Sam Pilgrim and Sam Reynolds in SA, a jump contest and an interview

Cape Town had the pleasure of welcoming Sam Pilgrim, former winner of the Freeride Mountain Bike World Tour, and dirt jumping aficionado, Sam Reynolds recently to compete in The Night Harvest. Monster Energy Drinks put a good hand into doing that and Andrew from Dial’d organised a bit of an interview for us with Pilgrim too. Monster also put together a bit of a video of their trip.

Unfortunately, those of you who managed to head over to The Night Harvest would have found out that Sam Pilgrim became sick the night before and could not compete. This more or less laid the ground for Sam Reynolds to clean up, and that he did. Check out a few cool images from Eric Palmer and Monster Energy Drinks of the event below. Then there’s a quick little interview with Sam Pilgrim on his time in SA and then a sweet little edit showcasing exactly what he got up to.

Image credits: Eric Palmer // AFREAKIN PHOTOGRAPHY

The Wednesday after, though, we had a chance to meet up with The Monster guys and the Sam’s and watch a quick DJ session in Soetvlei, near Constantia. It was interesting watching hows the guys struggled with the Cape winds and the fact that they just spent 4 hours surfing. As you can see in the images, Pilgrim has a pretty sharp looking sun burn.

That burn’s looking well defined

I managed to get a few questions in with Pilgrim during this session.

You didn’t compete but you road the Night Harvest track, how did you find it?

“Ya, it’s a well good track. It’s so good. The guys that build it know exactly what they’re doing. It was proper awesome, I liked it.”

How does it compare to other tracks?

“Well they were all real sort of trails with hips and berms and things, so it was actually as good as anywhere I’ve been. And the big trick jump was a good size as well, you know, like fairly similar to contest size jumps, so i was really cool.”

Nice ride. Any guesses what brake he’s using? And a rad little hydraulic gyro set into the frame and headset.

So what happened to you the night before The Night Harvest?

“Oh I was sick from being sunburnt again. I think I was anyway. So I woke up that morning being sick and stuff, and was sick throughout the day and had to sleep.”

What have you done around Cape Town during your trip, have you ridden any trails?

“We got here, like, 12 days ago or something, and we cruised around and looked at Cape Point and all that stuff, like did sight-seeing things. We went shark diving. That was ok. It wasn’t that dangerous, though so it wasn’t that cool. Then we went surfing a few times, and the first time we went there was a shark alarm and we had to get out the water and stuff. And that was pretty cool. We went to ‘Surfer’s Corner’ first and today we went to Kommetjie today. Then we rode obviously the Potato Trails, Neethling’s jumps, then we road some downhill with Neethling and Fairclough and that. But actually, I didn’t really, cause my shock had, like, blown up or something, so I didn’t actually ride it full, but I did ride about half. And, ya , then just some cool random stuff really.”

Gold on gold on black NS. Simple and slick.

What do you think of South African girls?

“Ya, the girls seem pretty hot actually. I just thought it was going to be like super different and weird here, and actually it’s been cool. One of the best places I’ve been.”

What is the one trick that gives you the most satisfaction doing?

“Umm, I think the 360-tailwhip is the best trick. I’ve always said that for ages, so, I’ll just stick with it.”

Image credit: Eric Palmer // AFREAKIN PHOTOGRAPHY

What’s your most memorable accomplishment, that you always think back on as being awesome?

“I would say the World Tour thing, winning that, but that was only last year, so, that was kinda cool. But I think I liked District Ride, when I won that. That was really awesome. And it was supposed to be the last ever one, you know, when I won it, but they’re actually going to do it this year now anyway. But, still, that was cool.”

Favourite place to ride?

“California. We’re going there in two weeks.”

Here’s a recently released edit of Sam Pilgrim and Sam Reynold’s trip to our sunny shores, looks like they had a blast.