AN INVENTOR and entrepreneur has described his singleminded ambition to build ‘the best downhill mountain bike in the world’.

Chris Williams, 33, left a job designing cars and motorcycles five years ago to pursue his dream. Now his bikes are being raced in the World Cup by elite riders.

Chris’s Empire Cycles in Chorley recently showed off his AP-1 model at a Inventors’ Exhibition at Darwen’s Aldridge Academy alongside other innovative businesses.

His downhill bike is cast from just three parts and comes from his love of the sport. He said: “The AP-1 is the result of sweat, scuffed knuckles, endless late nights in the lab and many a long weekend pounding the trails, pushing the frame to its absolute limits.

“I’ve previously done design work for Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, Ford and CCM Motoribikes in Blackburn but I left the industry to do this. I was frustrated with the design constraints of existing bikes, the way they are welded tubes. My cycle has just the three cast aluminium parts, which bolt together.”

Chris, from Heapey, has now sold more than 100 bikes which are now used by junior rider Lewis Buchanan and Swede Oscar Harnstrom, who is currently over in South Africa competing in World Cup races. They retail at around £5,000 from specialist dealers.

The bike has also received acclaim from the mountain biking trade press and this year Chris plans to launch a general purpose mountain bike, the MX-6, which can be used for all terrain riding.

He said that as a one-man business, seeing his bike used at the top of the sport gives him great pride, adding: “I’m pleased with how the bike looks and performs but it has been an extreme amount of work to get there."