How to know if tires are hookless compatible?

I have a set of Box components TR36 wheels. I had panaracer pacenti quasi-moto tires mounted, but then one blew off the rear, then I remounted it, and it blew off again. A bit of reddit searching/posting seemed to yield that since the TR36 are hookless rims they need hookless tires, and my quasi-motos aren’t hookless compatible.

So I’ve been searching for hookless tires and I usually can’t find any explicit statement that tires are or aren’t hookless compatible. How can I tell?

Secondly, if anyone can suggest a 650b tire, that is tubeless and hookless compatible, at around 2 in wide, intended for mixed road/gravel/trail riding, I’m all ears! I was thinking about schwalbe g-one bite, panaracer gravelking sk, etc - but again, I can’t tell if those are hookless compatible or not!

Check WTB, I believe they may have tubeless versions that are hookless compatible.

I fell into that trap of mistakenly buying specialized hookless rims that weren’t supported by their own tubeless tires. You’re unlikely to get an answer from them on this due to liability. I just used this ENVE tire compatibility link Tire Compatibility - ENVE and went with Gravelkings. I run 35s on gravel at 40 PSI and no problems. Go bigger and you’ll increase the safety factor to a greater degree.

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Thanks -b that enve chart seems to be the only decent resource. Rene herse has an article about how they collaborated with enve and zipp and that all their tires are compatible. Tough to figure this out! And it’s not that cheap you know? A pair of standard Rene herse tires are $140…

If you’re going to go with Herse tires, I would go with the Endurance casing. The Endurance and Standard casings have the same rolling resistance (the Endurance uses the Extralight casing and adds protection). So you might as well get the extra protection, although it costs a bit more.

Also, contact your rim manufacturer. If they can’t tell you what tires should work with their rims, then they are opening themselves up to legal action in my opinion (but I am not a lawyer). They are selling a product that’s supposed to be fit for a purpose. If they refuse to specify any safe tires then they are implicitly endorsing most tires.

I got this reply from Specialized regarding my DT Swiss GRC1400 (hookless) and their Pathfinder tyres.

Hi there,

Thank you for reaching out to our Rider Care Team.

We have heard no problems running the Pathfinder Pro with hookless rims. However, we have not tested that tire with every single rim on the market, so we can’t confirm that it works. We don’t see any reason it wouldn’t, but if you have any further doubt, we would recommend contacting DT Swiss and see if they have any additional feedback.

Happy pedaling!

Jamie | Specialized US Rider Care

So from reading this article:

https://www.renehersecycles.com/tech-info/tires/

I think I’m going to go with Rene herse. It seems like the money is worth it. But they are expensive!

I want to ride my bike… Any reason I can’t use a standard tire (panaracer pacenti quasi moto) with a hookless rim, if I’m using a tube?

I’ve read about the clincher hookless interface and I guess it isn’t a great idea, but I’d live to hear from someone here about their experience.

With a tube you should be fine with your current tires. The tube pushes the tire against the rim wall and resists any one spot trying to walk off the rim, so it holds the tire on better.

So I’m bumping this as I have run into a mystery. Since tires are crazy short right now I had to grab some Vittoria Rubinos instead of my usual Corsas. Well, when these tires land in my lap today, the sidewall says hooked rims only. It doesn’t say anything about this on the Vittoria website or anywhere else I can find though? ENVE lists it as hookless compatible as well. I’m stumped.

Likely an insurance thing, so run hookless at your own risk. You could email them and ask, but I sort of doubt they’ll go against what it says on the sidewall.

Yeah, I’m sure, but it’s just bizarre that there is nothing anywhere else about it other than the sidewall. None of the packaging even says anything about it. If you walk into a store and buy these there isn’t even a way to know before you unbox them.

And being on ENVE’s approved list is doubly mystifying.

Well what if you reach out to enve? Find out if it is the same tire they tested.

When I struggled with this on my gravel bike I had one tire work perfectly fine and one explode off twice. It might be a bit hit or miss, but if enve says it’s ok, and you get it confirmed, I’d go for it.