Hill to Specialized and Beaumont to GT

By Callum Jelley, BikeRadar

'Tis the season for rider transfer news, and this week it comes from Sam Hill and Marc Beaumont.

Australian downhill star Hill will join the Specialized team next season as confirmed by BikeRadar at the Interbike tradeshow in Las Vegas.

The Aussie will be riding a Demo to start with but Specialized is planning to develop a new bike with Hill in the not-too-distant future. This marks Specialized's full return to World Cup downhill racing, and with Trek promising to sign new riders to race the Session '88, it promises to be an exciting year for gravity racers.

In addition, Marc Beaumont will ride with GT for 2009. The Steve Peat prodigy and current Team Santa Cruz-Bikeradar rider has always been a prominent force on the World Cup circuit as well as being a brilliant ambassador for the sport. With a new full carbon downhill bike in the prototype stages, GT needed the best to test and develop this machine and get it up to World Cup racing standards; Beaumont was their choice.

On the other hand, GT is losing two of their other top gravity riders: Australian Bryn Atkinson and American Jill Kintner. Their next destinations have yet to be confirmed.