I bought another trail bike. The Scratch was a great bike but as even Trek knew, it was a compromise. They killed it after only 2 years to replace it with a 160mm 'Enduro' bike. This years craze.

The Trek could do anything but burly trails were its forte. Your average trail held no challenges for it and hauling round a 2 hour XC loop was pretty dull. So I gave in and decided you need a trail bike and a downhill bike. I've tried all the compromises now and riding seems to be bike parks and tracks or trails. There is little middle ground.

I saw the Factory Jackson review of the Pitch Pro and it sounded great, a trail bike for downhillers. Of course they dropped it for 2012 so I had to hunt about to find one as all the mediums had been sold. A strange decision just as Commencal and others have discovered this idea.

I'm no fan of Specialized and it did pain me to buy another one but the sweet paint job and pinstriping and amazing price sold it. The spec is about right for the price range and if you compare it to say an Orange Five it seems under priced. Money has been saved on components, the X5 shifters are cheap, the Avid Elixir brakes are wooden, Specialized own bars, stem, seat, post, hubs and tyres. The Rockshox Sektor forks seem pretty good though, very stiff and the Fox RP2 is great if a little leaky, but not a RP23. It's got the little touches like matching stickers on the wheels and green seatclamp and grip locks.

You get what you pay for and I wanted a cheap trail bike so I could afford a good downhill/freeride bike.

You could dive straight in and upgrade parts but I didn't really want to get into that off the bat. The only thing I needed to change was the stem. The specialized item is a short 60mm but I found the top tube pretty long so swapped to a 45mm Raceface Respond one and shifted the seat forward as far as it would go. The bars are 730mm wide and obviously aimed at the gravity crowd. Not much to do on the forks or shock, setup up the rebound and air and away you go.

The back brake siezed after a couple of rides and I bled some fluid out of it. Bit odd but not a problem. Why you need a 203mm rotor on the front I don't know especially as the brakes are pretty average. The tyres will be changed after the winter as will the white grips, which went brown almost immediately. Unless something breaks I don't see anything else in need of replacement.

A spot of autumn alpine testing revealed the tyres are less than great and the fork is a little basic feeling, but this is compared to £800 top of the line Fox Floats so no surprise. I was hoping a couple of decent downhills would bed the brakes in but they still feel wooden, with little modulation. Perhaps different pads might help.

The bike feels pretty lively on the rocks of Chamonix, twitchy in fact, but a decent set of tyres will help that.

If I wasn't buying a big bike I would be tempted to, pardon the pun, fork out on some better suspension and brakes but I think these will do just fine until they need changing.