In the world of mountain biking you’ll struggle to find a bigger name than Sam Hill. It may be a few years since he’s won a World Championship title but for a few years there he dominated the sport of downhill like no other, winning World Cups by 10 or 15 seconds when there’s normally fractions of a second separating the top contenders.
After winning two World Cup events in 2014, Sam’s prime focus remains on downhill but he also has plans to compete in some gravity enduro events this year. “We’re doing four Enduro World Series events; the first two and the last two. They look like fun events and it’ll help with fitness for downhill as well as getting some extra coverage for the team.”
Sam also kicked off the year by doing a few National Series XC races. “It’s not often that Western Australia gets a national round, so I wanted to go and support it. Besides, it grows old doing the same thing over and over, so it’s always good to mix things up. I’m certainly keen to give enduro a good crack at the races that I do.”
Sam runs a relatively stock 160mm travel Nukeproof Mega AM. With plans to compete in some EWS events he may pick up on a few bike setup tricks along the way but he openly admits being pretty new to this side of the sport. “The stock bike just works and it’s all I know at this point.” As pictured Sam’s bike weighed in at 14.3kg — a good kilo or so more than the bikes ridden by enduro specialists like Graves and Clementz.
RIDER BIO
Age 29
Born Perth, Australia
Height 175cm
Weight 75kg
Main Sponsors CRC Nukeproof, Mavic, Monster
Career Highlights
- 1st 2014 Mont St Anne World Cup DH (Canada)
- 1st 2014 Meribel World Cup DH (France)
- 2006, 2007 and 2010 World Downhill Champion
- 2002 Junior Downhill World Champion
With an alloy frame and a simple single pivot suspension system, this bike shows that you don’t need the latest in high-tech plastic wizardry to create a competitive MTB.
Flat pedals win medals in downhill and Sam sees no reason to change for gravity enduro racing. There was certainly lots of pedalling at Mt Buller and he placed fifth, so I doubt his pedal choice was an issue.
Nukeproof branded parts feature throughout with 750mm wide alloy bars and a 50mm stem. The Reverb dropper remote resides underneath the bars on the left hand side; the best place to put it if you’re running a 1X drivetrain.
You’d expect somebody like Sam to be gifted with all of the best gear but his bike was running an X1 derailleur from SRAM’s more affordable 1X11 groupset.
