Tweedlove highlights: Atherton S170, Propain e-enduro mtb, Deviate Tilander, Orbea Wild and more

Tweed valley's biggest bike festival brought together a bunch of brands and some very cool bikes.

Suvi Loponen

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Jun 18 2024

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The 2024 TweedLove Festival brought together cycling enthusiasts and industry leaders for a weekend of bikes. Owing to the weather, this year's conditions dished out some character-building riding and racing. We had a wander around the festival expo to spot some cool bikes and catch up with brands – many of whom had hauled whole vans full of bikes for people to demo ride over the weekend. Scroll down to see what Atherton, Propain, Deviate and Orbea had brought with them. We also had a quick stop at Muc-Off and Endura…

Atherton Bikes S170 and A170

Atherton Bikes, hailing from the depths of Wales, has been at the forefront of British bike-making for a few years now and with good results under its belt, the brand has firmly established itself as a bike brand, not just a racing team with bikes that happen to carry the Atherton name.

The newest addition to the brands' range is the S-range of bikes, which the Welsh brand introduced in March. Using CNC (Computer Numerical Control) manufacturing, the S-range is made with aluminium lugs bonded to aluminium tubes while the A-range bikes (the A170 is pictured below) use titanium lugs to bond to carbon tubes. All in all, this has allowed the company to create stronger, lighter frames at a more affordable price point.

"This [the new manufacturing system] means we can use 7075 aluminium which is 50% stronger than weldable alternatives, and with this, we get a competitive weight bracket for the bike while it remains as strong as our other bikes," Will from Atherton Bikes explained.

The S-range features a DW four-bar linkage, simplifying the rear triangle to a single piece. Despite outsourcing the CNC production, the bikes are fully bonded in-house in Wales, ensuring high-quality manufacturing under the company's direct supervision.

Currently, the S-range only includes Atherton's most popular model, the 170. "It's a big bike that pedals well and covers a lot of range," Alex from Atherton noted. There are plans to expand the S-range to reflect the A-one in the future, too.

"Priority for us is always making durable, strong bikes, making something that's as light as it can possibly be. We don't want bikes to break – which is something I know a lot of people are struggling with right now in the industry, a lot of people are buying bikes and warrantying them multiple times in a two-year sort of ownership. That's something we don't see and don't want to see."

Deviate Highlander and Tilander

Deviate was showing off its bikes on home turf, and the Dunblane-based brand had a bunch of fully built demo bikes for folks to take out on (soggy) rides. In its tent, there were also a couple of special frames on show.

The first one is this JM custom-painted Highlander II frame, which has a subtle marble black effect, crushed copper leaf details and some Rover Heritage Atlantic Green accents to finish it off. This one, though it is a limited edition, is available for purchase for the same price as a regular factory finish would be (£2,666). If you're interested in how the Highlander II rides, we've got one of them in for a test... keep your eyes peeled for the full review!

The other frame Deviate had on show was the Tilander prototype – though it is a prototype it's something we have seen kick about for a while now, as it first saw daylight at Eurobike 2023.

In essence, it's a bike that Deviate has crafted to bring manufacturing as local to the UK as possible. Similarly to the Highlander, the Tilander features 145mm of travel and is crafted with 3D-printed titanium lugs and thermoplastic tubing. It also has a very similar geometry to Deviate's Highlander – with slight tweaks – and the weight is close to the current carbon frames, too.

From chatting with the guys from Deviate, it was clear that having the flexibility and ability to build locally is very exciting for them, and the sustainable approach is an added benefit. But when shall we see the Tilander in production? Well, we don't have an answer to that yet.

Propain Ekano CF and Frechdax 3

Propain Bikes, the German brand known for its downhill, enduro, trail and all-mountain bikes has recently dipped its toes into gravel biking, too – but, at Tweedlove, the range included mostly the burlier flat bar bikes. One of those was this bright orange Ekano CF e-enduro bike, equipped with a SRAM Eagle Powertrain drive system with 90Nm torque and 680W top power. The 630Wh battery can be extended with a 250Wh range extender.

The frame is full carbon – though Propain makes this bike in alloy as well – and there are mixed and 29-inch wheel setups available. You get 180mm of front squish paired with 170mm of rear, and in the case of this demo bike that means RockShox ZEB Ultimate fork paired with a RockShox Vivid Ultimate shock. Propain says the weight comes to 22.8kg for the size medium.

Propain didn't leave out the smallest family members at Tweedlove but had a few of its kid's mountain bikes on show, too. This full-sus creation is called Frechdax 3, and it's said to cater for the young ones who are about 110cm tall (or 5-year-old). The bike is rolling on 20-inch wheels, and there's 80mm front travel and 90mm rear travel which will likely please any young shredder. The weight for this one stands at 10.5kg.

Muc-Off's Silky Suspension Serum

The British brand Muc-Off was drawing people in with this eye-catching Yeti that the brand had made for its 25th anniversary. The company turned 30 this year, but as anyone with more than three decades under their belt, they're refusing to perhaps admit that ageing is a thing…

The above bike aside, amongst the array of Muc-Off's cleaning, lubrication and maintenance products was a little Silky Suspension Serum, the second product in the brand’s new ‘Technical Series’, which follows the launch of the Ceramic Protection Kit. According to Muc-Off the serum "significantly" improves suspension performance. How? The surface of anodised stanchions features microscopic holes, which over time become repositories for grime and dirt, which limits efficiency and longevity.

The Silky Suspension Serum seals these gaps and creates an ultra-low friction surface that boosts suspension performance, reduces dirt adhesion, and extends the life of componentry. It's also approved by Fox to be safe on all of its products!

Orbea Oiz and Orbea Wild

You might recall we reviewed the Orbea Oiz recently – it's the Spanish brand's cross-country machine which Matt dubbed as an "incredibly fun and capable bike that can be used for both racing and general trail-riding". This Oiz demo bike Orbea had at Tweedlove is the very same build that Matt tested, but just in a different, light blue and silver colourway.

There were plenty of e-bikes on show and to test out, too, and one of them was this Orbea Wild – pictured with fresh forest sprayed all over it.

The M-Team model comes with 12-speed Shimano XT shifting and brakes, Fox 38 Float Factory fork and Float X2 Factory rear shock. It's rolling on Orbea's wheel brand Orqa wheels, wrapped in Maxxis Minion DHF tyres. At the heart of the bike is the Bosch Gen 4 Performance Line CX motor, which is paired with a 750Wh frame-integrated battery that packs a bunch of juice – though as you can see the many demo rides the bike had done did use up quite a bit of that!

Endura's design-a-jersey competition

Scottish clothing brand Endura was not only presenting some of its existing mountain bike apparel at Tweedlove but also some 483 design ideas for a new jersey design. These drawings were done by the local Tweed Valley pupils who entered the design competition, which was running for the second time.

The designs featured a whole host of themes from Scottish cycling destinations to the love of cycling, creatures on bikes, and well, anything you might imagine. The winning design was announced on Friday evening at Tweedlove, and the winner got an Endura voucher and the design professionally printed onto a jersey.

‘We were so impressed by the amount of quality designs we received this year, there's definitely some creative budding young designers out there! We really struggled to pick our favourites. In the end, the winner was selected for its creative and colourful graphic look, the designer clearly thought outside the box from your usual bike jersey design" Susan Orford, Apparel Designer at Endura, said.