This neat chainring from Hope has an extended edge to act as a bashguard, and it’s lighter than two separate items. Usefully for anyone running a twin-ring-specific chainset, you don’t need to mount anything to the outer tabs.
They’re available in one-tooth increments from 32-36T, three anodised colours and with the common 104mm bolt spacing. The wider 120mm spacing of SRAM doubles aren’t catered for.
The ring is designed to work with Hope’s chain device, which is available in an array of mountings and only constitutes an upper guide; an aluminium fin to prevent the chain moving off line. Its height and clearance is adjustable via an Allen head bolt.
The setup is light at 136g (80g for the 34T ring and 56g for the ISCG05 device) but the big trade-off is in durability. It’s obviously not meant for trials-style mashing, but a heavy strike can bend the bashguard, which in turn knocks the chainring out of alignment.
More annoyingly, the aluminium fin kept getting knocked up and out of place when the chain misfed, and caught under it when on really rough descents. Having to repeatedly tighten it to prevent the movement led to the small, soft alloy bolt/guide disintegrating, which meant a mid-ride zip-tie bodge repair and a case of sadface.
Hope told us our guide was a preproduction model and sent a replacement nut and bolt, which have been fine so far, but we still think a steel Nyloc nut would be a more idiot-proof solution.
It’s relatively noisy too, though a plastic rather than alloy slider would quieten it down, and in less trying trail conditions it did keep the chain secure.
This article was originally published in What Mountain Bike magazine, available on Apple Newsstand and Zinio.