World renown for their impeccable machining and eye catching colors, this one piece cassette/freehub body from Hope doesn’t disappoint. At least from a pure bike lust perspective, it is in a world of it’s own when it comes to cassettes. The lower (green) portion and the freehub body are machined out of one piece of aluminum, while the upper (gold) section is machined out of steel and will feature Ti-Nitride coating for production. The two halves are bolted together with 6 Allen bolts that thread through the back of the cassette.
More of the integrated cassette freehub after the break, plus a look at their now shipping seatpost and single speed hub.
Underneath, you can really get a feel for just how integrated and machined out this cassette really is. Clearly the new cassette utilized the Hope 4 pawl system, and is directly compatible with the Hope Evo Hubs, although it will be retro-fitted to Pro 2 and Pro 3 hubs. So it looks good, but does it really offer any benefits? Well, for starters the fact that design isn’t impeded by a traditional freehub, Hope was able to machine down to a 9 tooth cog! Imagine a ten speed cassette with a gear ratio of 9-36 coupled with a mountain double, and you still have a huge range of gears with less weight. Also the cassette/freehub combo is inherently lighter with an integrated model roughly 20 grams lighter than a comparable freehub equipped wheel and a Sram XX cassette.
Due to the intensive machining time and bling factor of the new integrated unit you might expect it to be astronomically priced, which is sort of is, although no more expensive than just an XX cassette. In fact, if preliminary reports in the UK of it running 150£ which at the current exchange rate is $240 it is actually cheaper than an XX cassette. Obviously you have to have a Hope hub, but if the ultimate in light weight integration is your goal, look no further.
The Hope Eternity seatpost was a very long awaited item from hope, which is now shipping to customers delight. The post is naturally machined in-house out of aluminum which is given a T6 heat treatment process to ensure it’s stregnth. Initially it will be available in 27.2, 30.9, and 31.6 which are arguably the three most common currently used seat post sizes.
While the Eternity looks like your average single bolt rotating head seatpost, the rotating heads are actually splined on the inside to prevent slipping of the head which is a nagging problem on similar designs when they are not tightened properly, or during a hard impact. Hope claims that the splines are fine enough that you will have no problem adjusting your seat to the desired angle: no one-notch-up-too-high, one-notch-down-too-low kind of thing. In addition the Hope Eternity uses two opposed bolts, one of which controls each clamp rather than one bolt that draws both sides together.
Finally we round things out with one of Hope’s newest hubs, which was apparently created just due to the demand here in America. The hub features a shortened cassette body for singlespeed or custom 6 speed mini cassette use. In addition, the hub utilizes Hope’s bolt on axle system, which in conjunction with the straight pull spokes should yield a very stiff wheel.
Check out Hope for all of the rest of their beautifully machined parts.
