Yes, I mean that only for road. If riding gravel/mtb with tires much wider than the rim, it’s OK.
But my Aspero is my road and gravel bike. I have three wheel sets for it. Even my aero road wheels see light gravel use, though. They are hooked Light Bicycle WR50, 25 mm internal, 32.5 mm external. Used with GP5000 28c (non-TLR) measuring 31.0 mm to meet the aero guideline of 105% rim/tire width. That’s something that’s a no-go for hookless. It works quite well with hooks though.
It sounds like you believe the marketing. How much does the hook weigh? 5 grams? Doesn’t the rim have to be made thicker to be made stronger? We’ve yet to see stronger rims play out in road.
So far, we have cheaper molds for the manufacturers and a few theoretical benefits for consumers with a lot of caveats about tire pressure, tire size, tire fitment, and a few blow offs.
Yep, hey we removed the hook to save some weight! But we added that weight right back to the rim to make it stronger.
Sure, maybe they can have a wider bit to protect against impacts but it seems that your only going to need that riding gravel or mtb where hookless is already used and functioning just fine.
No, no, no…remember de Gendt hit a rock, which is what caused his rim to break and tire to come off.
I mean, this is all theoretical for the most part. 1 guy on an internet video does not form a consensus…
My personal view is that at best…hooks are an insurance policy that only come into play when a tubeless setup is done extremely poorly.
They’re like the lawyer lips on dropouts. They serve no function if you actually put your wheel on…
If you believe this is categorically unsafe on hookless, that’s a lot of faith you have in some tiny little hooks.
Was the update to 29mm for 25mm IW exclusive to hookless? Hooked and hookless tables were the same previously, but I can’t find any concrete information that the 2023 update applies only to hookless. It just seems to be discussed in the context of hookless, I guess because most/all mainstream 25mm wheels seem to be hookless.
I forgot to mention that I’m running latex tubes. You’re right that it’s not a recommended combo for tubeless, hooks or not.
If two wheelsets have the same weight, strength and aero but one had hooks and the other didnt - then the hooked rims would be catagorically better.
I do see what you are saying, the rims could be made with slightely less material so could be lighter and the manufacturing process is easier so they could be cheaper - but the removal of the hooks have no user benefit and I would rather the limits of wheel design were pushed in non-safety critical areas.
In fact, in the case of aero, hooked rims usually shape the tyres better. You dont really want a higher internal to external wide ratio for aero.
Not certain this is correct. Whether marketing spin or not, the industry is saying the opposite.
I’m probably guilty of taking one mans word as proof for that - but the below statement rang true for me:
“Josh writes: …hookless tends to lead to a nice visual transition from rim to tire, but what I’ve seen in the tunnel is that this rarely translates to faster setups as the rims generally end up being a bit too narrow to recapture air off of the leeward side of the tire once the system sees any yaw. As hookless rims must have narrower bead seats than hooked, the solution here will be thicker beads which will make for less smooth transitions at the rim/tire, but will allow the rim to exist out in a spot where it can recapture flow more effectively. I imagine that the fastest hookless setups will end up being essentially hooked rim shapes where the space under the hook is just filled in. Of course this will negate some of the weight benefit unless the beads become hollow or foam filled… this also feels like a nice way to improve impact performance but I’ll leave that to the manufacturers.”
If you want safe and seamless with current tech - then you need hooks like his 3T discus wheels.
Anyone here that has had a tire blow off a hookless rim…how hard was it to mount?
I have “strong” hands from my various careers and working in a bike shop for a long time. That being said my gravel scenario, the tire that blew off was very easy to put on. I think almost anyone could have done it without tools.
I have Pirelli tires on it now and I can “sometimes” get the last bit on by hand but sometimes I need a lever to pop the final bead on.
A slight tangent to your question as I’ve never had a blow-off, but I’ve always been able to get GP5000s on my wheels by hand.
I’ve never managed it on my hookless rims. They’ve always needed that last reassuring flick with a tyre lever.
Similarly, I’ve never had a new tyre seat without removing the valve core (with a compressor @ 120psi line pressure)
I think that’s an issue honestly, of far greater importance than this hookless debate…
I wont ride on tubeless tires where I didnt have to use a tire jack, plus 2 levers and a lot of swearing to get a tire on. Doing it by hand, or even close should be an impossibility…
Every new set of tires I get I make sure it sets up like this.
Giant SLR2 + GP5K STR 28mm.
Sitting one bead of the tire in the lowest portion of the rim, I still need a lever for the very last piece. It might go by hand, but it’s very tight.
Sealing, on the other hand, is as easy as an inner tube setup. Just a regular foot pump, no need to remove valve core, nothing. Just pump and it’ll seat nice and easy.
The test protocols used by Giant, Enve etc (as described in the article linked above) do offer some reassurance, and one would have to imagine that simple fear of litigation and reputational damage would compel the big players to be very cautious indeed when it comes to safety. In those cases, especially where a manufacturer lists approved tyres and sizes, I would probably be willing to use hookless on road, provided that I was comfortably inside the stated safety margins for tyre size and pressure.
That said, if I were in the market right now, I might be inclined to go for hooked, as I suspect the UCI report and the media storm following the De Gendt ‘incident’ may lead to further strictures and standards being put in place.
The “if it’s easy to get on it’ll be easy to blow off the rim” is a red herring. If the central channel is nice and deep, that’ll give plenty of slack in the tyre to get it on.
Plus, I think a lot of riders who struggle with tubeless tires don’t know how to take advantage of the channel.
Yea that’s not wrong. A more accurate way is how difficult it is to get the bead to pop up on the shelf of the rim.
My current tires…I had 100 psi in there, and the tire still refused to get out of the center channel. I had to take the off, grease up the lip of the shelf all around the rim fully with sealant, then try again, and it popped on at like 80psi.
I’m completely confident i could cut off my hooks, along with half of the rim wall itself, and be perfectly fine.
There’s a tradeoff though of course. I dont think tubeless is compatible with a roadside tubed flat fix. I’m using a plug or calling an Uber…
Are you the guy duct taping wheels? I use cycling rim tape designed for tubeless. It’s a real struggle fest to mount any tire on the Roval Rapide CLX II front wheel, slightly easier on the rear wheel. Despite that, all I do is spray water to make it easier to mount. Then use a hand pump and spray water if a bead is sticky and staying in the channel. Maybe once every 10 installs I need to use my compressor. And FWIW the roll technique and plenty of water spray can sometimes muscle a tire on without a jack.