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I don't really know much about it, but something tells me there is more (and therefore more sticker price) to bringing a hydraulic brake set (say) to market and having it do reasonably well than is apparent from a Red Bull-fuelled all-nighter on a PC. Or holding the finished part in your hand and saying you reckon you could make it better.
As mollyiom says it's easier to say you could do it better when someone's done it first with all the extra gubbins involved on top of just machining the bits.
And CaptainManwaring's right, if people can sell enough of something that they're happy then it's evidently not over-priced.
Check out the dyno numbers in the WMB/MBUK test, it's all there in black and white- new Deore is stronger than any of the Hopes tested.
Plenty of people would use M4's on a downhill bike. Would they use Deore's? Don't think so. And I certainly can't be bothered to buy rubbish mags to read about brake dyno numbers which are not relevant in the real world
Are you going to tell me that nobody ever bought a mountain bike product because they like the brand, and that we all choose exclusively based on quality and performance? Frankly if you do there's no point in trying to continue a conversation, you'd have to be mad to believe this
Sigh - please read what I said
1) People often do buy a brand because that brand has built a reputation based on characteristics that those people value. But like I said, that reputation is built over time on producing good product at the right price
2) I did not say people buy just on quality and performance (and both of those are subjective). People will buy a brand based on loads of factors, some or all of which may be relevant: performance, price, quality, reliability, looks, servicability, support etc
Check out the dyno numbers in the WMB/MBUK test, it's all there in black and white- new Deore is stronger than any of the Hopes tested, in repeatable bench tests.
Those tests are a magazine gimmick, there factual content is zero.
funnily enough for proper mountain biking (you know on stuff called moutains) hope and formula seems to be the only brakes that works. Shimanos just get cooked easily (I am talking real world here like 1800m of descent in one go on narrow/techy/rocky singletrack). Formula are indeed a bit cheaper, but then hope are indeed a lot nicer (and yes that does count). Performance wise they are both very good. Now if I can afford I will buy british over italian, because in spite of the nerous frenchphobia on here from a couple of pillcock mail readers I had an amazing time in the UK and the guys from hope were very helpful (this last one is now counteract by the fact that the French SAV service center for formula has the same post code than the LBS).
i used deore brakes in my first megAvalanche - they worked faultlessly all week, and have done ever since, all i've done is change the pads.
unlike my M4's which needed bleeding more or less everday i had them in the alps, which squealed like a stuck pig, and had the stupidest, most annoying, most complicated pad retention system since the last time i looked at avids.
i'm an engineer, i'm british, would i buy hope brakes? - no.
i now have several pairs of shimano brakes, they've all been to the alps, and i've never had a single problem, not once, ever.
unlike my M4's which needed bleeding more or less everday i had them in the alps
That would suggest there is something wrong with them!
and had the stupidest, most annoying, most complicated pad retention system since the last time i looked at avids.
Er, the pad retention is just a pin going through the hole at the top of the pads, how is that complicated? Or was it different on the old M4's?
- exactly!That would suggest there is something wrong with them!
- there was a threaded pin, and an R-clip, and some springs, and getting all that lined up and assembled with the 4 tiny separate pads was annoyingly fiddly.Er, the pad retention is just a pin going through the hole at the top of the pads, how is that complicated? Or was it different on the old M4's?
I just love the 'spoons' armchair engineering...love it!
Nice to see stw is still going. Little bit of a difference between university work & a product that goes to market..
Ah right, yes that does look like a bit of a nightmare. Not really relevant to current Hope brakes though!
I like Hope.
They make all their spares available at non-rip-off prices, they seem to be some of the few components that you can maintain at home without simply binning and buying another.
HoratioHufnagel - Member
I like Hope.They make all their spares available at non-rip-off prices, they seem to be some of the few components that you can maintain at home without simply binning and buying another.
That's because you [i]have to[/i] maintain them. I prefer the "fit & forget" style of Shimano. 5-year old Deores are still working OK with not so much as a re-bleed, despite having been moved from one bike to another.
Had hope brakes on all my bikes for years and never had a problem unless it was own stupidity. I'd recommend them.
5 year old mono minis here that have been moved from bike to bike, no more work than a bleed (and only two at that) people have different experiences of different brakes.
Three of my friends are precision engineers, they all use hope brakes and hubs. They agree the finish [i]could[/i] be made smoother (like on the older black&gold brakes) but hope designed the grooves for aesthetic reasons (and to save money 😉 ) Hope are very well respected in the precision engineering market.
Loco Pollo wrote: "Those "scientific" tests were laughable. You wouldn't pass GCSE Science (even the one for the thick kids) with those "scientific" methods."
Are you going to explain why you believe this to be true? Or are you going to let your inverted commas do your arguing? 
"Plenty of people would use M4's on a downhill bike. Would they use Deore's? Don't think so."
Most of them would never even try them, because they see Hope with big 2 piston calipers as being a suitable brake for downhilling and will dismiss Deore as cheap beginner brakes, without ever trying them. Thus rather neatly proving my point. Have [i]you[/i] tried the new Deore? I'm sure you must have, to be dismissing them so. They're annoyingly good brakes, better than my XTs.
No doubt you'll ignore the guy up the page with the experience of deore on the mega in the same way.
"1) People often do buy a brand because that brand has built a reputation based on characteristics that those people value. But like I said, that reputation is built over time on producing good product at the right price"
Reputation does not equal fact. As you must know. And perceived value does not equal value, as you also must know. You can't be this naive surely?
The people on this board who bought Nukeproof carbon forks and dismissed Exotic carbon forks, which are identical bar the stickers- they did so because Nukeproof produce a good product at the right price while Exotic don't?
Are you going to explain why you believe this to be true?
It's pretty obvious to anyone with a basic grasp of the scientific method.
Go on then, if it's so obvious
Error bars?
ahwiles - MemberThat would suggest there is something wrong with them!
- exactly!
Er, the pad retention is just a pin going through the hole at the top of the pads, how is that complicated? Or was it different on the old M4's?
- there was a threaded pin, and an R-clip, and some springs, and getting all that lined up and assembled with the 4 tiny separate pads was annoyingly fiddly.
May I suggest you get your brake to a knowledgeable bike shop?
My hope minis (not even mono) just had the piston changed for the first time. In spit of user error (I filled them with the stuff from the bottle named DOT at the workshop of the LBS... Bottle full of car oil go wonder) they worked straight after a bleeding. Not need to re-bleed, no squeal nothing. Plus the brake may squeal it won't stop it to work.
I use M4's on my bike and have done for 3 years or so. They are lardy but when set up corectly they will stop a train. I am a big lad and they work just fine. Their hubs have survived 3 shitty winters and the headset is very much fit and forget. Bb's not too bad either.
Customer service is seond to none and they are British. For me job done.
Most of them would never even try them, because they see Hope with big 2 piston calipers as being a suitable brake for downhilling and will dismiss Deore as cheap beginner brakes, without ever trying them. Thus rather neatly proving my point. Have you tried the new Deore? I'm sure you must have, to be dismissing them so. They're annoyingly good brakes, better than my XTs.
Well if deore were THAT good... let just imagine that ok... Why would shimano made stuff such as the SAINT or the XT/XTR...
I like Hope stuff. I've got C2s that I've had since my early days in mountain biking. Never given me any problems and you can still buy spares for them if they were to develop a problem.
2 Hope headsets,that ,as an earlier poster mentioned,are fit and forget items.
Hope LED4 light,on it's 2nd winter and I ride every week.Superb performance and reliable.
Makes me happy that it's made "just up the motorway",by chaps doing proper work.No country can survive on "Service" industry.
I can see the attraction of Hopes products, the machining marks, the obviously machined look; do work for the "product semantics" side of things (designers speak for look and feel) there are plenty of examples of companies going for form and feel over function, I remember a colleague once telling me a certain high end HiFi separates manufacturer decided to bolt a Steel billet in the housing for it's top end Amp in order to make it feel more "substrantial and sturdy" functionally no improvement but helped them add a zero to the price tag...
The MTB buying public still have a bit of a hard-on for the letters CNC without really thinking about the suitability of machining as a manufacturing technique relative to the application, for instance I'd much rather have a forged than machined stem, due to the improved grain structure of the finished part, and the fact that once you use the method to produce lots of units rather than a short run the costs nose dive (OEM parts are a good example).
Machined parts have a glass ceiling in terms of unit cost, lot's of expensive machine time, lots of consumables and wasted material for each part and you still get a weaker part, hardly a selling point when you look at it in those terms...
For a brake caliper the requirements are different but there is still a lot of force being exerted on it, as well as it needing to conduct heat away and provide a smooth, accurate running/sealing surface in the bores for the pistons, open up a caliper and look at the piston bores and you'll see the kind of finish the manufacturer can actually manage, the external finish on opes has more to do with appearance and cost saving than function, it's not really the important issue, is a hope caliper any good? well they're OK; they work, bit pricey but I still prefer shimano's more efficiently produced, and hence better priced products...
juan - MemberWell if deore were THAT good... let just imagine that ok... Why would shimano made stuff such as the SAINT or the XT/XTR...
Features/weight. e.g. all wheels go round and will take a tyre....
pypdjl, is that genuinely all you've got? You know full well that doesn't neccesarily undermine the results at all. They're not submitting to a scientific journal.
Juan wrote,
"Well if deore were THAT good... let just imagine that ok... Why would shimano made stuff such as the SAINT or the XT/XTR... "
Because people will buy it, and because those other products bring different features and priorities. Deore works brilliantly but is a little heavy, a little ugly and lacks features and bling. XT if anything works less well but is lighter, looks better, has more mod cons and has some extra features (that nobody uses). Is it better? Depends what you want it to do.
(a fine example of why they make different ranges can be seen on the front page of this site, in the Saracen Ariel preview- people criticise the £2500 model for having Deores. Now, those are a fine choice for the bike- powerful, reliable and inexpensive. But people sneer at it because it's "just deore" without any experience of the product.)
The mountain biking buying public will buy the exact same item with different logos on at a different pricepoint, we know this, we've all seen it. And they'll buy inferior products because of the branding, ie people choosing Juicy 3s over Tektro Aurigas because "Avid are better", or SRAM 990 cassettes over XT, or turning up their noses at brands like Carrera or even Specialized. Nobody can doubt this surely? Brand snobbery, fanboyism, magpie tendancies... All alive and well. I do it, so do most people.
Thomson & King do some nice CNC machining. Some of Hope's machining is pretty ropey, indicative of some over ambitious feeds & speeds or (more likely) intentional to give it the CNC'ed look. Nowt wrong with their design though. For a lot of their components, CNC'ing from billets is a bit daft if your turning stuff out in the numbers Hope are. And considering that they charge about the same as Hope for their higher end kit, Shimano stuff is a rip off if you took into account the economics of forging/casting in the quantities they do. Hope's stuff is pretty well priced.
I like the fact that Hope stuff is made just up the road from me, and they were really helpful when I needed some advice on sorting out a second hand brake I had bought. Try that with Shimano.
They might not be the best for the price but they are good enough and the support is worth something.
"I like the fact that Hope stuff is made just up the road from me, and they were really helpful when I needed some advice on sorting out a second hand brake I had bought. Try that with Shimano."
Yup, credit where it's due, their warranty really is superb. Being able to buy seperate seals and the like for their brakes is a big plus as well, people say "Yeah well you don't need to be able to get spares for Shimano" but that's nonsense, they're more reliable but nothing's 100% reliable.
I just got rid of a set of basic (525) shimano brakes new to replace with second hand hopes. The shimanos worked fine and there is no real difference betweeb the feel of them - maybe a touch more modulation with the hopes.
However the shimano had a mild steel split pin thru a cast hole with loads of play for pad retention, the hope a macnined stainless pin and spring clip. All hope spares are available for years - the shimanos have no spares available even now.
The second hand hopes were bled thru and the pistons lubed - all worked fine. No further fettling needed in the 3 months they have been on.
They really are not the same market. I don't want to ever buy another brake for this bike. Hopes are expensive rebuildable. Shimano are cheap disposable.
In the four years I have used hope brakes with now 4 pairs of them all bought secondhand for thousands of miles use I have rebuilt one master cylinder and 2 calipers when seals went. Other than that faultless. Bleeding is easy and pads last a long time
i lost a part of the clamp for my brakes last week a quick phone call and the part arrived next morning foc cant see many other places doing that. I used to have minis now have m4s also have xc and pro2 hubs and a vision 4 and cant fault any of it
Overrated.
+1 for Deore with 200mm rotors and organic pads. Out performed 2 mates on hope m4's during a trip to the alps. M4's fried and squealed on the long descents. Guide recconed they are ok for uk but not up to extreme decents.
Hopes do look much better. Ok if you want to pay a 'cool' tax!
the dyno feature in the magazine was with normal organic pads which come as standard. with alot of the other brakes they use the sintered pads. ive just put sintered in mine and has made a hell of a difference!
i would like to see then put it on again and see what happends.
ive got alot of there products on my bike. headset bb clamps tech x2s and i love it, the quality is great IMO.
i couldnt give a toss if one brakes better than mine i like what i have i worked hard to get it and well it puts a smile on my face!
if you like shimano etc then good for you.
I imagine Hope are well aware of this, but those without the knowledge think it looks lovely and 'machined' so it works very well for them on two counts.
As an Engineer & CNC programmer, I think the Hope calipers look good. Seems an intentional finish and it works for me 🙂
All my Hope stuff has been perfect so far.
Another happy Deore user, tried loads of brakes, these are by far the best, totally reliability, effortless pad change, much cheapness (new caliper £25) when they're that cheap I don't care that you can't get seals as spares, like Druid haven't touched/bleed them in 5 years. Perfect. I know Hope Customer Service is good, but I've never had to use Shimano Customer service...
Hope hubs are nowt special, replacing the bearings on my rear XC was a PITA, but they did last, so can't really complain, rear skewer seems to last forever...Struggling now to find stuff to say...
[i]Shimano are cheap disposable.[/i]
Mostly, but mine have lasted 5 years, as have druids, plus all the other happy Shim users. Give me reliable good brakes for 5 years that are cheap to replace, over having to eff about with them all the time.
northwind
power is nothing without control ..... yes Deores are powerful but are on and off
Yes that will give a high output in a power test
deores are the same. shite from speed because they have a tendancy to lock up quite easy......but feel sharp as tacks in the carpark test
only brake ive had issues with in the last 10 years having had c2s , e4s , mono m4s and minis - hayes soles - shimano XT (twice - servo waves and 755s) avid BB7s , saints have been one pair of XTs where i melted the seals riding down ben nevis north face path. - i used to ride alot worse on my hopes when i race downhill at sda and nps even my C2 Closed system never had issues !
. [i]yes Deores are powerful but are on and off [/i]
Every single Shimano brake I've ever used is entirely the opposite to that, if anything a bit spongy. I like on/off switches, as I'm the last of the late brakers, and to get them to perform like that, I had to fit some Goodridge hoses to mine.
Nickc - I don't have to eff about with the hopes either often.
Northwind - MemberGo on then, if it's so obvious
It's obvious to anyone with a basic grasp of scientific method. Google it.
Aye, cool.
I've mates who swear by them just like you. If you get a "good" pair they do seem pretty reliable tough brakes.
So, in summary hopes are powerful, easily repairble and good value if a little (10g) heavy.
The same cannot be said for formula etc etc etc.
Shimanos are good and rarely go wrong but if they do, buy a new set.
The choice is yours.
Spot on I'd say, backhander
Interesting. With reference to the OP..."that they (the machinist) could make fairly easily" ...no doubt they could, (in a Blue Peter style 'here's one we made earlier style). Howevere it seems to me that there's much more too engineering than just making something.
For instance could the same folk, design , develop, manufacture, market, and support the product? Then repeat for other products. It seems Hope Technology can do all that, and do it very well indeed. There was a imformative interview in an old issue of STrkMag which covered a some of the things mentioned in this thread...in particular the 'Hope' look was mentioned.
I just wish they'd get on and make some nice flat pedals.. What with it being the last product on a bike with bearings that they haven't yet produced...maybe that seatpost took up all the prototyping time!
'bout right backhander
In my experience, Hope stuff is either brilliant...or frustrating.
I'm assuming its down to attempting tight tolerances...however if it goes a bit wrong then it shows...other times the QC seems off
I've had a set of mini's that were impossible to setup without them rubbing, and when they were setup ok the pistons would stick out at the slightest provocation
However I also had a mini that was absolutely perfect
My front Pro 2 ate 2 sets of bearings in a year
The rear one has been brilliant
Hope were motorcycle trials riders that happened to be engineers and produced products for their trials bikes that they wanted to use.
They moved on to mountainbiking as a hobby, and produced products for their own mountainbikes.
People saw these products and wanted to buy them. So they quit their day jobs and produced them.
Hope still produce products that mountainbikers want to buy and use.
The other major manufacturers produce products and market them at mountainbikers. Therein the difference lies.
Hope originally produced products to supply for demand. They've grown a bit now, but if people wanted to buy your snot you'd sell it to them I'd wager.
Other manufacturers market desgins to try to create demand for their products.
I'm a fan of Hope and Shimano brakes. Both work well and are easy to service.
Hayes have been producing brakes since 1929, and they still can't make a brake I'd like to use regularly.
The best brake is the one YOU trust to stop you. It doesn't matter what brand or constuction they are, it's down to personal preference. Nobody can win an argument on this subject as we all have different needs.
Just agree to disagree and get on with riding FFS.
Hope brakes are worth the money if you like them. So is any other brake.
I'm with him ^^^^