PSA 'Bargain' Hope HB160

im lovin the geo whinging. Every time a bike that is slightly different to the current fashion comes out, people love to whine on. Geometrons were to long, mondrakers were to forward, yetis had too longer stays, now hope is to short. If it rides as well as it looks, which I hear it does, who cares if it’s numbers are a degree or cm out from what is currently in vogue.

It’s not the right geo or wheel size for me, but I take my hat off to them for doing this and wish them every success (which I’m sure they’ll have).

They’re lovely lovely things in the flesh. Great to see that they’re refunding those who coughed up early, can’t think of many who’d do that.

The geometry thing is funny, I think we may be getting too a point where bikes can’t get much longer; reading PB’s review of the latest Foxy, the reach is massive and the reviewer wanted a steerer seat angle to compensate and he pushed the saddle as far forward as he could. It sounded like a bit of a barge too.

Interesting few days with price drops from Maxxis and Production Privee too.

Think it is a very nice gesture by hope bit they probably would have had a few disgruntled customers otherwise…

Probably a case of needing to price it high as there would be certain people with enough money that just buy the latest shiny thing but not really knowing if there was enough demand for a decent volume, so there probably is and even more so with the lower price.

Geometry on paper is massively misleading as typified by the Nicolai Geometron. I was at Hope just before Christmas and they were getting loads of HB160’s ready to be delivered and they are nothing short of stunning. They had a real look of durability about them and their CNC’d chainstay is an inspired idea as lots of carbon bikes actually fail in that area. I also noticed they had customised each bike with different colours of hubs and brakes and even bearing caps so that’s a nice touch for individualisation. If I had £5500 to spend on a bike and wanted carbon and Nicolai were no longer making bikes then I would much rather have one of these than the mass produced lookalike crap that most manufacturers throw out.

My guess is that they made a small production run and found that there was a massive demand for the bike so they can be made in much greater numbers and the moulds and machinery is set up to make more so prices can be reduced dramatically now they know how to do it. Some bikes were going as far afield as Australia!

I like wheels as big as possible, but I’d be tempted by the hope if I had the cash – as others have said, intelligent things like a stronger, stiffer rear wheel without having a wider hub etc have to be good things.
And being locked into Hope hubs and brakes? To me it’s great to see a bike with stuff that, money no object, is what I’d put on it anyway.

I’m also a fan of the CNC stays. Makes a lot of sense. Maybe they should do different lengths of chainstays for the various sizes too.

And I bet if you did break one they’d have another in the post to you quick sharp.

And I bet if you did break one they’d have another in the post to you quick sharp.

This. If I had that much cash to spend on a bike, warranty/customer service would feature highly on my checklist of wants. Plus you’d know it’d never be difficult to get parts for, even years down the line. Can anyone actually top Hope in those departments?

It was getting all the looks down here in Oz in September 🙂 Close up the finish and attention to detail looks great

As with anything value and cost depends on your perspective
https://www.vashi.com/engagement-rings/preset/
See stones we find and polish as an example, except for cutting into display cases what does a diamond do for you in exchange for 10k?