In those long-forgotten days before they started collecting Gold medals, the bikes on the Hope stand proved some of the most popular machines at the last Rouleur Live show in 2019.
Since being used to excellent effect by Team GB at the Tokyo Olympics, the firm’s single-gear HB.T track bike has been joined by an equally radical prototype time trial machine. Debuted by racer Ethan Vernon at the U23 World Championships in Flanders, this is currently one of only two in existence. It’s also coming to our show...
Featuring the same vast stance and blade-like tubes found on Team GB’s track bikes, the Hope HB.TT required a considerable amount of extra work to convert it into a road-going format. Copying the position Vernon uses for track pursuit events, the HB.TT also has to accommodate front and rear derailleurs, along with Hope’s road-specific prototype disc brakes. Designed to fit flush behind the fork’s dropout, other features are copied more directly from the track version. These include the bike’s extremely narrow base bar and radical eight-centimetre wide fork blades and seatstays.
Related: The Bikes and Tech to see at Rouleur Live
Elsewhere, more parts of the frame have been brought in-house. This sees the bike move away from the 3D printed titanium components found on the track variant. In their place are carbon fibre or CNC machined elements that are now created in Barnoldswick. Apparently resulting in a stiffer bike that’s better suited to the road, they also help reduce the production cost of what is still one of the most expensive bikes ever made.
Likely to cost between £10,000 and £15,000 once available to the public, you’ll be able to meet some of the bike’s creators at the show. Labouring over the precisely made aluminium moulds from which the frames emerge, Hope’s craftspeople will be demonstrating the bike’s construction live over each of the three days. Allowing you to see exactly how the bike is put together, it’s a chance to get under the skin of one of the most progressive bike designs of the last few decades.
For those with an equal interest in the exterior of their bicycles, Hope will also be showing an HB.T track bike painted by Death Spray Customs. Creator of outrageous colour schemes for cars and motorbikes, the bike’s broad tubes should give him plenty of scope for something equally radical — just pedal rather than petrol-powered.
Taking place in London between the 4-6th November, more information and tickets for Rouleur Live can be found here.
