- Feeling nervous, very nervous. (tense music) That is absolutely brutal. - That was absolutely insane. I've never dug that deep
for such a long time. - That was genuinely, really hard. - We're all in awe of
how fast road bikes are. Especially at events such as the Olympics. It got me thinking,
could an E-Mountain bike hang with a road bike around
a race track such as this. Well today, we're here at Castle
Combe to find that one out. So for today's challenges,
I've invited none other than GCN's powerhouse, Chris Opie. The guy is an absolute machine on a bike. Six UCI victories, 20
year career racing bikes, and a sprint specialist. (Intense music) - [Chris Smith] We're racing around Castle Combe race Circuit, which is based in Southwest of England. It's a shade under
three kilometers per lap with a total of seven corners. Its a full tarmac track
and is super smooth. The circuit has about 67 feet of climbing, meaning it's pretty flat. Perfect for some high
speed, two wheel action. (Intense music) - We've devised three
different challenges. We've got the flying
500 meter sprint race. Next up after that, you've
got the one K solo Time trail. And after that, the
final nail in the coffin is going to be a two lap
individual pursuit race. We're going to do two
laps around the circuit fastest man is going to win the day. - Yeah, and we'll take the overall times from everything put together and whoever covers the distances in the least amount of time goes home. - As the winner. - As the winner That sounds fair, right? - So my bike of choice today
is my Pinarello F-12 Dogma. It's ultra modern, ultra
aero, ultra lightweight. Built for racing. It's got 24 gears, SRAM red groupset. I think I'm going to use one gear. The 46-10 which is my top gear. And I'm going to be revving
that out pretty quick down here, in my efforts to try and beat Chris today. - The weapon of choice
for today's challenge is a modified Haibike
X-Duro Hardnine hardtail. It's got 29 inch wheels with
slick Maxxis Grifter tires. These should offer lower
rolling resistance. These tires are pumped up to 65 psi. Power in the bike is a Yamaha PW-X motor 80 newton meters torque, 250 watts motor. It is, of course de-restricted
with a badass E-bike box meaning the bike has the
speed-limiter removed. Because the 15 mile an hour limit simply wouldn't hack
it around this circuit. Even though my E-bike was
de-restricted it was only de-restricted to 50 kilometers an hour. Meaning that any speed above
50 it was all down to me. Up front I've got a huge 44 tooth chaining runnin' 11-46 cassette. The big problems with
a de-restricted E-Bike is running out of gears at high speed. I've also brought along a few extra items to give me that
performance edge if needed. So there you go Opie, what do you think of my fine flying machine,
it's going to smash you today. - It's an overweight,
underpowered, identity crisis bike. It's got a dropper post on
it, it's got slick tires. Look at all these cables. You've got no chance. - I think you're going
to be eating your words. - [Cameraman] Can man beat machine? - Man can beat machine. Can this man, right now, beat machine? I don't know. I'm quite nervous about it. Chris and I have just done
a bit of a gentle warm up, going up and down the
start-finish straight, and he said "oh we'll just
go gently until the start," and I was like sprinting
trying to keep up with him. So either Chris is a lot
fitter than he's letting on, or I'm not as fit as I thought I was. (intense music) - Right Chris, our first
challenge is the rolling, 500 meter sprint race. Now this should suit
you down to the ground, with all your sprinting prowess. - Yep, and the aero-bike. - For sure. - Now, the world champion
in this did it in 32 seconds at a staggering speed of
62 kilometers an hour. Is that something you think
you're going to smash today? - I think we might get close to that, 'cause we've got the
rolling start of course. - The rolling start, yeah. - They did it from a standing start. - Did they? - And that's incredible. - Yeah, amazing. And this, of course, you've
got the tailwind as well, so should help us out loads. - Yep. What's the rule on the elbows, are we fighting for this? - Do whatever you like, go as
aero as you like. Elbows out. Who's going to win, Chris or Chris? - My money's on Chris. - [Chris Opie] Nice progressive start. - [Chris Smith] Here we go. About right speed wise. - [Chris Opie] Are you ready? Three, two, one. (beep) (intense music) - I'm quite happy about that. That was genuinely really hard. - Nice one, so good. - I thought you were going to beat me. - Of the line, I was going in the head, and then I think just that gearing, you have that extra gear to push, and then you just went past
at rocket speed I think. Open-boost mode engaged. What speed were we hitting down there? I looked down and I was
like 37 mile an hour. - [Chris Opie] So I got just under 42. - [Chris Smith] 42? - [Chris Opie] Oh sorry, just under 45. 70.9 kilometers per hour. Close to what I thought we'd do. - Yeah, yeah, that was
mental though, wasn't it? - But those first 10 seconds, I thought there's no way
I can out drag you here. - It's crazy, isn't it? And I'm not super aero, I was
tucked in as much as I could, but yeah, fair-play on that one. Round one to Opie. - I'm quite happy now. I feel relaxed, pressure's off. - Right Chris, you monumentally smashed me in that sprint challenge, so
this is challenge number two. Now this is the one
kilometer, solo time trial. Now, can you remember Chris Hoy, can you remember the time he did this in? - I do, it was around
60 seconds, wasn't it? - 60 seconds, yeah, back in 2004, so it was a monumental effort, do you think we're going to
see that in today's efforts? - Should we be really honest? We've got a bit of a tailwind, haven't we? - Possibly yeah, could happen. - So, it might be possible, but Chris Hoy is twice the size I am. - Right, okay. - So he probably had twice the power. - Exactly. Right, so let's get
this challenge underway. So we've got a helper,
so it's a standing start, you get a clipped in,
one kilometer flat out, good luck. - [Chris Opie] Cheers Chris. - Three, two, one, go. (intense music) That's savage. That is absolutely brutal. - So think he's got a
bit of an aero advantage, so I nipped back to the
van, gone a bit aero, going full time trial for this one. (intense music) (record scratch) - [Chris Smith] Oh, sorry. Sorry, I was just trying
to pull my dropper out. (beep) Three, two, one, go. (intense music) That was hard work. Just ran out of power. Just not enough gears left, I was just spinning out the whole way. Down the straight, it just
kind of flat-lined so, so just couldn't get above
about 40 mile per hour I think. - Well, I think Chris has
got a bit of an advantage over this two lap race now,
because it's quite slow, and it's quite uphill for the entire, well for like two thirds
of the track is uphill and into a headwind, 'cause
it's shaped like a triangle, the winds coming across the track in a way that means it's just going to, I think going to play into his hands. Like it's obviously faster on
this when the speed is high, but that's such a short
period of the track, it's going to make it hard to make up any sort of deficit that I
might rack up on the slow bits. So yeah, I'm quite nervous. My
legs are a little bit tired, 'cause we've been going
genuinely pretty hard. There's not a lot of
time in it at the moment. It's all to play for. - Right Chris, it comes down
to the third and final chapter, in the individual pursuit race,
where we're going to start two laps of this circuit,
but we're going to start you from here, and me
from the halfway point over on the other side of the track, and it's the first person
to complete their two laps. It's going to take the win. So I need to put 10 seconds
into you on this one. - Yeah. - And I'm feeling pretty
confident with this headwind. Got a bit of elevation this time as well, so I'm not going to see
that smile on your face after this one I think.
- No, I don't think you are. - I don't think either
of us will be smiling after two laps around here either. - It's not going to be fun, is it? I'm halfway round the track. Opie is on the other side of the circuit, hopefully this is my
chance to take him down. (starting bleeps) (intense music) - I'm going to be sick. I really want to be sick. I was worried Chris was going to catch me. I've got no idea where
he is, or how he's doing. - Good to warm up Chris, and thanks for an
amazing day on the bikes, it's been so good. So I think it's about time we
looked through all the data from the ride and the times involved. First challenge was that
500 meter flying sprint. Now I did that in 37
seconds, you smashed me, what was your time in the end? - [Chris Opie] 34 seconds, yeah. - I had you up until
about halfway as well, did you see that, I think you
were starting to sweat a bit. - I was, I was getting
pretty nervous because, I didn't really know what was
going to happen starting out. And it's the only challenge where we could see each other the whole time. - [Chris Smith] Exactly. - [Chris Opie] So it's a bit of a worry. - Super close, but I think
I hit that halfway mark, then you just seemed to change up a gear, and you just disappeared, and I think you just smashed me there
by three seconds so. - Once I go all the way down
that cassette, into that 10, and that was it. - No stopping you.
No. - And that is your specialty, sprinting, so there's no stopping you. - What's the max speed, 44.3
miles per hour or something? - Yeah, I think I managed
to get 41.7 as well, so. - [Chris Opie] Fast as well, isn't it? - Pretty close. So next up Chris was the
one K solo time trial, now this was pretty hard as you say, in the sprint race we
could see each other, so we could gauge each other. This was a solo effort. For one K, I managed to do
one minute nine seconds. - [Chris Opie] Fast time. - [Chris Smith] You're looking pretty fast yourself, come on.
- [Chris Opie] One o' two. - [Chris Smith] One o' two. - [Chris Opie] I'm quite proud of that. - [Chris Smith] Smashed me
by seven seconds on that. That's pretty impressive, do
you know the average speed or max speed for that? - So my max speed in that
was just a little bit slower than the first one, it was
just under 44 miles an hour. The average speed, I
think it was just over 35, I can't remember, I
did look at it earlier, I was going as hard as I could, I genuinely could not go any harder. - Seven seconds, that's a big margin. So next up was the individual pursuit. - [Chris Opie] I found this the hardest. - [Chris Smith] You did? - [Chris Opie] Because
it was completely blind, I had no idea who was where. - [Chris Smith] And the weather as well, the headwind was pretty savage as well. - [Chris Opie] It wasn't
as straight forward as the other two, the other
two were short, they're sweet, you can go all in, but
this one you had to pace it a little bit, because
you couldn't die halfway around the first lap. - A bit of tactics, and a bit of, I struggle with the aero-tuck technique, I don't know if you saw that as well, but, not my cup of tea. - Noticed you didn't
struggle with the head-wear. - No exactly, I like that one. What was your time on that one Chris? - Right. So my time on that one
was eight minutes and 24. - [Chris Smith] Which I thought was good. And what was your max heart-rate on that? - 183. - 183. Well Chris, I hate to say this, but I smashed that one
out in eight minutes 16. So I won by eight seconds on there. Max heart-rate wasn't quite as high as yours, 175, but still. - So you're saying you could've
tried a bit harder, even? - Possibly, I need an extra gear. But, it's super close
at the end of the day, but it looks like total time
from all these challenges, you just pipped me by two seconds overall. So, good work on that, and it's been a hell of a day out at Castle Combe. - It's been good fun, thank
you again for having me over. - If you want to stick
around and check out another video here on
EMBN, click down here for XC-racer versus E-Bike. - And if you want to see Dan
Lloyd take on Nico Vouilloz mountain bike legend, over
at the Col de la Madone, click just there. - Give us a thumbs up if you enjoyed it, drop us some comments in the box below, about how we could make
our bikes even faster. And don't forget to click the globe in the middle to subscribe to EMBN.
