Chris Akrigg Joins GT Bicycles
PRESS RELEASE: GT Bicycles
GT Bicycles is proud to welcome mountain bike (and all-around cycling) legend Chris Akrigg to the family for 2020.
Since first popping onto the scene many years ago, Chris Akrigg has always had an amazing talent for riding bikes. Hailing from Yorkshire, England, Chris began his career as a trials athlete becoming a six-time British Trials Champion and winner of several Red Bull contests including the Red Bull Bike Battle, Red Bull Cobble Wobble, and the Red Bull Mini Drome in London.
However, Chris is probably most famous for sharing his bike-handling skills with the globe through insane self-produced video edits like A Hill in Spain and As It Lies. His unique style and ability to ride any terrain on all kinds of sketchy setups on a wide variety of bikes, has created a huge fanbase throughout the bike community.
When opting for the right rig to ride across one of his haphazard DIY setups for an edit, Chris says that he loves to mix things up and challenge himself. “The inspiration to how I pick my bike normally comes from just finding a cool location,” he said. “That’s my favorite part of riding – working out how to ride in a new place, and finding lines where there aren’t really any...As for bike choice, I feel it sort of goes through a cycle, I try not to ride one bike too much, but my favorites are trials and enduro bikes.”
After being asked about what he has up his sleeve for 2020, Chris mentioned that he a few plans, “but you’ll have to wait and see! I have a new fleet of bikes and my motivation and inspiration are high, and I can’t wait to get stuck into my first project under the GT banner.”
The team at GT is looking forward to seeing how Chris will continue to amaze audiences around the globe with his off-the-wall stunts in the next year.
To learn more about GT visit www.gtbicycles.com. Follow Chris Akrigg on Instagram.
Photos by: James Welsh
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- Was title sponsor of the BDS - British Cyclings National Downhill Series.
-Current title sponsor of the Malverns Classic Festival.
Other brands take note!
The search was very short when I noticed that their trail hardtail (Avalanche) still comes with QR axles rather than bolt thru! On a £1000 bike!
Akrigg has already proven that with enough skill you can ride a walmart bike better than anyone riding a $10k plastic super bike from 'insert popular brand here'.
HOWEVER...this is what has allowed me to purchase and ride AWESOME Mongoose and GT bikes over the years for cheap. I try not to care what random people think of me. In fact, I like being the guy out on the trails that looks like I'm on a Walmart bike. If I get passed later I have a good excuse and if I pass other people riding their carbon 10k bikes I look even more like a badass!
All the better for Akrigg though, with a brand like GT. He is pretty fkng RAD
The recent signing of Brage and now Akrigg has definitely made him feel like he's in good company.
The whole I Drive thing probably didn’t help, they stuck with it for longer than they probably should of which I think turned a lot of people off the brand. I used to lust after an LTS DH growing up and Zaskar, they really should do a modern geom tack on the latter in anno purple or ball burnished colors, they would sell to the old school heads
They were/are good bikes to work on (especially compared to Nakamura/Diadora bikes) but I feel they haven't developed as quickly as other brands when adapting to the new trends. As for brand recognition, I don't think it was beneficial for them to be only sold at Sport Chek as most people shopping there are not going to buy multi thousand dollar bikes and if they won't buy them at Sport Chek (could be any brand) the buyers won't bring them in and then people don't see GTs higher end offerings.
My local bike shop demos them and the employees there all end up buying Rocky Mountain instead.
Ace!
Last year he was on the mix of i9 and Sram gears/brakes. He hasn't been on PRO/Shimano for a year at least.