Just look at that cassette!! I'll need a new cassette and freehub body for my Hope 2 come the start of next year, bloomin' alloy body and steel cassette.....and this will only cost £50 more.

A combined singlespeed hub/sprocket would get away from those 'soft alloy' freehub gouges too?

I hope they do one in red, pretty please with sugar on top

...remembering back to my Trek 360...isn't a cassette with integrated hub a just multispeed freewheel? And the industry stopped doing that because if something whent wrong or you wanted to make an alteration you had to replace the whole thing. Anyone?

@B125

Multispeed freewheels are crap when it comes to servicing, yes, because the bearings are tiny and the entire operation is too fiddly. Hope's system looks to be similar to a lot of high-end road wheels nowadays, where the ratchet pawls sit inside the hub shell and are held together with the axle nuts.

At least that's what it looks like, and no doubt they've done some mechanical wizardry letting you replace the sealed bearings and ratchet pawls when they die.

@BI125 : speaking as an owner of the obscure Trek 360 myself, it seems as if the concept is similar. I don't know how it's attached to the hub body, but I'm sure it's better than the large diameter threaded attachment of freewheels. It's a bit of a shame to throw away the entire ratchet mechanism every time the cogs need changing, but some people must save 20 grams at any cost.

I second Radioactivemans call for a red one!!

Everyone knows red bits are the fastest!

I can't see those aluminium top cogs lasting very long. XTR was lambasted for using Titainium on the top four for it's durability against steel. At least the XX is all stainless so should last an age.

I would like a purple one please!!!!

Oh dear lord.

I thought I'd escaped screw on freewheels back in 1997. Now they're back, back and pretending to be something else.

I suppose it'll be a good way to spot the people with more money than sense.

A modern take on an old idea. To be fair £150 seems pretty reasonable considering you are getting the freewheel mechanism built in. Compared to XX anyway which are somewhere around £300 are they not.

For me the freehub launched by Shimano in the 80's seemed like a great idea that I fell for on my first good bike. Oh yes easy to remove and replace only the sprockets that are worn and you can build the ratios that you want. And how long was it before the BIG S ditched the individual sprockets and spacers and introduced the combined cassette. So there goes, what for me, was the big seller of the freehub system.

Some people here are comparing the product to a screw on freewheel bu it's definately not an accurate comparison.

We stopped using screw on freewheels mainly because the cassette system lets you spread the bearings and load across more of the axle. Hence why a lot less people bend and break hub axles these days.

This idea from Hope is a pretty good one and it their hubs were as well made as DT then I certainly would be interested. A singlespeed one would also be sweet because it would be a lot like the one piece drivers found on a BMX.

Quite interesting to see the Ti Nitride coating on the smaller cogs, personally I'd rather see a £500 one that is completely coated ;)

Is it just me or does that cassette have just 9 teeth on the smallest cog?

Come on, 20grs? A Ti cassette and and ti freehub (like on the old hope xcs) would easily do that with quadrupled durability.

So is that light 240 lumens x 3 then ?

If it is i'll have one.

The whole point of the (original and proper) freehub design was to allow the axle to be supported by the drive-side bearing close to the drop-out. All other variations of freehub design, lncluding Campag, fail to do this and thus there's no real advantage in this design over freewheels, except that it locks you into a single manufacturer, so it helps them.

Cyclists are gullible, and we pay an awful lot for not much at all, but at least it's a British company taking your money here.

Vegeeta - i'd say the pro 2's beat most of the dt's for durability. a mate of mine had a set of dt e2000 (the red ones) and the hub went after a year and a half. we've both had pro 2's for years that have never needed to be touched. This cassette is a great idea and hope tend to get things right first time (in my experience) as they release products that have been tried and tested before joe public gets his gt85 stained mitts on it. Something crank bros should learn from!

So is that light 240 lumens x 3 then ?

If it is i'll have one.

-----------------------------------------

Yes

So will I ;-)

Are the sprockets replaceable as looks like they are held on with allen bolts?

Hope so as seems a waste to throw away a good ratchet system when the cassette wears out.

Unless it has a shorter life expectancy that the current Pro 2 thst is