’s no different from the strategy of when Gee and Rach were performing well, it’s about them as individuals. What Gee and Rach needed was different and what Charlie and Andi need is different. The pit atmosphere between what we had with Gee and Rach was a bit more performance-based, whereas Charlie and Andi perform best when they’re most relaxed. They get on super well as friends and so the atmosphere is considerably different but the performances are similar.

It's about tailoring to the individual riders and finding riders that work well together so that the atmosphere and the morale pull in the same direction.

Rachel made a surprise and brief return to racing last year and Gee has been pursuing other projects, what can we expect from them in the future?

Gee is currently off doing a recce for his next project, which is hopefully not going to be too crazy. Rach is still pondering over whether she has more race wins in her or not and who knows which direction she will take... 

Either way, you can be assured that what they do ahead will be no different from the past; ground-breaking and interesting. 

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