Chris Akrigg will ride for GT Bicycles in 2020

After much deliberating and online speculation after he left Mongoose at the end of last year, Chris Akrigg has confirmed that for 2020, he will ride for GT Bicycles.

Many people will be familiar with the fluid style of the Yorkshire rider through the many videos he’s released on his YouTube Channel. It seemed that, whatever bike Mongoose released, he found an excuse to ride them in a video.

Chris will now take that enthusiasm for riding bikes – all bikes – to his new sponsors, GT Bicycles. He’ll have a wide palette of bikes to choose from there – starting with the GT Force seen here, then there’s the Amp e-bike, the LaBomba jump bike and even the Grade cyclocross bike.

If you want a little more detail, we managed to sneak a full interview in with Chris Akrigg for the next issue of Singletrack Magazine, out on February 6th. We get to learn why he thinks people think his riding is easy – and why he “doesn’t do tricks”.

“It’s like tricks. I don’t get excited by riding tricks. I used to ride a lot of BMX. When I watch my old videos – doing tailwhips and barspins to manuals… I used to be able to do it all, but I don’t do it any more. I just don’t enjoy it. Tricks don’t do anything for me. They don’t make me feel like when I do a big step, or some horrible line in the woods with some rooty, horrible shit.”

He’s already made a new video to mark the occasion:

And don’t forget to check out the magazine interview when it lands.

And, if you have a spare 40 enjoyable minutes, here’s the story so far… From his early days up to just before his new ride for GT.

Here’s the official press release:

Wilton, Conn. – February 3, 2020 – GT Bicycles, a brand of Dorel Industries, Inc. (TSX: DII.B, DII.A), 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 trial 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.