Hope’s had drawings for a bike since 2005, but when they made the decision to start doing carbon a couple years ago, that made the dream seem possible.
The frame has a working title of HB.211, which refers to Hope and their hometown, and the date (February 2011) when they started on the journey to in house carbon fiber fabrication. The bike uses a Horst link design, but the type of suspension is secondary to what this project means. It’s a bicycle that’s built around their components, which is different than usual where the component company is working around someone else’s bike. That meant they could design it to optimize the parts, which led to some very interesting one-off components indeed…
Starting at the rear, they designed it with a radial brake mount, which required an entirely new caliper. Note how the HB.211’s brakes (left, green) have mounts that are pointed in a parallel line from center of axle to center of brake. Contrast that to current designs (right, orange), whose mounts move outward at an angle. The prototype design makes it easier to size a rotor up or down since it’s all moving directly outward from the axle’s center. Not that there’s any performance benefit, but it looks cool, and that’s how they do it in moto.
Note the difference in the caliper bodies to accommodate the different mounting angles. Click to enlarge.
The rear axle spacing is 130mm, with a 17mm diameter thru axle slotting into a 25mm frame interface. Why? They wanted a narrow rear end for better clearance for ankles, rocks, etc. They did this by moving the hub’s disc brake mount inboard (compare prototype green to standard orange), closer to the spoke flange. The spoke flange spacing is the same as normal, so that and the massively oversized axle system keep the wheel very stiff.
Even with the narrow 130mm design, they could give it Boost chainline spacing on the driveside by making the rear triangle asymmetric.
The rear triangle is machined in house then hard anodized locally. The front triangle is molded in house, and they machined all the molds themselves, too.
This prototype bike, and the project itself, isn’t about trying to reinvent the suspension design. They just wanted to make the bike and component interface better.
They created a chain guide interface that doesn’t rely on ISCG standards, but bolts in above the chainring. It’s just the way they envision things should be, not necessarily how everyone should do it. It was much an exercise in learning more about using carbon fiber as anything else.
They’re making ten of them for employees to ride and test, at which point they might tweak things as needed and design the molds to be production ready and make more. There’s absolutely no timeline, but ultimately they probably will look to sell a complete bike.
Speaking of carbon, they just started shipping their new carbon seatpost this month, which is their first production carbon part made in their UK factory.
Other parts, like their DH cassette and hub and the wide range 10-44 cassette that were shown at Eurobike are also now in full production. Check our coverage here for full details. The cassette’s 10-tooth small cog requires a special freehub body that they make for their hubs.
WOW! This is a true one stop solution. Can you imagine how well everything will work together?
Wow, Wow, and Double Wow
This looks rad but i’m not sure about the 130 rear end… good for heels, bad for mud
Great. Lots of lots of things that will make absolutely no difference during ride, but will keep you glued to the company till the end of life of the bicycle. Standards are great. Every means of interrupting standards is just pure capitalistic approach pointed only towards your wallet. SRAM “invents” BS standards, now Hope tries to jump similar wagon by reinventing the whole bicycle. Well done Sir!
And by the way. HOPE still uses machining for everything? Hmmm. I thought that forging was discovered many centuries ago and is used by serious companies for a reason.
So, not a Hope fanboy then, Goroncy? As far as I know Hope components tend to start life as a forging that then gets machined into a finished component.
For myself, I love this bike – it’s all about innovation and a spirit of seeing if it’s possible to do things better
Most definitely not their fan. But also not a fan of any company that is CNCing their things so that they have unacceptable stress distribution that leads to failure – but LOOKS COOL. Google stems of companies that are CNCed for cracked examples. Thomson, Hope and many others. And then look if stems like not so expensive Bontrager rhythm pro which is 3D forged from best possible 7050 alu may be cracked so easily. But sure. No blink. Bike business is nothing about innovation these days. Its all about shoving new awkward staff directly to our throats. I am just glad that I have my eyes opened wide enough to see where the bullsh@$t is.
So you’ve never seen the pictures of cracked forged Ritchey stems, Goroncy? And since Hope’s hubs are forged then machined, how does that processs rate on your armchair engineer-o-meter scale?
Tosh. Hope stuff you buy once and forget about it. It works and lasts. Period. And yes, they start as a forging and then CNC.
No RB211 reference? That was my first thought on seeing the name
Lots of really cool stuff there. I don’t need any of it, but I want it. Well done Hope.
This is an awesome design exercise. I’m a big fan of Hope components- their brakes are second to none. Trey- I believe you meant to say that the brake mounts are perpendicular, not parallel.
Those hub specs seem a little silly though- why bother making the overall width narrower for clearance if you’re just going to offset it to the drive side? I’ve never really felt that clearance at yet dropouts was an issue, but their only gaining clearance on the non-drive side anyway.
Wow Goroncy! You need to settle down man! This is not a bike pushing new standards – this is a prototype and a fun project which may or may not go to production. No one cares if you don’t like it, but keep your (deleted) opinion to yourself, (deleted)
(deleted)
Very cool. Love the compact 130mm rear spacing. How funny will it be to see in 10 years we go back to 135mm to save weight and gain clearance. It will be called “clearance booster 135.”
Now now, everyone remember this is just a DESIGN EXERCISE. They are just throwing ideas around and seeing how they work. Keep that mind. They are NOT cramming new “standards” down anyones throats.
I for one think that the radial brake mount is wonderful. Change rotor size? just add/subtract spacers. How simple is that!
I LOVE HOPE AND EVERYTHING THEY DO!!!