HOPE, the famous English brand of Barnoldswick is going to release end of march - starting april 2016 what everybody is waiting since the Eurobike 2015... its HOPE 11 speed wide cassette. This is the achievement of a quite long term development project for the English brand. Around 4 years ago, Hope was presenting a 9/36T cassette directly machined with the freehub....1 solid block...but the project evolved to a 10/37T to become what it is today with a nice 10/40/44T cassette !
As a reminder, Hope design and produce all its products on site in Barnoldswick, none of its production is externalised.
The HOPE 11 speed wide cassette is built around 1 massive billet of hardened stainless steel for the first 7 sprockets, and a second smaller billet of aluminium for the 4 largest.
The first part / block of the cassette, also sold as a DH 7 speed Cassette, is the masterpiece. Those 7 sprockets (10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21, 24t) are made of 1 piece of hardened stainless steel : strong and resistant ready ride over time (certainly long tested in wet and muddy conditions under an unpredictable "English weather" ).
TO expand the cassette to 11 speed, the 4 largest sprockets (2 options available 28, 32, 36 and 40t or 28, 32, 38 and 44t) are machined in a single piece of Aluminium.
The interesting part is that the 4 last sprockets are going to be sold separately, meaning you ll have the possibility to interchange them depending on the place where you plan to ride requesting a 40T or 44T sprocket.
Of course, the HOPE 11 speed wide cassette, with a start at 10 T, request a specific freehub developed by hope. This special shortened freehub body is compatible with HOPE PRO 2 EVO Hub and HOPE PRO 4 hub. Of course you can directly buy your next HOPE PRO 4 hub with this shortened freehub !
It is only compatible with an 11 speed MTB Chain (Shimano or Sram).
This cassette will be easy to recognize from far as it it bi-colour with raw inox steel finish and a kind of E-black finish for the aluminium block. Be sure with the time that Hope will propose coloured cassette to fit with their nice HOPE crankset.
What about the 10 speed HOPE wide cassette ? Well step by step, as the Mini DH cassette is designed to be used with an 11 speed Mtb chain only, the spacing between each sprocket is not working correctly for a 10 speed chain. Meaning that the 10 speed Hope cassette cannot result from a quick adaptation of the 11 speed version with only 3 largest sprockets instead of 4. It need to be reworked/thinked from the beginning.
HOPE 11 speed wide cassette
Weight : 10-40 only 273g
Average Pricing confirmed for now (may vary till the product release) :
- Cassette 10/40T or 10/44T : £175 - 230 Euros
- Cassette 10/40T or 10/44T + Hope Freehub : £225 - 297 Euros.
Hope Website : http://www.hopetech.com/product/11spd-cassette/#tech
Hope on Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/hopetech
