I know it's "made in britain" but I took a calliper to a local engineering firm (who specialise in small run/high quality machined aluminium bits) to get a helicoil put in and was greated by a few tuts and a bit of pokeing.

Apparently the alloy used is very good and the helicoil cut in nicely, but the actual machineing wasn't anything to write home about (why they reconed it striped in the first place) and the Ti bolt that filled the hole was barely within the M6 spec (very undersized) which didn't help.

Owner actualy seemed quite intrigued that people would pay £150+ for something they could make fairly easily, looks like hope might be getting some competition!

A 'engineer' friend of mine doesn't like the machining marks that are left on everything, says it's poor workmanship & he wouldn't be allowed to let things out like that, but the average user of it likes the look of it like that, I know I do!
I'd also guess that the ti bolts you speak of aren't made by Hope, more likely something bought in.

competition = good

Owner actualy seemed quite intrigued that people would pay £150+ for something they could make fairly easily, looks like hope might be getting some competition!

A Hope caliper is ~£50

Surely its about more than just machining out the metal. Any (cnc designer) monkey can do that. Its about all the small bits that make the product actually good to use.

And besides the Ali doesn't need to be high quality its just a calliper.

who specialise in small run/high quality machined aluminium bits

that's the difference
like comparing a batch of iced buns with a soufflé
probably

Their hubs are excellent but the only brakes I've ever had of theirs that I've been impressed with were some old C2s and DH4s (immense brakes!).

I find the soufflé only works at all well on a road bike. MTBs need the extra bite that the iced buns provide. BTW – it's best to "cure" the buns by drying them out at high temperature a bit first.

The only downside is that it takes rather a lot of iced buns for every ride. On the other hand, what you don't need for braking also serves as emergency food supplies.

It's relatively easy given access to the material, the tech and a working finished product to copy for a skilled machinist to 'knock up a few in their lunch hour' and be competitive on price.

Factor in design, marketing/sales, transport/packaging, staff overheads, safety/quality compliance etc and you start to see that somethings aren't that expensive after all……

Yes it is good and your local company wishes it had it's own products rather than sub cintracting for other companies. Which one of the two will best ride out the downturn.

M4's are awesome,thread closed..

Generally decent kit, generally overpriced, sums it up for me.

The engineering company that I use have invested in £250k machines that could knock out caliper halves in large (500+) batch sizes for a few quid each. So in theory I could copy a hope caliper and change a couple of details, job done.

The question is, could me and said engineering company design a complete braking system to the same quality and cost as Hope?
The answer is – not a f**king chance!!

and yeah, I like the "machined" look of hope stuff

I had some skewers, the new type, and they were sh*te!

A

Hilldodger kind of summed it up really also their after sales (in my experience) is excellent as I'm sure anybody whose's needed help at an event such as mayhem will confirm.

The Anodising and laser etching of the logo will increase the cost too.
Have always found their stuff good and prices quite reasonable.

They will be built to a price and to get a totally smooth finish would add to the machining time per unit and as a result the cost

Owner actualy seemed quite intrigued that people would pay £150+ for something they could make fairly easily, looks like hope might be getting some competition!

Generally decent kit, generally overpriced, sums it up for me

Complete tosh. If you factor in the cost of design, testing, producing all the components, marketing, distribution, support, spares etc you can see where the money goes. If it was overpriced people would not buy it, and don't even think about suggesting that all the manufacturers are in it together to keep the price up, or that people just buy stuff because of the name. The reputation of the brand is earned by supplying good product at the right price. It's a very competitive market out there, and if anyone could manufacture complete systems or individual components and substantially cheaper prices in store then they would do.

Edit – forgot to say I like Hope stuff because it works, it's reliable, it's reasonably priced, you can service it yourself, and the support is great

i do like hope stuff and have lots of it, but i had a look at their new stem at the weekend and nearly took my finger off with the sharp edges on the side profiles, could be its been picked up and it was a first run but thought it could have been finished better

Surely, although i may be wrong, there's some cost of design involved in that?

I've spoken to my father about this – he runs a CNC outfit at a yacht builder.

Apparently its 'lazy machining' to leave the marks as they are – something closer to the Thomson finish is more acceptable. It doesn't affect the product, but to leave it that way means the number of CNC head passes are reduced and you don't need to swap out for some finer tooling to enable a better finish.

Therefore, to leave that kind of finish allows them to manufacture quicker and produce more units for the same machine time.

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.

Its easy to see why other engineering houses would consider it 'poor work' especially if they're used to producing machined surfaces to a higher spec.

Not to mention their second to none customer service.
The machining may not be up to the top standards of say aerospace but I would say it's better than 2 pieces of plastic screwed together and is same/similar price!

hilldodger – Member
It's relatively easy given access to the material, the tech and a working finished product to copy for a skilled machinist to 'knock up a few in their lunch hour' and be competitive on price.

Factor in design, marketing/sales, transport/packaging, staff overheads, safety/quality compliance etc and you start to see that somethings aren't that expensive after all……

Seems like a good excuse to show the pedals I bought from a garage in North Vancouver the other day 😉 But yeah, Dark Cycles is an 'out of hours' type project by machinists who are generally making other stuff.

From experience I think the customer service and the hubs are excellent but the rest of the kit, including the brakes I've found to be inferior to Shimano in terms of reliability and design.

I want to buy British but i've found better stuff out there.

Im not saying they wanted ot copy a hope calliper/brake but I was supprised (given the cost of the hope stuff) that his imediate reaction was looking at it and finding fault.

No idea how big an opperation Hope is, but I'd hazzard a guess that its comparable in size to the place i was at today.

And disk brakes aren't that complicated, I recon any graduate mech/materials engineer could come out with a fully FEM modeled design in no time. I'm not even a mech engineer but I recon I could give it a good go (using simple maths rather than FEM, but still).

Whoa!! That's one rare set of pedals wouldn't mind a set for the pub/pose bike project 😛

well it may be that market dictate them to have the 'marks'.
Have any of you seen any of the formula prototypes? Well they are fabulous bits of machined engineering. But then why oh why they production ones are mould/cast…? Cost? Nope. Capacity? Nope. It's just that machined stuff is hope business. Formula market is mould/cast end off. So for hope, the more brutal/raw a caliper look like, the more marketed it is. Some people old enough will remember the C2/DH4/XC4/Mini/M4/mono series. All with a very smooth finish…

…his imediate reaction was looking at it and finding fault…

Engineers can be like that 😉

Me: "Generally decent kit, generally overpriced, sums it up for me"

CaptainMainwaring: "Complete tosh. If you factor in the cost of design, testing, producing all the components, marketing, distribution, support, spares etc you can see where the money goes"

Ah, I see. So all of those costs are exclusive to Hope, which is why their kit tends to cost more than equivalent (or better) products from other companies- they obviously don't have to spend anything on design, testing, production, marketing, distribution, support or spares.

Juan wrote,

"Have any of you seen any of the formula prototypes? Well they are fabulous bits of machined engineering. But then why oh why they production ones are mould/cast…? Cost? Nope. Capacity? Nope. It's just that machined stuff is hope business."

Er, it's almost certainly 100% down to cost

LoCo – Member
Whoa!! That's one rare set of pedals wouldn't mind a set for the pub/pose bike project

Ha yes. I planned to put them on my hardtail, but when I got them I decided they were too cool to get scratched up so they've gone on my cruiser!!

CaptainMainwaring: "Complete tosh. If you factor in the cost of design, testing, producing all the components, marketing, distribution, support, spares etc you can see where the money goes"

Ah, I see. So all of those costs are exclusive to Hope, which is why their kit tends to cost more than equivalent (or better) products from other companies- they obviously don't have to spend anything on design, testing, production, marketing, distribution, support or spares.

Yes, all those costs are exclusive to Hope for their products, as are all the same costs for Shimano etc. Their kit is competitively priced for what it does, how it lasts, how reliable it is, and how long it lasts, otherwise the market would simply not buy it

And disk brakes aren't that complicated, I recon any graduate mech/materials engineer could come out with a fully FEM modeled design in no time. I'm not even a mech engineer but I recon I could give it a good go (using simple maths rather than FEM, but still).

You're going to have to trust me when I say this – cause I do FE consultancy for a living – but the answers to the above are 'no you couldn't' and 'no they can't'. 😉 If I put together even a competitive/stupidly optimistic quote for doing a full assessment under the complete range of proof and fatigue loads, including building the FE model of a complete brake system, the ~£150 for the finished product would look very reasonable in comparision….

their kit tends to cost more than equivalent (or better) products from other companies

I dont think it does.
Tech M4s = £240
Formula RX = £260
Shimano saint = £250

I won't put avid in there as they are inferior to all of the above IME.

dunno, given a limitless supply of red bull i did my entire CFD study for my masters in 36 hours with 'some' sleep, including designing the system in a crappy archaic CAD package, modeling it in the CFD software, running umpteen simulations ('some' sleep was achieved during this) for different circumstances, collateing the data, drawing conclusions and writing the report).

Even a company like formula probably doesn't have more than 2-3 engineers working on the brakes (and I suspect not year round either) yet still bring out new brakes every year.

And i'm going to stick my neck out and say that brake callipers don't fail due to fatigue, or even normal/exceptional loads, I'd say the defining factor is going to be how stiff do you want the calliper. Hence why Hope can CNC them and shimano forge, similar performance (stiffness) and neither fatigiues or blows up.

Not saying I could definately do it, but given a milling machine and a block of decent aluminium I'd happily put my faith in the results.

Er, it's almost certainly 100% down to cost

It is not. The reason I gave you above is from the mouth of the forumla rep himself when asked by the LBS spanner god why formula did not do their brakes in machined.

Tech M4s = £240
Formula RX = £260
Shimano saint = £250

yes, but, when was the last time someone paid RRP for shimano brakes, I'd feel conned if I paid £70 and end! And thats not quite like for like either, at those prices shimano will be a floating rotor, thats an extra with hope.

"I dont think it does.
Tech M4s = £240
Formula RX = £260
Shimano saint = £250"

That's not a very good comparison is it? Saint is much more powerful than the M4s, while the RX is a lot lighter than the M4s for comparable performance

And those prices are crooked too for that matter, shopping around all 3 brake systems cost within a couple of quid of each other without discs. At that price, Saint is far better for the heavy brakers and Formula are higher performing at a lower weight, Hope are a pretty distant 3rd tbh.

If you want a better comparison, M4s are less powerful and heavier than Shimano Deore 😉

"Yes, all those costs are exclusive to Hope for their products, as are all the same costs for Shimano etc. Their kit is competitively priced for what it does, how it lasts, how reliable it is, and how long it lasts, otherwise the market would simply not buy it "

Cobblers, and you must know it, mountain biking is filled with people paying over the odds for products, especially when it has a popular brand name on it.

Well a suburu wrx thingy is faster than a BMW coupe, doesn't make it better.
I've had oros and I can tell you that your brakes are nowhere near as good as tech M4s. 😉
Modulation, easy adjustability, durability, amazing customer service and repairable. All ticks for the hopes mate.
I've had formulas, avids and 2 x hopes. Not tried shimano but would like a go on the saints.

If you want a better comparison, M4s are less powerful and heavier than Shimano Deore

Total and utter c*ck. Heavier yes. Less powerful? 🙄

Cobblers, and you must know it, mountain biking is filled with people paying over the odds for products, especially when it has a popular brand name on it

As I said in my earlier post

and don't even think about suggesting that all the manufacturers are in it together to keep the price up, or that people just buy stuff because of the name. The reputation of the brand is earned by supplying good product at the right price

If you think that, you are deluded and/or have a chip on your shoulder

anyone can take a product and say its shite, the same way as a cockney **** always has a mate that could have bought something cheaper than what you paid. when the OP engineer mate produces a calliper bett er and at the same cost then he is in a position to criticise .

Owner actualy seemed quite intrigued that people would pay £150+ for something they could make fairly easily, looks like hope might be getting some competition!

Q: If it was so easy and lucrative, why haven't they capitalised already and made millions?

A: Because it is not particularly easy or particularly lucrative.

"Total and utter c*ck. Heavier yes. Less powerful 🙄 "

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.

"or that people just buy stuff because of the name"

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? Seriously? I didn't actually make any of the other comments that you're railing about but the idea that people only ever buy good value products is just ludicrous, makes me wonder what world you live in.