Just In – Hope V-Twin

More and more cyclo-cross bikes are emerging with disc-mounts fitted as standard nowadays, some with cantilever mounts as well just to hedge their braking bets, some colours-to-the-mast disc-specific. Discs have yet to make any impact on the Pro cross ranks, but there are legions of riders who use their cyclo-cross bikes for a mix of racing and commuting and misbehaving off-road and the odd up and coming CX Sportive and like the braking force, predictability and lack of rim wear that discs can bring and see those benefits as a practical trade-off for the added weight over cantilevers.

While we’re waiting for the big boys to sort themselves out (which has been “soon, honest” for quite a while now) and bring us an integrated drop-bar disc brake system riders have to put up with cable discs and their imperfections or pick from the tiny selection of converters that allow a cable brake lever to work with a hydraulic calliper, such as this Hope V-Twin.

Hope have been making mountainbike discs for years so they should know what they’re doing, the V-Twin converter is CNC machined in Barnoldswick and the transition from cable to hydraulic is achieved with an extremely simple piston system, removing the need for the complicated levers that some other systems use. The V-Twin master cylinder is connected via pre-bled hoses to Hope’s X2 callipers, a one-piece design for low weight with high stiffness. It comes with a mounting bracket to fit the master cylinder under the stem, which is made out of a thin metal so it takes up minimal ahead space.

For your £260 you get the master cylinder, front and rear callipers, brake hoses and headset fixings in a system that tips the scales at 448g, a weight that will make the ‘cross purists wince and others point at the bulky nests of mud, grass and leaves that can gather round cantilevers, and the ability to stop at will. A pair of Hope 160mm rotors will add a further 91g and £38 each to the package.

The V-Twin has been performing well in the hands of Hope team cyclo-cross riders, winning both normal painful CX races and the especially painful Three Peaks, and now this one is going on the Winter Project. We’ll let you know how it goes, or stops.

www.hopetech.com