Posts
76
Joined
8/6/2017
Location
Dunbar, GB
Edited Date/Time
10/17/2026 3:39am
How good is it to hear him on needles podcast?!
His wifes Instagram this morning she was chirping a couple brands for bailing on him and them scrambling after the podcast came out so that was a fun juicy morning haha.
I did always think it was wild that he didn't have brand support from some companies. The fact that he isnt on 510 or SRAM is wild. You think how many iconic images are him with impacts on and a blackbox boxxer
yeah he is Mr Flat Pedals, at least from a racing rather than free ride/trick perspective, there's nobody else you'd want more as a brand ambassador surely?
I think it's fair to say the revealed preference is "negative" but I'm not in any position to speculate why.
Yeah he's an icon, but he basically doesn't ride MTB anymore. All he wants to do is ride moto with his kids and maybe show up to 1 or 2 MTB events per year and not even participate then. Why would any athlete manager at a brand want to throw money at that in this economy? Five Ten in particular was gobbled up by Adidas who just wants to push Samba wannabes on everyone, without actually knowing what makes a good flat pedal shoe.
He says in the interview that he disappeared for a few years because he felt stung by the industry. He's back riding now and seems to be enjoying himself.
So which brands shall we avoid? Adidas and sram?
5.10 was acquired by adidas in 2011. With plenty of the core MTB related staff staying on. So you are cooked on that point.
Whether Sam is a good investment for brands is definitely debatable, even when racing at his peak, he didn't actually ride that much. There's always two sides or more to any story, but Sam is a true icon. And his DH to Enduro transition (with huge succes) is so, so underrated.
Maybe so about 5.10 keeping core MTB people around, but I don’t think there’s any debating that their quality went to shit.
Sam Hill’s wife is one of my favorite characters in the MTB universe.
They could have at least had the basic respect to respond to him.....Sam was most pissed about the fact he was completely ignored. Maybe we won't know which brands exactly they were, but I fully believe five ten wouldn't have the mtb market they do without Sam Hill - I'm not sure people these days realise how massive his influence was in making huge numbers of people change to flat pedals 20 years ago....
He doesn't ride MTB? Hardline Tasmania ?
Id more point out that his trail building company is really gaining steam, quite a few new builds in WA so far (small market) but from a brand promotion perspective, he is on the tools building trails
He got half the DH world, including a lot of WC athletes, to try out flats for 2-5 years until we all collectively realized we weren't Sam Hill. Bryn, Gwin, Blenki, Wyn, Leov, and more all raced in flats during that era. Every few years I put on flats again for a few months and feel like I'm sickest at cornering until I realize I'm still very much not Sam Hill and I'm scared and actually going slower through all the rough bits.
The Sam Hill Impacts were discontinued around the same sort of time that he (temporarily) left the scene, so that would potentially add up. Not sure who the other brand would be
SRAM at a guess
I know we normally say its the youngsters that got screwed by the pandemic
But having won the 17, 18 and 19 EWS overalls to then have an abrupt halt to his international racing because of the strict travel restrictions of Australia which would have been the 20 and 21 seasons gone for him.
Unlike the younger riders who I guess just sucked up the travel pain once and based themselves in europe, he I guess quite rightly didn't want to abandon his family for that length of time.
Sam's win at 2018 EWS Manizales Columbia in apocalyptic muddy conditions is one of his most underrated performances. He beat 2nd place by 47sec with a total race time of only 18min. No idea how you don't at least pick up the phone and send some product to the guy.
Kid can ride a bike. No doubt about that.
Sam Hill Columbia inside line
Sam Hill was owed £34,265, approximately A$65,000 at the time, when Wiggle Chain Reaction entered administration in October 2023.
The amount appeared in creditor documents released in January 2024.
The debt was believed to relate to licensing royalties from his Nukeproof signature product range, rather than his racing salary. However, this was never publicly confirmed.
Hill had been sponsored by Nukeproof since 2013 and was negotiating a new contract for 2024 when the company collapsed.
He subsequently revealed that he was effectively made redundant without warning, ending an 11-year relationship with the brand.
Sam Hill was arguably collateral damage from the post-COVID cycling industry bust. The pandemic boom encouraged expansion and increased stock commitments, but when demand fell, the resulting financial pressure contributed to the collapse of Wiggle Chain Reaction and Nukeproof. Hill lost an 11-year sponsorship relationship at a time when other cycling brands were also under financial pressure and less willing to commit sponsorship budgets. His situation says more about the state of the cycling industry than his value as an athlete.
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