{"id":17372,"date":"2016-11-17T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2016\/11\/17\/interview-sam-dale-gt-factory-racing-r5827\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T07:27:17","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T07:27:17","slug":"interview-sam-dale-gt-factory-racing-r5827","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/interview-sam-dale-gt-factory-racing-r5827\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Sam Dale, GT Factory Racing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sam Dale is a professional downhill racer for GT Factory Racing. He has a solid track record, with 19 top 25 spots in the UCI World Cup, including a 5th place at Lourdes in 2015. We caught up with him during the recent GT Bicycles Good Times Tour of South Africa to find out a bit more about his life on the GT team and the ups and downs of competitive racing.<\/p>\n

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What got you into downhill?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nMy grandad was into motorbikes, and that got passed on to my dad, so we did a lot of motorbike trails. My brother and I would go along – watch him ride his motorbike. We\u2019d have our push bikes and follow him down. Then like a typical lazy young lad I didn\u2019t like riding up hill, so downhill it was.\n<\/div>\n

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Which is your favourite World Cup track?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nIt\u2019s got to be Fort William, the track is really good: it’s high speed, got a bit of everything, and the woods section is normally pretty challenging. It has such a good atmosphere and is a beautiful part of the world.\n<\/div>\n

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Downhill can be pretty brutal with a few seconds separating the top riders and sometimes making the difference of qualifying or not. How do you handle those times when things just don\u2019t go according to plan?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nIt\u2019s just bad luck, but it is **** going to a race and not actually racing. But we have a good group of people, a good team, and they keep spirits high, keep it good fun, and although I had a bit of bad luck this year it didn\u2019t affect me too much. I\u2019m still here, happy and having a good time.\n<\/div>\n
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\n\"ccs-58780-0-83736800-1479293202.jpg\"<\/a>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

We hear you have an epic van for your road trip missions. What all do you pack in it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nEverything. I\u2019m in the process of getting a new one, which I\u2019ll kit out myself. I\u2019ll have my motocross bike, trials bike, golf clubs, shovels, saws, and I can pretty much live in that all year.\n<\/div>\n

You’ve been to SA before for the Pietermaritzburg races, but how have you found this trip so far? Have you encountered any dangerous wild life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nNo, luckily I\u2019ve not. We saw a few baboons but they were pretty scared. I\u2019ve kept my eye out because I have heard there are some lethal things kicking about, but it\u2019s been good. I\u2019ve really enjoyed it.\n<\/div>\n

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What’s your go-to bike for a typical ride with mates?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nAt the moment, it is the GT Sanction. I first rode it in the EWS at the end of the season, and since then it\u2019s been out everytime I\u2019ve been riding. I love it: it\u2019s like a little downhill bike that you can pedal to the top on, and where I live, it\u2019s perfect.\n<\/div>\n

For a downhiller you go up hill pretty quick too, do you follow a strict training program in season?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nYes, and a strict drinking one as well- you have to keep hydrated (I\u2019m talking about water). But yes, I just like being outside and riding my bike, and I do get a good program, well more of a routine going: just so I don\u2019t have to think when I get up in the mornings. Get up, have breakfast, rides bikes, go to the pump track, do a bit in the gym, and a bit on the road. I like to keep active, keep healthy. Then it\u2019s just a bit of fine tuning to get good for racing.\n<\/div>\n

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Tell us more about 50:01? What\u2019s it all about and where did the name come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nThe name comes from the ratio in which we mix oil and petrol for our motocross bikes and we\u2019ve also got these little mini-bikes that are also 2-strokes, and we run the same mixture in them. Basically it is a group of friends who enjoy riding bikes and want to share that with everyone and want to encourage people to get out riding, build tracks with people. We do a bit of coaching, just to share everything we\u2019ve learned from older people in the past, and keep us busy and have a load of fun at the same time.\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sam Dale is a professional downhill racer for GT Factory Racing. He has a solid track record, with 19 top 25 spots in the UCI World Cup, including a 5th place at Lourdes in 2015. We caught up with him during the recent GT Bicycles Good Times Tour of South Africa to find out a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39028,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2034,2035,2033,2032],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-17372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-good-times-tour","tag-gt-bikes","tag-gt-factory-racing","tag-sam-dale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17372"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=17372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}