I thought this was an interesting, (perhaps inevitable) development:

Eurobike 2019: Convert your Hope Pro 4 to Microspline for $25

Wonder if it will incentivise Shimano to give Hope a license sooner rather than later?

Dunno, but isnt there something in copyright/patent law that means that if this goes unchallenged then the protection is null? Hence why you get specialized going after cafes, they’re not a real threat to their business but they have to do it to stop someone else also making roubaix branded bike parts.

Dunno if hope would be that bothered about aftermarket freehubs. They’ve never actually been that good at supporting the upgrading of older products. You could fit a 12mm axle in an old hope xc hubs 6001 bearings. But they’ll never make an end cap or spacers for it. See also; pro2, pro2 evo, pro2 evo 40t, pro4 incompatibilities.

Since that £25 is apparently the bulk price, I’d imagine it’ll be twice that by the time there’s a distributor.

So I’d just hang on for the proper hope version, which will at least have bearings, pawls etc of a known quality.

Weird and misleading way to cover that product IMO.

It’ll end up with resellers on ali express. I doubt any company would be brazen enough to officially import them.

Looks like Shimano have finally seen sense and relaxed the licensing anyway….

Shimano Expands MicroSpline Licensing

That’a good news. To be frank I’m getting pretty fed up of my GX Eagle, it was great when it was new but 4 months in and the shifting is awful, it ghost shifts and clunks and no amount of indexing, new chains and cables seems to fix it. (I’ve got the B Screw tool as well). I moaned about wearing through M8000 cassettes in a few months, but at least they worked well up to the point they started skipping.