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Hope Technology’s co founders Simon Sharp and Ian Weatherill have long held the ambition to produce a bike and now the bike in question has been revealed.
The firm, quick to stress it is not becoming a bike brand, has used carbon fibre for the HB.211, accessing the UK’s depth of carbon fibre knowledge as used by F1 teams.
The project is a design exercise, rather than commercial – the firm said it never considered if it would be profitable to make bikes in the UK, but tantilisingly added: "Watch this space."
Hope has created a new standard for the project, although reluctantly, with a 160mm travel All Mountain/Trail/Enduro style bike.
"We felt it was important as we have seen compromises bike manufacturers have made when designing frames and also the restrictions on component manufacturers to conform to standards.
"Very few companies have previously been able to combine the needs of the frame and component designer into one project. With this unique opportunity, we set about creating the perfect bike – without compromise."
The bike uses very few current standards precisely because it’s a design concept rather than a product design exercise, Hope said.
Here’s more from the firm on the nuts and bolts of the concept bike:
"Rear hub:
We produced a specifically spaced rear end to achieve a dishless wheel build. We moved the drive-side chainstay out and increased the chainline to give more clearance around the bottom bracket (this was pre boost, but realistically has achieved the same thing). Additionally we brought the non-driveside chainstay in to create a narrower rear end and brought the rotor/caliper as close as possible to the spokes.
The hub is fitted with a 17mm axle and 25mm location for maximum stiffness.
Bottom bracket: Designed around 30mm as standard so no compromise. Since one designer worked on the frame, bottom bracket and the cranks a perfect solution was found to give long bearing life as well as frame/pivot stiffness.
Rear brake: Radially mounted brake which only needs simple spacers to change disc size. This makes for simple disc size changes as opposed to the current of post mount as our brake designer comments "It is really frustrating to model things perfectly on the screen, have CNC machines capable to hold very tight tolerances to then fit a caliper and some randomly dimensioned brake mount. When you go away from the std 160 postmount dimension depending what manufacturer spec you go for, the caliper would end up in a different position and not be aligned as it should be. Off course it is not stopping the brake working but somehow looks like a bodge!
Suspension:
4 bar linkage optimised for the bikes intended use, a fairly aggressive riding style and pedalling efficiency."
