Partnership With Hope

The team alongside Hope's Alan Weatherill with the components that were kindly supplied to us as part of Hope's sponsorship of our project

Earlier this year, following the announcement of our Hope Tech sponsorship, we were given the exciting opportunity of visiting their Barnoldswick factory and headquarters to collect a gamut of components which will be used for our prototypes going forwards. This will ensure that our bike can compete with others not only in terms of the quality of the frame and its performance, but also the components attached to it.

One of Hope's many CNC machines

All of Hope's disc brake rotors are laser cut

While we were there, we also had the privilege of receiving a full tour of their facilities, led by Hope’s sales & marketing manager Alan Weatherill. We were shown every production stage for their aluminium and carbon fibre components. This included a vast array of CNC machines, carbon moulding equipment, spray booths, anodising baths, wheel lacing and truing machines, and their product testing room. This allowed us to see how components go from being a simple extrusion, forging or block of billet to being a finished product. This visit was hugely valuable to us as it not only provided us with a wealth of knowledge of how all of Hope’s parts are manufactured, and also more specifically the processes that went into manufacturing the parts that they have supplied to us as a part of the sponsorship. Seeing that such superb components can be manufactured in the UK has given us a huge amount of confidence going into the prototyping stages of our project.

Hope's crank arms are forged first, then CNC machined, ensuring that they're as strong as possible

From extruded billet to CNC machined brake calliper

Hope always utilises precise measurement equipment so as to prevent subpar units making it into consumer's hands

Amongst their array of products, Hope are particularly well-known for their brakes, and each and every model gets put through their paces on this test rig to ensure it is up to their high standards

Most importantly though, the information gained from speaking with Hope Tech’s carbon fibre team provided us with a hugely beneficial insight into the advantages and potential difficulties involved in manufacturing frames primarily out of carbon fibre. The ability to look at the moulds that are used as well as the intricacies of the process, such as layup, and the reasoning behind why extra layers of carbon fibre were added in certain areas was very useful. It was also very useful to witness how various manufacturing problems were solved. The knowledge that was gained from this part of the tour will inform the decision-making process leading up to manufacturing rideable prototypes. Carbon fibre is being considered as a potentially viable option due to the improved ability to ensure that each frame is aligned correctly in order to minimise problems such as unwanted flex and loads on the rear shock.

These chainstay mold inserts helped to ensure consistency between units

The anodising room showcased Hope's signature iconic colours

Due to the high volume of wheels that Hope sell these days, automation has become a big part of the wheel building process

In addition to this, we also learned a lot about the testing process that each of their products has to go through before making it to market, which was especially interesting to us given that they provided details of the forces that they would put through each of the individual parts of their carbon fibre frames, as well as the methods that they use to exert these forces. This was valuable to us as it has provided us with a great understanding of how to ensure that a bike frame’s durability - and thus also safety - can be maximised and ensured for the end user.

Alan demonstrating the testing equipment that is used to put frames through high loads

It was also great to see legendary race bikes such as Adam Brayton's Scott Gambler that he raced in the 2018 Downhill World Championships

We are enormously grateful for Hope’s involvement in this project, and cannot wait to put all of their components to use on our upcoming rideable prototypes.

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