Founded in 1989 by motorcycle trials fanatics Ian Weatherill and Simon Sharp who worked together at Rolls Royce Aerospace before starting up on their own, we were an early pioneer of disc brakes for mountain bikes. Now, three-and-a-half decades later, we manufacture everything from hubs to headsets and brakes to bottom brackets, stems and lights with around half of all production exported to over forty countries.
Over the past few years brands have begun to talk about reshoring and ‘local’ manufacturing to improve their sustainability, but we don’t need to reshore as it has never offshored. We have always believed in local manufacturing which has allowed us to operate a true just in time manufacturing system. Brakes machined in the morning can be anodised in the afternoon and shipped out to retailers before the end of the day.
Similarities can be drawn from the unique way we look at integration, most brands confine the vertical integration of processes to their sales channel. We look at the integration from the manufacturing side with virtually all processes in house in Barnoldswick. Raw materials are delivered into the factory and boxed finished goods are sent out direct to dealers throughout the UK and Europe.
This new film offers a glimpse behind the doors of our HQ, tucked away in the town of Barnoldswick in a rural corner of East Lancashire. You’ll get to meet the team behind the proudly UK-based, privately-owned manufacturer, see the process from drawing board to finished product and get a feel for the pure passion powering the constant innovation.
![bigquotes](https://es.pinkbike.org/246/sprt/i/bigquotes-left.svg) | It’s over 30 years now of manufacturing bike parts. We’re all very passionate about what we do – almost everyone here rides – and in this day and age we’re proud to be able to say that virtually all Hope products are designed and manufactured in the UK. Hopefully, this film gives an insight into what makes us tick and what drives the ongoing process of innovation.—Ian Weatherill, co-founder and managing director |
Film: A Game Films
USA all day
piston seals are way better than shimano, and also serviceable. Shimano requires binning the caliper, hopes can be rebuilt
the HG set up, those bloody alloy HG free hubs are only designed for the XT 10spd
alloy carrier cassettes, of which only six largest sprockets are mounted on lightweight alloy carriers,
so when things get chewed and they will its a £60-£80 to upgrade, fu c king nightmare when some
2nd hand wheel has a Deore cassette chew fused on, kinda goes against the long term reliable ethos
Hope claim.
Have resorted to fitting hamered and filed down Paslode F16 nail gun brad nails between the
cassette and free hub body splines, to give a hard durable surface to reduce the biting.
myself plus 3 friends just ditched half a season old v4 tech4 because none of them were properly working after half a season. all of us had at least one brake that failed the same way as described. shop confirmed they in total had 9 pairs from customers that weren't working properly and coming back to the shop. distibutor wasn't aware of a problem and couldn't help.
so myself plus my friends all bought new brakes. a shame but that thing was scary.
If you of your buddies would be willing to donate one of those levers I'd love to pull it apart and see what i can do ( maybe fix)
PM me if you're keen
On the upside Hope were always on the other end of the phone trying to help, but I still can’t bring myself to run Hope brakes ever again.
I’ve had more of their hubs fail than any other brand (snapped axles, broken hub flanges, cracked freehub shells) but then I’ve run more Hope hubs than any other brand over the years. Again, they always helped me out with warranty replacements and available spares, but that didn’t help when I was on the top of a French mountain with a broken rear axle.
It’s nice shiny stuff, it’s not perfect, even when they take ages to bring a new product to market, but they stand by their products and help riders out.
the Ali freehub bodies are awful, but I don't know anyone who didn't swap it out for the steel version before they even fitted the hubs.
Wild how folks experiences can differ
My boy was racing in a team (still is) and all 3 riders were running Hope Tech3 V4's.... all 3 riders had massive brake fade and levers back to the bar multiple times... Each and every one binned their brakes after. Mine runs CODE RSC now and loves them.
Wheels though, yeah from Pro2 to Pro4 and now Pro5 we have several on a few bikes... all excellent.