20 YEARS AT THE TOP
THR GHOUT THE HIS OR OF SEEN NUMER WINNER CLINCHING THA EL SIVE FIR SPOR LEVEL BE OND Riders whose skill, self-belief and outright domination have left even the best in the world scratching their heads and scrabbling to catch up. Sam Hill is one of those few. In a career that’s spanned two decades, the 34-year-old from Perth, Australia, has won every title going in both downhill and enduro, and by no small degree either – winning by huge margins, taming terrible track conditions and leaving onlookers wondering just how he managed it. Moreover, Sam has done it in a style that almost everyone seems to want to emulate.
With none of the skinsuits or speed tucks of past generations, Sam blasted onto the scene, foot out, jersey flapping, drifting insides and sticking lines no one else had even seen. And riding flat pedals, always on flat pedals. They’re the first thing you think of when someone mentions Sam’s name – that, and nearly always winning. How he makes flats work for him on 20-minute enduro stages is something we’ll never fully understand, but he does, and that’s what makes him one of the best and fully deserving of that overused term ‘game changer’.
I’m a believer
Coming off the back of his third Enduro World Series (EWS) title in 2019, and with the
