Sam Hill Blog Posts

The Spring 2010 feature film “Follow Me” from Anthill Films takes a look at the on trail experiences that the riders in the film have with each other. All of the riders in ‘Follow Me’ know one another and in many cases they have known on another for quite some time. “Follow Me” takes the relationships of the riders and formats the film around exploring the idea of sharing the ride. More specifically, stoking the ride. Here’s a few random thoughts from a recent shoot with Thomas Vanderham and Sam Hill on the the North Shore.

‘Follow Me’: North Shore Segment, Sam Hill and Thomas Vanderham November 2009

I grew up in West Vancouver and moved to Whistler in 1997. It was a great experience growing up on the North Shore during that time as it gained international attention in the mountain bike world. I helped my youngest brother and his friends build a trail called Roach Hit on Cypress Mountain. It was not one of the first trails on the mountainside but it is known as a classic today. Roach Hit was an effort to combine shore style stunts with sections of downhill racing flow an effort to add speed to the classic North Shore style of trail building. Roach Hit still exists; the sign and the stunts have long been destroyed but the line remains. I watched as Wade Simmons went from being a bike mechanic in Deep Cove, known as one of the best riders on the Shore by reputation alone, to becoming the godfather of free ride mountain biking. I was there for Thomas Vanderham’s first days filming for Cranked 3 on Cypress, on a bike he had purchased off of Andrew Shandro (also a North Shore legend). I’ve been lucky enough to have had a few first hand experiences in the history of the North Shore and now I feel like we’re creating a new piece to the story with Sam and Thomas’ North Shore segment for ‘Follow Me’.

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