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TECH NEWS
Hope unveils new inline Hydraulic Crosstop brake levers with Paul Oldham winning the Three Peaks Cyclocross race
Hope Factory Racing’s Paul Oldham won the recent Three Peaks Cyclocross race for the second successive year, and if you followed the race closely you might just have spotted his new prototype Hope brakes.
Hope showed its new RX4 road disc brake calipers, which are compatible with SRAM and Shimano hydraulic disc brake levers, at the Eurobike show last month. That in itself is not the interesting bit: Paul’s bike was sporting a new inline Hydraulic Crosstop brake levers. We’ve never come across hydraulic inline brakes before.
Inline brake levers are quite common on cyclocross bikes with mechanically actuated brakes. These secondary brake levers allow the rider to operate the brakes from the centre of the handlebars. This can make it easier to operate the brakes in some circumstances, such as rocky descents like those that feature on the challenging Three Peaks course, and provide extra control in situations where riding on the hoods or drops isn’t practical.
Hope hasn’t released many details about the new levers at this stage. The company says it plans to put them into production, with Brand Manager Rachael Walker telling road.cc “we are developing the brakes over winter and hope (no pun intended) to have them ready for next spring.”
If you missed the story about the new RX4 brake calipers, Hope has put its extensive mountain bike expertise into a new four piston caliper that can be used with current SRAM or Shimano hydraulic brake levers. It claims to have developed a brake caliper that offers superior piston retraction which is aimed at reducing drag and disc rub. It has also developed new disc rotors with a chamfered rounded edge intended to be smooth to the touch, to allay any fears of disc rotors turning into spinning blades during a crash. You can read all about the new brakes here.
Pauls’ bike was a Scott Addict CX carbon fibre cyclocross frame with a SRAM Force 1x11 groupset using Hope’s own 11-speed cassette, matching Retainer Ring chainring and new carbon fibre seatpost. He used Schwalbe G-One tyres, a Fabric saddle and one bottle cage mounted to the seat tube, to provide more space for shouldering and carrying the bike up the steep hills.
Photos © www.hopetech.com
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
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15 comments
Did these end up getting produced? The hope website doesn't contain any info on them anymore and it looks like they have died a quiet death. A well functioning product would have been awesome.
Did just that years ago.
Spotted something on the web to copy so bought an old set of Hopes. Plan was to use cables to pull the levers but to chop the levers dwonand tuck it all away neatly. I don't like cross tops. Then Hope broght out their own 1 piece cable/hydro unit and it ws obviuosly much less bulky than mine so I kept the levers and produced what they are now doing. Its not bad if you like cross tops and dead easy to do with some old MTB levers. Really needs conventional rather than Os bars though.
It's not inline, it's a T or Y line with a non return valve upstream, simpler than inline on cables if you think about it...
Fair comment but that does not mean his bike is well set up or a good fit. Pros often win in spite of their set up. I don't think too many coaches would approve Sean Kelly's fit, or Contador's TT form with that constant scootch, or Jens Voight's wiggly riding. Many times we hold certain beliefs as being correct because that's how it's done. For example I used to think a cross country mountain bike needed a 100 to 120 stem to keep the front of the bike down for climbing. In recent years mountain bikes have gone through an epiphany of sorts when longer lower slacker became the norm with even XC race bikes going that way. I am riding so much better with a long bike and 50 mm stem I started thinking about why road bikes are set up with long stems. I went longer with my road bike and cross bike. The road bike is a Giant Defy and I run a 90 mm stem. Not short by any means but the bike has really nice handling. I have a slightly longer cross bike, Norco Threshold and run a 80 mm stem. It's a great handling bike. I sense that road bike geometry and fit is dictated more by tradition and certain beliefs than any critical thinking. But I don't know.
The argument that it must work because someone won is not a good one. Jaroslav Kulhavy does well on a very poorly set up bike in my opinion. I would suggest that he would win even more on a bikethat fit him better.
You did notice the part where it said he won
I would respectfully suggest that a longer bike with a shorter stem would negate the need for these. They are horrible to ride anything technical. Having your hands that close together is not very stable. You don't want to put your weight back when descending but you want to keep your weight roughly centred between the wheels. Too far back and less weight on the front wheel means less traction on the front wheel. You should use the drops when descending on a cross bike to keep your weight a bit lower. But with too long a stem there may be a feeling of going over the bars because your hands are over the contact patch. Bar tops are for climbing, not descending or anything technical. It's OK for flattish rough bits though and I can see the use of top mount levers for that.
Was about to post questioning if they were actually inline but then noticed the sneaky wee hose connection on the bottom of the lever, very neat!
Can't you just join two levers up with t-junction? Bit of a bodge, but should do the job.
No, because you'd just push fluid into the reservoir of the other lever. Presumably these levers have no reservoir, and close the line to the main levers when you start to pull them.
I believe that with Magura's old HS66 road hydraulic brake levers, you could chain a pair of their canti levers as top levers too. My neighbour still has some on his tourer, I'll check that out.
I had that exact conversation a few weeks ago after installng a set of (conventional) crosstop levers. Good to see it's been done, but that's obviously going to cost quite a bit more than what is currently a very cheap add-on for cable brakes. They're just something I've got very used to for city riding, so that I'm always covering the brake even if I switch to a more upright position.
Oh, bonus points to Hope for drilling the levers.
That's the only use I ever found for them. They're horrible off-road - using the tops puts your hands much closer together, so you sacrifice quite a lot of steering control. Given that one of the main benefits of disc brakes is powerful braking from the hoods (not just the drops), I can't see much point in hydraulic crosstops.
They are horrible, and until some time around 11 on Sunday morning when coming down Ingleborough I'd have agreed with you, when getting your weight back or just changing hand position more than countered the sketchier handling. I only put cross-tops on last week just in case people were correct in recommending them for the 3 Peaks and were they ever!
I don't find that I lose steering control having my hands near the stem - even off road it's just about shifting your weight properly. YMMV obviously.
They can be more comfortable with vibration off road as well. Compared to a road bike, CX will usually have wider bars with a shallow reach, 46cm is common, so your hands will rest a little further apart.