BARNOLDSWICK -based Hope Technology has unveiled a groundbreaking track bike with the aim of delivering Olympic success.

The company, along with Lotus Engineering, has presented its track bike to ‘help the Great Britain Cycling Team (GBCT) achieve its best possible performances in the hunt for medals at next summer’s Olympic Games’.

“This move into carbon fibre design and manufacture came at a perfect time for Hope with the opportunity to develop the frame, named HB.T and the revolutionary wheels.

“It allowed them to take the initial aero concepts worked on by the English Institute of Sport and progress them further alongside Lotus into a potential race‐winning bike, available to anyone to purchase,” said Hope Technology head of sales and marketing Alan Weatherall.

The bike has on display at London’s Rouleur Classic event and made its competitive debut with the Great Britain Cycling Team in Minsk.

Mr Weatherall added: “Riders have been testing the bike in secret over recent weeks, and will continue their evaluation with a view to riding it at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Hope has been designing, creating, manufacturing and testing innovative components for bikes at its Lancashire HQ for 30 years. Countless British bikes and riders have benefitted from Hope products and today the business exports around half of its output.”.

After years of success in racing, it has recently moved into making complete, ready‐to‐ride bikes. To create the frame and wheels, Hope developed a revolutionary manufacturing process that enables them to reduce the weight of the wheels, therefore resetting the stiffness‐versus‐weight balance usually found in disc wheels.

The collaboration of Hope and Lotus has been supported by Renishaw, the global engineering technologies company.

The unique design followed the changing of UCI rules to allow forks and seat stays to be up to 8cm wide, and means that producing a bike as light as those seen at the highest level has been a real challenge for Hope and Lotus to rise to.