A bird's eye view at the aftermath and warm up to the 2010 life of the world's #1 Downhill Mountain Bike racer - Sam Hill.
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The Entree is a new short film project coming out of the Monster Energy camp documenting Sam Hill's season. Racing in Australia, Canada, the U.S, and all over Europe, Sam once again laid claim to the top spot on the World Cup circuit. Brendan Fairclough will also be present in much of the feature, and he's not too shabby himself, as any moving or frozen images of his riding can attest.
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This past season, Sam compiled an impressive list of finishes at every stop on the World Cup, starting with a fourth in South Africa aboard a new ride and on a course that was much better suited to the likes of Greg Minaar and Steve Peat.
Sam storms the finish line in Pietermaritzburg, en route to fourth place. Photo by Gary Perkin.
The La Bresse stop of the circuit proved to be to the tastes of both riders as Sam rode brilliantly to a second place finish and Brendan posted his top result of the season in fourth. Andorra is where things began to get really interesting for the team. On the top half of the track Sam was smoking the field, 1.6 seconds up, but had a spectacular dismount on a scrub gone wrong which placed him out of the running in the 6th smallest nation in Europe.
Sam literally rode too fast on the Andorra track, here he is enjoying it while it lasts.
Next up was Fort William, a track which Sam is notoriously fast on, and he did not disappoint this season, pulling a second place finish behind South African Greg Minaar. A secondary storyline from Fort William was Sam's new suit, which was later auctioned off with the profits going to Breast Cancer research.
The suit that will live in infamy. Photo by Victor Lucas.
Heading into Maribor both Sam and Brendan were in the top 10 overall, with Sam in 5th and Brendan in 8th. Some ground had to made up over the second leg of the series, and Sam happily obliged taking second in Maribor and topping the podium for the first time in 2009 at Mont Sainte Anne. This placed Sam a mere four points ahead of Steve Peat for the overall lead, with two technical stops left in Bromont and Schladming.
Sam flies into victory at Mont Sainte Anne, photo by Victor Lucas.
Bromont brought drama back in a big way as Minaar took the win with Sam in 3rd; this left Sam a mere 16 points ahead in the overall heading into the final race. A brief and amazing interlude in the form of the World Championships provided a small breather from World Cup madness. Sam came fifth on the pedally Canberra track, but let's not kid ourselves the true story of World Champs was Steve Peat's dominance. The old boy shook a monstrous gorilla off his shoulders and took top spot for the first time in his illustrious career. Congrats on that one Peaty!
The World Cup finals then rolled around and everyone made the journey of an A and an L from Australia to Austria. With nothing but four minutes of insanity between him and World Cup supremacy, Sam turned on the jets and won decisively in Schladming, two and a half seconds above last year's winner Sam Blenkinsop. This locked down the overall for Hill and this is why The Entree will be worth watching for any rider, downhiller or otherwise.
Black Phoenix Films has teamed up with the Monster Energy Specialized team riders for this one, which should produce some amazing footage, especially from the insider's perspective the filmers have been granted. Looking forward to it...how about you?
