Specialized Pitch Sport underwent a round of revisions – updates to the geometry and layout that dramatically improved handling and standover clearance.

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For 2019, the bike remains largely unchanged, but the price has crept up by £25. Given that our biggest gripe with the previous Pitch was the cable actuated disc brakes, we were hoping that the increased price would reflect the switch to hydraulic brakes. Sadly, it hasn’t.

As such, we struggled to reign in the Pitch in on anything remotely fast or steep. Worse still, get the Pitch on rough trails, our just on braking bumps approaching a corner, and it’s a job just to keep your hands on the handlebars.

That’s because the fork tends to spike on bigger hits, so you only get half of the available 100mm travel. And because the brakes require so much lever force to get them to work, you are left with no choice other than to revert to two-finger braking, which leaves you with one less digit to rap around the grip.

On the plus side, the Specialized offer a blissfully quite ride. The Multi–Circuit damping in the Suntour suspension fork eliminating any nasty top out clunk, while a neat rubber chainstay protector silences chain slap.

The contact points on the Pitch are good too, but it desperately needs a slightly shorter stem and one with more rise, as the stock set up pitches you weight a little too far forward to really make the descents fun.