Tom heads to BikePark Wales to see if the right bike really can make up the skills gap between him and multi-discipline pro rider Hattie Harnden
How many times have you been watching racing with your mates, commented on how fast or slow a pro is looking, and they’ve come back to you with a jokey, “they could beat you on any bike!”?
I’ve had plenty of those exchanges, so I’ve decided to put it to the test.
Can I, a bona-fide punter (and one of BikeRadar’s senior technical editors), go faster than a pro?
To test this out, I need a pro, of course. Fortunately, Trek Factory Racing’s Hattie Harnden is well up for the challenge.
With numerous national titles, from cyclocross to cross-country, as well as Enduro World Series and Enduro World Cup (EDR) wins, plus three DH World Cups under her belt, Hattie’s definitely qualified.
The challenge is simple – Hattie and I will pick a track at BikePark Wales and race down it, recording our times at the bottom.
Now, there’s no way I’m going to set anywhere close to a comparable time, even if we’re on equivalent bikes.
But what if Hattie works down through the Trek range, riding machines of decreasing suspension travel, capability and price?
Will she still destroy my time on any bike, or is there a balancing point where a punter can beat a pro?
Choose your fighter
Tom Marvin: Senior tech editor Tom has raced XC for many years, but we can safely say he’s an amateur!
Hattie Harnden: Hattie, meanwhile, has competed as a professional at world-class level in disciplines ranging from XC to enduro.
The bikes
Hattie’s multi-discipline racing career means she has a stable of bikes to choose from. She rode three of her own, while her bike sponsor, Trek, provided her with two hardtails.
Her Trek Slash enduro bike (from £4,250, Gen 6) is race-spec, with Bontrager DH wheels, SRAM components and Pirelli rubber.
The Trek Fuel EX (from £3,050, Gen 6) is Hattie’s go-to trail bike, while the Trek Supercaliber (from £3,780, Gen 2) is her weapon of choice for XC.
Trek also brought along two hardtails: a £1,675 Roscoe 8 with a 140mm fork and a £550 Marlin 5 with 100mm of front suspension.
An inauspicious start
Being February, and Wales, the day starts off grey. I rock up in my van and pull out the near top-end Trek Slash I’ll be riding for the challenge.
This 9.9 X0 AXS T-Type model, dripping in bling kit and with 170mm of travel front and rear, is a pretty good match for Hattie’s EDR-winning team Slash, so I’m definitely not going to be held back by my bike today.
Eventually, I find my shock pump under a pile of discarded Greggs wrappers and pump a few squishes of air into the shock.
A car park bounce confirms my bike is race-ready. I fuel up on Wotsits, a sausage roll, ring doughnut and Diet Coke, and I’m ready to attack the track.
Looking over to where Hattie’s parked up, I see her bikes are being fettled by her mechanic Andy, while Hattie seems to be consuming some sort of ‘sports nutrition’, whatever that might be.
With bikes sorted, it’s time to don our waterproofs and get ready to go up the hill. The weather is grim, so it’ll be a race to keep the moisture out, as much as one against the clock.
We jump onto Norkle, the blue run that takes us to the uplift. With just a few strokes of the pedals, I know I’ve got my work cut out today.
Hattie pops off the first gapable step and proceeds to fly over the jumps and manual through the rollers.
As we spin to the uplift, she peels off – parked up behind the BPW vans and trailers is a VW Transporter, with Trek’s marketing man, Jez, at the driving seat.
He beckons Hattie over as the heater pumps out warm air. Life of Riley!
Round one – fight!
We’ve picked the Dai Hard trail for the day’s runs. This black-graded route starts with a couple of jumps, before diving into the woods via rutted, rocky singletrack.
The wooded section is littered with rocky steps and drops, tight corners, sniper roots and ever-steepening gradients.
It pops out over a rooty drop before speeds pick up, with big berms, step-downs and doubles.
Despite riding at BPW a lot, neither of us have tried Dai Hard before – not in recent memory, at least.
We decide to go for a quick sighting run, so I duly drop in behind Hattie, and she tows me over the jumps and into the woods.
The run goes smoothly overall, but it’s not long before a gap opens, and by the time we’re halfway through the woods, she’s off in the distance.
With rain-speckled glasses, greasy roots and no real idea of where I’m going, I’ve got a lot of work to do if I want my time to challenge any of hers.
Having pushed our way back up the hill, it’s time to set our times on the Slash.
Once again, Hattie drops in first. Following a wheel, even for a turn or two, is only going to help me, so I’m on the pedals as hard as I can.
As someone who doesn’t race regularly, my competitiveness takes precedence over my talent, and it’s not long before I’m making mistakes – running high on a berm, banging over roots and grabbing fistfuls of brake.
There’s no doubt that Hattie’s reading the trail far better, and is better equipped to control and regulate her speed and direction.
As on our sighting run, it’s not too long before the elastic has snapped, and I’m no longer chasing her down.
The drop out of the woods is a tricky number and, with it being relatively blind and me coming in hot (well, lukewarm), I mess it up.
The step just before it is awkward, projecting you into a corner dissected by a polished root, before you plop over another wet root, mid-turn.
Instead, I take a poor line over the rooty corner, lose balance and wobble around the edge of the drop, over some matted roots.
There’s no doubt that my red mist has caused some serious time loss here. Next up are the pair of step-downs.
In my sighting run, with Hattie long gone, the fast, blind drops didn’t tickle my land-loving pickle, so I darted right, onto the B-line. Come race run, I do the same.
The B-line is a narrow muddy rut, interspersed with a trio of deep steps that take precision to carry speed over. From there, it’s flat out to the end.
We meet at the bottom. “That was longer than I expected!” exclaims Hattie.
I was feeling it, too. What was her time? “2mins 1sec – I had some sketchy moments, though” she replies.
I came in at 2mins 25secs. “It’s, like, 20 to 25 per cent off your speed,” I say, pretty happy with my effort.
Next up, the Trek Fuel EX
With our baseline times set, Hattie jumps back in her air-conditioned uplift, while I stay at the bottom of Dai Hard to catch her next run. It’s time for Hattie to work her way down the Trek range, to see how her times compare with my effort on the Slash.
This time, she’s on her Trek Fuel EX – a super-capable machine with 140mm of rear-wheel travel and a 150mm fork up front.
Despite being a ‘trail bike’, it’s a rig Hattie’s comfortable riding flat-out. Our colleague at the top radios down that she’s set off, giving us about two minutes to get ready.
I’m pretty confident she’ll still be way faster than me when she gets down, and it’s not long before I see her floating effortlessly over the last couple of jumps.
“That actually felt pretty good!” she shouts as she crosses the line. “A bit smoother, but on some of the rougher stuff you feel the hits a little more.”
A quick check of Hattie’s Garmin reveals that she’s made it down in 1min 59secs – two seconds quicker than on the enduro bike.
“What a little rocket!” Trying to work out why this is, we conclude that, while there are some big hits on the trail, the high-pivot Slash is best suited to even gnarlier tracks, while the shorter-travel Fuel EX can get up to speed faster in the pedally sections, yet still take on the trail’s tech.
It’s time for the Supercaliber
Next on Hattie’s list is the Trek Supercaliber. This is Trek’s short-travel XC race bike, with just 60mm of rear-wheel travel and a 110mm fork (on her bike, at least).
It’s not built for a track such as Dai Hard, with its relatively skinny tyres, narrow bar and long stem, which are more suited to crushing the climbs than sending it on bike park black runs.
Once again, I’m at the bottom of the track waiting for Hattie to appear out of the murk.
“Oh my, that was so scary!” she shouts, “I was a bit scared I’d snap the bike in half if I 50-50’d it off the step-down!”
So, what was it like navigating an XC race whippet down Dai Hard? “It’s pretty good until you get to some of those big hits coming out of the woods. You take a bit more time to adjust to what’s coming up next, after the big hits.”
Clearly the shorter-travel machine didn’t feel quite as composed as the bigger-hitting bikes, but Hattie still put down a storming time of 2mins 15secs, comfortably ahead of my time of 2mins 25secs on the Slash.
To stand any chance of beating her, I need to slow her down further – it’s time for a hardtail!
Hardtail hero
This is the run, with Hattie now on the Trek Roscoe hardtail, that I suspect might be the turning point for my time versus Hattie’s.
While my run on the Slash was far slower than hers, the shorter-travel Supercaliber brought our times closer together.
With no rear suspension, a 140mm-travel fork and relatively basic components, the Trek Roscoe, a trail-focused hardtail that won’t break the bank, is my opportunity to overtake our pro – on the clock, at least.
Plus, Hattie hasn’t ridden a hardtail since 2018.
When she reaches the finish, however, my hopes are dashed.
“What a machine, wow!” she shouts. Hattie’s been on a heater, and is absolutely buzzing. “2mins 12secs?!”
I exclaim in disbelief, as I look at her Garmin. “That’s insane. You’re faster than me on the Slash!”
By this point I’m cold and wet, and Hattie only has one run left. With her times still up on mine, I figure I might as well get schooled once and for all.
Time for Tom’s revenge?
I nab a cheeky ride in Hattie’s uplift to the top for the final run, ready to drop in once more behind her.
This time Hattie is on Trek’s entry-level hardtail, the Marlin, with 100mm of travel up front and costing under a grand.
I’d wager that a QR-wheeled bike has never been sent down Dai Hard at speed, so this is a run I want to see first-hand. As soon as we drop in, speeds are high.
The top section is moderately smooth, so she’s able to dig in and propel herself forward.
My legs are pumping at the pedals and hands holding on with grim determination. I hold her wheel until, once again, I mess up my exit from the woods.
By the time I catch her, she’s telling our photographer how controlled the run felt: “You can pump the top well. In comparison, the brakes and things are very different, but it was good fun!”
The final results
| | Trek Slash | Trek Fuel EX | Trek Supercaliber | Trek Roscoe | Trek Marlin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tom Marvin | 2mins 25secs | ||||
| Hattie Harnden | 2mins 1sec | 1min 59secs | 2mins 15secs | 2mins 12secs | 2mins 10secs |
Now for the moment of truth. Can a punter beat a pro?
Did my original time on the Slash beat Hattie’s time on the Marlin? No. Not by a long shot.
“Oh my God, that’s wild. No way!” I can barely believe the time that’s on her screen – 2mins 10secs! She’s gone faster on the Marlin than on the Supercaliber and Roscoe.
How?!
“A small bike like this is so light and rolls so fast,” says Hattie. “It shows that you can buy an entry-level bike and go almost as quickly.”
It’s a fair point. The bike has limited suspension and budget parts, but the fundamentals – and an incredibly skilled rider – are all there, so it still packs a punch.
It also proves that this punter sure as hell can’t beat a pro, even if they’re on a basic bike!