Further reading turns up the interesting Shimano Capreo groupset:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/capreo/index.html

Shame it’s not 10 speed (yet…)

Just read that article – sounds like the Hope one is closer to production than theirs.
Great that more people are exploring the concept though.

beat me to it! Thx

Ah – found it:

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/9-36-cassette-prototype-2011.html

9 tooth cassette sprockets feel disgusting under any load

Maybe true, but if it’s your top gear you’ll hardly ever use it, and you’ll be spinning when you do not cranking out of the saddle.

There is the DT Swiss / Specialised version of this

This is the first time I have heard of this – can you point me in the right direction for more info?

I just emailed Hope about this in the end and got the following response:

“It will be coming out early next year. We want to give it a long term test to make sure it is 100%”

Bit of a wait for it yet then…

martinxyz – are you waiting for a warranty claim or something? if so what happened to the hub?

Yeah the shifter is a bit of a mystery isn’t it.
It retails for £65 which is £10 more than an XT shifter, so you’d expect it to be of equal or better quality.
I can’t see what’s different about it other than that it pulls a slightly different length of cable and and has 11 index points rather than 10.

I have been keeping an eye out online for people having problems with their Alfine 11’s and pistonbroke’s is the first I’ve heard of – has anyone else heard/seen any other reports of problems?

strike – where did you hear that? all the articles i have read on it have said early 2011 so far.

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/eurobike-2010-hopes-new-cassette-with-integrated-freehub-27582/

It says:

“According to Hope, a Pro 2 wheel with Hope cassette works out 20g lighter than with a freehub and SRAM’s top-end XX sprockets fitted.”

No, they have said the crankset is still at the experimental stage and will definitely not come out this year, whereas the cassette is supposedly to be released soon.

The cassette is supposed to fit on a normal Hope Pro 2 hub I believe, it just replaces the existing freehub body.

I also read somewhere that the green one was a prototype and the real ones won’t be green. Seems logical that they will offer different colours at some point though.

pistonbroke – surely you should return the hub to Shimano under warranty? Does not sound right at all so could well be faulty.

I got a papercut opening a parcel that CRC sent me last week – how much compensation do you think I could get if I take them to court?

I’m looking forward to the completion of the investigation that CRC are currently undergoing. At that point we’ll all know a lot more than we do now

I reccon the most you will ever get out of them will be something like “The problems have now been resolved, please resume purchasing.”

Or more likely nothing at all.

Households could reduce consumption by 75%

Yeah, they could, but most are not going to are they! And how exactly would you force people to do this? The answer is you can’t.

Plus household use accounts for only about one third of the energy used in the UK anyway.

Thanks for the reply. I had a 15 tooth in mind – do you think it would fit ok?

Maybe a little, I’m 5’11 and run a 100mm stem and a layback post, but it rides perfectly like that.

+1

The X-Fusion is the heaviest dropper post out there as far as I know, but as you say it is not that much heavier than the competition.

On the MTBR forum someone has put up a photo of the hilo on some scales along with the handlebar remote and the cable and it weighed exactly 600g

No problem removing them with a hacksaw and file if you are careful.

Bearings need regular maintenance.
Freehubs don’t last long.
They weight a lot.

Despite all that they are still pretty good though.

Great bikes. Shame they’ve put those minging 44mm head tubes on them this year – looks awful!

Genesis 853 gets my vote.

Can’t see why not. It has disc mounts and 135mm rear hub spacing which is all that matters I think.

The shimano ratio is a recommendation I believe – I don’t think they have said anywhere that you shouldn’t use a lower ratio or that the warranty is void if you do. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

There are a coupe of stories on US forums of people breaking alfine hubs when using lower ratios, but there are also people breaking hubs with the recommended ratio, and a whole lot more people running lower ratios just fine for some time now.

That is bizarre. You should insist on double butted spokes. They offer a significant weight saving and are more than strong enough for most applications, especially on a road bike.

I wouldn’t cancel all your credit cards – it will adversely affect your credit rating. Keep them open with zero balance (ideally). If you’re worried about the cards falling into the wrong hands then just cut them up.

There is a lot of discussion about this in this thread on MTBR:
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=590178

Where did you get your hub from? I can’t find any UK shops that have it yet.

Would be interested to hear your thoughts on it once you get it going.

Great post!

Regarding the weight balance, I think a better way to measure it would be to put the bike on two sets of scales, one under each wheel, and look at the ratio between the two weights.

I just had a look online and discovered that I could buy a bike that does everything I would ever need for around £1000.
Or I could get last years model or a second hand one for considerably less.

That does not seem expensive at all for what it is – in fact it seems like a bargain.

I always liked those forks. I wonder if you could fit a modern air shock in there instead of that coil – might be able to get good performance out of them if so.

DT comps are pretty much always the best choice, regardless of the type of riding you are planning on it seems.

That weight seems reasonable for a steel frame with sliders.

How do maufacturers get away with this whole “claimed weight” scam anyway?? It is always well below the actual weight. All they have to do is put their product on a scale as you have done and then give us the real figures. It seems to be accepted that official weight figures are basically lies – it’s high time manufacturers started being honest about weights.

Thanks for the info

Thanks for the tips. Guess I could try selling them, but they are a very uncommon length (280mm) so probably won’t sell. The polishing could be quite therapeutic to do whilst watching TV or something…

Yeah but if you had a load of black ones already but you really wanted silver ones it could be an option…!

So has anyone actually tried to remove the coating – how easily does it come off?

I think the Fox one is only a 3-position post, whereas the RockShox is any-position. That makes the RockShox the clear winner for me.

Really? Just from the number plate? how do you do that?