Troll 'em if you got 'em
Iām sorry - no more food from me ![]()
Giant seems to make a good hookless rim
Car tireās and wheels are insanely different than bike tire/wheels and have extremely different use cases. If you want to see a tire that will blow-off or spin off a rim look at a traditional rim without bead lock or set screwās (image below has the mentioned lock/screws) Spinning a traditional drag slick.

A drag slick is closer to the characteristics and requirements of a bike tire than a standard on-road DOT radial. A radial has stiff side walls and does not have a tire roll affect for traction - cars use suspension for traction, bikes are using tire flex.
What about train wheels?
Let me rephrase this. Iām not even trying to say Iām right. Iām probably not.
But, what difference between car wheels and bike wheels necessitates the requirement for hooks on one, but not the other? And Iām certainly willing to accept that there IS a difference that necessitates hooks in bike wheels. But IMO the above question needs to be answeredā¦or all this is just going off faith, or lack thereof (on both sides).
Hooked vs. Hookless Rims - FLO Cycling.
Car and motorcycle tires can stand on their own. However, a bicycle tire does not contain the same structure and will collapse on itself. The thinner casings of a bicycle tire allowed the tire to stretch under pressure. While this saved weight, it led to tire blow offs at high pressures. To prevent blow-offs, hooks were added to the rims to hold the tire in place.
Hey tank tracks are hookless. āWhat difference between [tank tracks] and bike wheels necessitates the requirement for hooks?ā
I look forward to finding out what you find out about car wheels.
One is that car tyres are non folding and have a bead thatās normally made from high tensile steel cable. Works fine for cars where the tyre is heavy duty enough that punctures are very rare, you can carry a spare wheel, and almost everybody relies on their local garage for servicing anyway so going to the garage when you need new tyres is no big deal.
Itās no problem building a bicycle tyre with a steel bead that wonāt come off a hookless rim. The problems are that building that tyre to be heavy duty enough to make it practically puncture proof will come with a big weight, rolling resistance and comfort penalty. And/or cyclists will have to call their LBS every time they need to change tyres or get a flat that doesnāt seal.
I cut up a couple of car tires so I could dispose of them. To get them off the rim, I first I had to use an angle grinder to cut through the incredibly tough steel cables running around the bead. I had to do this on several places. After that I could remove the tires from the rims. Then I went about cutting the tire up into sections for disposal. Iām a big guy. And I used a big, sharp ax. Cutting through them was incredibly difficult and took a long time. I had no idea how tough and reinforced car tires are. I resigned to never do this again.
Iāve cut up GP5000s to see the cross section. Hereās what it took: a razor blade and 2 seconds. See the difference?
I answered this already - a DOT radial has stiff sidewalls and steel rings/beads and are vertical load barring. A radial (car tire) is designed to ānot flexā and are stiff/strong and will not come off the shelf or over the wall. Bike tires are not designed this way, they are soft, not structured and designed to flex for traction.
I read the Flo article. That was helpful. Iāll watch that video a bit later. But it did also mention that tires have come a long way, and some tires DO have beads that will not stretch (which strikes me as the biggest issue to overcome).
But yet, here you are, trying to draw a comparison.
And then you wonder why people ask if you are just trolling.
There is ZERO comparison between car tires / rims and bicycle tires. NONE. Car tires are installed with machines, donāt have foldable beads, rely on raw HP vs. human-generated watts, donāt have consumers worried about minor weight differences, etc.
Any attempt to bring them into the discussion only underlines a basic lack of understanding of the issues, despite numerous attempts to explain it.
Again, the issue is not that bike wheels ārequireā hooks, it is that some combinations of tires and wheels on the road are, at best, questionable in terms of safety.
NO ONE is suggesting that hookless for gravel or MTB is unsafe.
Semi truck tires are mounted by hand.
Heās had @mrtopher1980 cutting up car wheels ![]()
