bainbridge

@Mac1987: I've ran several pairs of The Ones, RO and RXO and every set has been great. Very little maintenance of any, probably bled them once every year or two just to refresh the fluid. Loved the shape, power, modulation. The last pair of RO annoyed me a little as the lever pivot hole wore out instead of the bushing so it rattled around a bit. Overall if highly recommend them for anything including DH. I've never tried the Cura but I'm sure they're similar. I'm currently running Hayes and have to say they've been faultless, super light lever action, nice to bleed with the double port on the caliper and easy to set up with the little grub screw to align the caliper to the disk. The last two things are a nice addition over anything else on the market but it wouldn't be a deal breaker over the Formulas,I rate both highly. Paul Aston has done a review of the Formulas and highly rates them. TBH I'm surprised you don't see more of both companies in the trails.

@Matt115lamb: Hope's base level is still at the upper end of the market isn't it? Carbon hope frame, hope brakes, stem, etc etc. They aren't cheap but compared to a relatively mass produced frame from the far East is a pretty good deal, and like everyone says the support from hope of second to none

@Compositepro: I think we'll agree to disagree on the government budgets makes it easy. But we do agree that making products for the same cost as the far East is very hard. I think hope are doing it right with their bikes, it's top end stuff, hope everything on it, looks great and honestly I think it's good value compared to a specialized, Santa Cruz etc. To try to compete with cheap frames would be incredibly hard. I think you have to go high end/high tech or high value/volume.

@arichards64: no I'm not saying it's better to buy mass produced parts where workers get abused, I'm not sure how you read that from what I wrote but anyway... Producing a competitive priced and spec'd bike/component in the UK to sell world wide is hard if you want to have a reasonable profit margin. The UK has high living standards and costs, it is what it is. That gets factored into production costs. Hope automate a lot of the production which helps, machines and raw materials have a fairly consistent cost regardless of where they are in the world. It's all the other costs that add up to cause the problems. Hope it at the upper end of the cost scale for every component, some sell well abroad, some do not. Other companies own a big chunk of that price point in those markets, industry nine hubs, Chris king hubs, race Face cranks and bars etc. These companies are natives in that area, don't have the import duties and have the home grown support that hope enjoy in the UK. Let's be honest they are all desirable products. Some companies in the Western world have a wage cost of 50% of the total operating cost although you would look for around 30% for manufacturing. That cost for a I'll company compared to a Chinese/Taiwanese company makes a big difference to your profit margin. Many would argue we have a more skilled and productive workforce, which is sometimes true, although there is plenty of skill in other parts of the world, hence why most alloy frame are made in Taiwan. To sell something you have to be competitive through a combination of price, performance, advertising, social media, warranty etc. Cost is only one aspect but also a vital one and that's the main one brexit is effecting at the moment through unknown tariffs, so much so that companies are unwilling to trade in case they get hit by fines or lose a load of money. Once they figure out the costs and complexity they'll trade again but will the market be smaller/same/larger than before? If it's the same product/quality etc as before but cost changes that that will decide the sales, cheaper=higher sales, expensive=less sales. Operations are not ready to scale up, e.g. Press fit bottom brackets, correct canyon warranty issues, pole bikes, trick stuff to make but a few. It takes a lot of manpower and know how to scale up if you don't want to fuck up. It can be done but if you underestimate the task it will bite you like all the examples above. Like I said Hope do very well but sales abroad aren't massive abroad due to the competition they face. It's very possible to have a successful business post brexit but depending on what you're selling and where, it might be harder or easier. Out of all of the trade deals and outcome of brexit so far makes you confident of British success or not confident? For the record I was for brexit but voted against it. That might sound strange, but there was never a plan to make it a success, just an idealism. From my experience if you don't have a plan you're screwed, if you have a good plan you have a chance but it's still not guaranteed. Nothing is guaranteed, not even for multi billion pound companies.

@arichards64: living costs, wages, rent etc are so much cheaper over in Asia than the UK. Even if you fully automate a factory you still have rent/land costs, staff costs for engineers, sales, accountants, managers, packing etc. That cost has to be absorbed and it has to go to the cost of the product. If multi billion pound industries struggle to make it work, it's unlikely that bike companies will. A certain profit margin has to be made for the company to be viable. Hope do very well for themselves but they are nowhere near the size of SRAM, Shimano, Trek etc. If you ride in the UK you'd think they were, go to Europe and it's less prominent. North America you see the hubs but it's rare to see anything else. From my memory of a few years ago, I don't think one shop sold hope brakes in Vancouver, Whistler, Squamish, Bellingham. I asked one shop who sold the hubs why and they said they are too expensive and there just isn't the demand. At the end of the day, if you live in a well developed country, it has a high cost of living which works against mass production costs unfortunately for things like bike manufacturing. Our ancestors certainly did there bit for globalization with the British empire and trading/expanding all over the world, it might explain why Curry's are so popular in the UK. The UK designs and manufactures some of the most high tech equipment in the world, F1, Motorsports, space, weapons etc. Where you command the cost to cover production, lower cost is harder to do. If it was that easy to do, companies would already be doing it with our without being part of Europe. We've left the biggest free trade group in the world and are trying to figure out what we do now. Take a look at Wikipedia and see what free trade agreements Europe has, the government has to equal or ideally better that which will be pretty much impossible unfortunately. If you want cheap labour to manufacture, that'll have to come from abroad and we just cut off the supply somewhat from European countries like Poland. Maybe it's a good job the government has increased the visa numbers from outside Europe, in the future we might have less Europeans and more Botswana's. Manufacturing loves stability and that's exactly what we don't have just now. How that changes in the future no one knows. People voted to be free of the restraints of Europe, to control borders and immigration and for extra money for the NHS. The problem is that no solid plans were ever put in place to show how this would happen and no measures were set. Basically the politicians will say it was a success but with no facts or figures behind it.

Pearl Izumi do a version of the Alp X with the Boa, I was hoping they would be reviewed here, they look great