Hope HB.211 – Carbon bike Project

I was told that the owner of a North Vancouver shipyard needed to find a project for workers during a lull. His solution was to ask them to take one of the family yachts and stretch it, adding a 30 feet of length in the middle of the hull. He’d get a longer boat to enjoy and keep staff working and, more importantly, it was an opportunity to show off his skilled employees.

I don’t know if there was a lull at Hope but it seems they decided to build a carbon frame because they realized they could. And because they wanted a bike to ride. Aside from welding the rear stays, Hope employees did everything in house. The company has been toying with carbon for some time, building handlebars, to be released later in the year, and a seatpost which is ready now, so they decided to build a frame; without any rules.

They made a new rear hub standard, pushing out the spokes and caliper and increased the chainline, similar to Boost,  mounted the rear caliper radially so different rotors only require washers instead of superfluous adapters. And they made the bike that Hope staff wanted to ride. Ten more are planned but they are all spoken for by Hope employees. Will these bikes come to market? That remains to be seen.

What Hope says about producing carbon frames:

“There’s a wealth of knowledge around carbon fibre in the UK, with the majority of the current F1 teams being based here as well as a thriving aerospace industry. This gives us access to some of the world’s most talented carbon fibre engineers, right on our doorstep. The challenge was taking their skill at producing batches of two components, and scaling it up to production quantities.”

“Since our existing products are manufactured using the processes most companies only use to produce their first prototypes ie CNC machined rather than cast or precision forged, it’s not been an unusual experience for us. Mould production has been one of the easiest processes since these are made on CNC machines and we already have a few of these.”

“Cutting and laying up the carbon sheet is quite a labour intensive process, but keeping production on site in Barnoldswick gives us total confidence in the quality of parts we can produce.In the past there have been reservations internally about the safety of manufacturing in carbon fibre and although carbon fibre production is a new process to us, with the correct controls and working practices put in place, it can be made an extremely safe process. Also by manufacturing in our own factory in the UK to strict health and safety regulations, we can ensure a safe working environment for our staff, which is more than can be said for some companies who have parts produced in anonymous factories around the world.”

The big question is; will Hope produce this frame? The answer is not clear at all; “This project was started as a design exercise, rather than a commercial project. We never considered if it would be profitable to make our own bike in the UK. But maybe it will be – Watch this space.”

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