Rachel Atherton has been instrumental in the development of women’s mountain biking. And she has made no secret of her ambition to influence as many other women as she can to take up the sport.

Rachel’s dedication for the sport will continue in 2015 as she has pledged her support for young riders coming up the ranks by sponsoring the Junior Women’s category at the British Downhill Series.

The sponsorship will see Rachel’s sponsors provide prizes for the winning riders across the series. The reason behind this is due to the fact that Rachel believes lack of adequate equipment is a huge barrier for entry for a lot of young girls trying to progress in the sport. So the prizes will be very practical offering those coming up the ranks with mud tyres, brakes and clothing.

Speaking about the sponsorship Rachel said the following: “I’m stoked to be working with the British Downhill Series because it’s at the heart of what makes UK mountain biking so awesome. We all came up through the ranks of the BDS but when I started racing there were no young girls racing.

“I’m going to sponsor a new Junior Women’s category which this year will cover Junior, Youth and Juvenile Women at the British Downhill Series, the aim is to explode the number of entrants in this category so that that next year Si Paton will have to run three separate races, like in the Junior Mens! I remember so clearly racing on my own as a Junior and comparing my times to Elite Women and how I couldn’t wait to race Elite so I’d have some real racing. I’m determined that this generation of girl riders will have stiff competition from the get go”