I don’t have a problem with hookless for gravel…tire size and lower pressures negate any potential issues.
Road…I’ll pass for now. If I do have to go hookless anytime soon (for whatever reason), I would look for either a 23mm internal width wheel or run nothing smaller than a 30mm tire, probably 32.
Are there any technical and safety advantages to hookless for gravel? Hookless is cheaper to make, but I haven’t seen cheaper prices for top-end wheels.
I’m sure there are…but you’d have to ask a hookless advocate for exactly what they are. Weight, I suppose? I do think hookless provides a better interface between the rim / tire (two flat areas are easier to match up), which would make it easier to install / seat / seal.
Regular reminder that the value of a product is not necessarily based on its COGS. 
I know that the claim about it being “cheaper” to manufacture has been near-universally accepted, but it also has never really been defined, let alone quantified.
What does “cheaper” mean? Simply lower COGS? Lower tooling costs? Lower scrap rate? Some combination of the above?
I don’t have the answer to any of those questions, but I also don’t really care, TBH. If said supplier is able to have lower COGS and decides to pocket that difference but still provide me with a safe, reliable product at a price I am willing to pay, good on them.
I don’t necessarily expect a company to lower their price every time they reduce their COGS…
Not ready for hookless if pro tour mechanics can’t make it work, how will I do it
Well, that is part of the problem…we don’t know what their set-up protocols are, especially PSI. We do know that the tire / wheel combo in these cases is, at best, on the fringe of what is safe.
If I were to hazard a guess, you have some old school thought processes at work here and they are exceeding 72 psi on these wheels. “Only 72 psi?!?!? Everyone knows more PSI is faster!”
But that is just a guess…
Not that it matters, but yeah, Enve said it. From memory they spelled it out as lower tooling costs and lower scrap rate. Making hooks involves tradeoffs versus the simple tooling with a straight inside rim profile.
Hooked with an insert gets you
My scariest moment on a bike was at the end of a 12 minute HC descent and the front tire flatting at 35mph. With tubes. I don’t want tubes, and I don’t want tubular. Road tubeless on hooked rims with inserts.
Oh, I’m with you as far as hookless for the road. Not ready for primetime, IMO.
But I have zero issue with it for gravel.
The question you have to ask, can the average person choose the right tire and inflate to the correct psi. What if there pump is 5 psi off and they used the wrong tire
The result of there failure shouldn’t be permanent impairment.
Yup…fair point! James and Dave went into that aspect of it on the recent Geek Warning podcast.
I think for the most part, the tire issue has become easier as more options have become available, though.
Peak Torque just dropped this: Hookless - out of the shadows. (youtube.com)
Not
Yea, I switched to HEDs - gotta’ get those hooks.
Well, but 73 PSI isn’t easy to “achieve”.
I’m on hookless (Giant PR/SR, I don’t know), and according to Sram and Silca calculator, I ride 55 front and 60 rear. 22.3mm internal rim and GP5k 28mm - next set will be 30mm
So I simulated rider weight to get the calculator to 73PSI and it’s 106kgs, + 8kg of a road bike. With that in mind, it’s very close to the limit of a lot of components/bikes, which is ~120kgs.
My point is, that even though 73 is the limit, the average is around 60/55PSI, going lower for wider tires.
I don’t think pro riders are heavier than me, nor they are using different PSI as recommended, as it is the fastest/most efficient setup.
NOTE: I’m not advocating that hooklees is better, just pointing out that I don’t feel that the upper-pressure limit is the issue.
I’m over this, leaning out so I’ll be fine if I ever end up hookless but will always be close.
And while I understand that I’m not small for a cyclist and in that regard for a lot of people the numbers are fine, the problem is if you shift the industry standard to something that is literally unsafe for people to use if they are approaching or even over it. You have now removed cycling as an option for millions of people. That is the problem with the current setup/psi limits.
believe those pro blowoffs were on Zipp wheels with 25mm internal width. If I’m following Josh Poertner and others, the combo of:
creates a combo with relative low PSIs increasing risk of blowoff.
Increasing the risk - key point.
Again not sure I’m following, because I won’t buy hookless after seeing several locals on Enve 3.4 and/or 4.5 (shortly after they were introduced) have blowoffs and stopped cycling for a month due to injuries.
The EC article made the excellent point that we don’t know if these pro tire issues are a hookless issue or a Zipp/Lotto issue. They’re all running inserts it seems, and we have no idea what pressures or whether that insert changes blowoff behavior. The EC article also pointed out that apparently Zipp NSW rims have mysteriously increased in weight by ~30g recently, and speculated that maybe some older rims were under-engineered for weight savings and that rim failures were actually to blame here.
In general though, I think the failure margins on the popular 25mm TSS rim/28mm tire combo are just way too small. All the talk about how ETRTO approves 29mm but not 28mm tires for those rims suggests to me that 29 is still no good, if it’s that close to a non-compatible setup. In Josh Poertner I trust, so I’m sticking to hooked for anything where tire width and rim width are this close.
I’m failing to grasp the concern over hookless and psi. What is the actual issue here? Are there people here that own hookless rims, and everytime they pump their tire to 80psi the tire blows off the rim?
I’m just trying to see where the concern is coming from.
Just play the numbers and used the same data for the Sram calculator with 25mm internal rim.
70kg rider + 8kg bike = 53/56
120kg rider + 8kg bike = 68/72.4 (which would exceed the equipment (overall speaking)
So, that combination is lower, way lower pressure.
Is it a good/safe combination? It doesn’t look like. I’d go 25mm internal with 32/34 on hookless.
just don’t buy hookless for road! Not ready for prime-time.
I’m not sure how you’ve come to that conclusion? Silca calculator comes to 83.5/85.5psi for me. That’s using:
28mm
97kg system weight
New pavement
Cat 1/2/3 racing speed
High performance tyres
Road bike
Using the above assumptions but flexing the weight to hit 73psi in the rear… well it can’t be done. Even at 35kg system weight the Silca recommendation for the above setup is 74.5/76.0psi