If you are looking for the usual facts and figures, should I buy one type of review then I suggest reading the piece I did for Factory Jackson. It covers all the usual requirements.

The Trek Scratch is a great freeride bike. I didn't really want one though. I wanted a downhill bike and a trail bike but have no where to put 2 bikes, no way to carry 2 bikes and no budget for 2 (good) bikes.

So 2 bikes were out and I needed a bike to do bike parks and trail. I already owned a Bullit and a SX Trail, too very similar bikes to the Trek so had to look at this type of bike again. I wanted a Morewood Kalula but it was way expensive and won't take a front mech. I have to climb.

Bingo, hello Trek.

It's a great bike. If you want problems then I don't like the DHX rear shock, had one on the SX Trail and didn't like it there either. It's better on the Trek but it's not very compliant and changing the spring is made difficult by the fact it's doesn't slip over the fittings and you need a special tool to remove them.

That's about all that's wrong.

It climbs well for a short top tubed, 170mm of travel freeride bike. It descends better than me. Could be a bit slacker at the front for downhill but then it wouldn't climb as well. The Bontrager components are better than you think.

So what's up then?

You don't see many about. Park it up and just about nobody looks at it. It's isn't something to get excited about. Riding it is great, owning it is a bit dull. Not sure if this is because it's a big brand or the paintwork or what. I think the SX Trail suffers a bit from the same thing, they made it look a bit weird with the bendy tubes just to make it less dull to look at perhaps.

The main problem is compromise. It's a bike which does a fair bit of it. I guess that's why I bought it, I had to compromise, so I got a bike that does the same.

So if you can only have one bike for everything this would have been a good choice, unfortunately Trek dropped it. So did I. No more compromise

I'd like to thank Michael Browne at Trek for his after sales assistance