It's not hard to notice that you dodged my question. You didn't have an ETRTO TSS compliant tire blow off. You had a Compass tire blow off "some years ago," presumably on hooked rims. How is this relevant to current standards? I don't see that it is.

Darn.

Is this thread about hookers and blow?

I know there's a joke in there somewhere. Been trying to think of one since the thread started. :D

Are we heading in the direction of the Firestone/Ford Explorer debacle many years ago?

I care. You are a professional in the industry, with no real benefit from being on one side/the other side of the issue. The only stand I see you taking is the need for a safe product with real benefits. From a consumer standpoint, that's what we all should want.

The main message I'm getting from your posts is that the tech/product needs to improve. I don't see how anyone can be disagreeing with that.

I don't want to be anecdotal about it but I do recall someone who was doing a lot of testing mentioning having the odd tire that does meat the spec and has been tested and listed by them still end up blowing off a rim. It's a bit like tubeless in general. I have had one situation that stands out where I ran the same tire on the same rim for a very long time. Got a new tire of the same brand make, etc. and it proceeded to blow off the rim. Replaced it with another tire of the same make and model and it was fine. Quality control with tires, while better with some brands and models, still isn't solid. It makes me think back to all the Schwalbe sidewall fails we had a bunch of years back or the Conti's that had bead separation with the 4000 S II like 6 years ago.

I mean yeah, shiz happens and running what a wheel company lists as compatible is the first step towards having a good experience but it's just not a guarantee. ....and I keep coming back to, "and what's the point"? At least with tubeless it has the ability to help riders who get a ton of flats using regular tubes. This just doesn't really do anything.

Thank you. I know a lot of what I post seems retro grouchy or reactionary but I am honestly just scratching my head on this one. The big guys with more money than sense sometimes are hell bent on going this direction (I mean their scrap $ recovery isn't anything small. It's a huge deal) so they will eventually force it all to work but at the end of the day there is still no real benefit to the rider.

You could say that about a lot of technical iterations we have seen in the last 15 years or so but at least most of those had some pseudo benefit that we knew about at the start that we all worked to really get to and realize. This one's pseudo benefit is that "it can be done and the tires shouldn't blow off". That's not a benefit in my book. *shrug*

Last year, I came real close to blowing some unforeseen discretionary fun money on a Giant TCX. But alas, the wheels were hookless, and I could not be bothered negotiating a wheel swap. There are lots of other nice cross/gravel bikes out there.

The major problems with clincher rims in general is the 'hooks' required to hold the tire bead in place. The hooks are sharp and cause pinch flats, and are heavy at the worst place on a bike. So I can see the motivations to reduce them as much as possible - hence the residual stubs on hookless rims. Nevertheless, there stubs are still there, in contrast to the tubular rim profile, which is optimal in terms of strength.

With the tubular rim, at the expense of a few grams of glue and you get no pinch flats, a rim that can withstand immense compressive forces from rim brakes (in contrast to clincher rims), and a rim that is far more resistant to impacts. Plus it is lighter, and the rim is isolated from tire inflation pressures, so you can run tires from basically zero to whatever will cause the tire to explode.

So I don't get hookless, at least for competition. Tubular is better in every respect.

Not deriding your decision to go hookless. But why does the absence of bead hooks make the wheel edges less damage prone?

The roads here have lots of debris (glass, stickers, metal shards, etc.), tires that can seal well are a huge bonus. Since going from a Tire/Tube setup to Hookless, I have had a lot less flats, and most seal quickly and don't even require me adding air. I weigh 188lbs right now and I run 72.5 psi. Between the thicker tire and the lower pressure, the hookless seals much easier/quicker. My Tire/Tube setup was 93 psi.

But isn't what you describe above an advantage of tubeless over tubes, rather than hookless vs. hooked rims? Or does the advantage depend on going both tubeless and hookless?

"Blowing off the hookless? It's supposed to be the other way around!"

Tip your waitstaff.

In my limited tubeless experience, I seem to run even lower pressures when using hookless, then the previous tubeless setups. The max pressure you can run on hookless is 72.5 psi. Maybe I am wrong in my thinking that hookless allows you to run lower tire pressures than hooked tubeless. I will be curious to hear others thoughts on this (hooked vs hookless).

I do not have any experience with tubeless, but I am studying this to prepare for the eventuality of going tubeless on my next bike. From closely reading this thread and elsewhere, it seems that hookless rims have a maximum pressure limit to preclude (or at least minimize) mounted tires from blowing off the hookless rims, rather than hookless rims somehow enabling a tubeless tire setup running less pressure than a hooked tubeless setup. And this seems to be the case regardless of the debates about (a) whether this limit can be exceeded, (b) by how much, and (c) how much air pressure is even needed for a tubeless tire setup.

^ testimony for benefits of tubeless, but not hookless.

I have two sets of hookless road wheels: a set with ENVE SES 4.5AR rims and a wheelset from Cadex. I usually run the tires on the ENVEs at 35-50 psi depending on what I'm doing and 60-65 on the Cadex wheels. I've never had a problem with either set of rims and I've mounted tires on both sets without issue. Running road wheels at 60 psi is strange at first but doesn't seem any slower in the real world while providing more comfort and grip (totally unscientific opinion here). I recently bought another set of road wheels and went with hooked rims as there are more tires available for hooked setups. Anyway.

Nerd Alert had a Zipp engineer on a few months ago talking about hookless. I'll list the benefits he mentioned and then provide my completely uninformed and likely wrong opinion:

1. Hookless is cheaper to make as the fixturing is simpler - this seems undeniable, although I'm highly skeptical that wheel makers will pass the savings on to consumers. Regardless, good hooked and hookless carbon wheels are becoming very affordable anyway.
2. Hookless allows the manufacturer to use steel fixtures, as opposed to hooked rims that require soft fixtures so that they can be removed after molding. The steel fixture leads to more consistent rim profiles, stronger rims and more reliable tubeless setups - maybe? I've never had an issue with hooked rims.
3. Hookless rims have more material on the bead wall (a lot more) and are therefore much stronger - this seems plausible to me and one of the more compelling reasons for hookless. Although again I've never had a carbon bead wall fail.
4. Hookless rims allow a smoother molding between tire sidewall and rim, which is more aerodynamic - I will admit that I can see a difference in the way a tire looks on a hookless rim than on a hooked rim, but does this actually make a real world aero difference? I doubt it.
5. Given a properly engineered tire, the hooks on hooked rims are completely unecessary anyway. - given that I've never had an issue with hookless rims, I'm inclined to agree. Still, clearly hooked setups are even more secure as they allow a much broader range of tires.
6. Hookless is a mature technology in that every car tire is hookless. Bike tire manufactures will catch up and every tire will soon be hookless compatible. - maybe? Car tires run at a much lower pressure and are far,far tighter with far stronger beads. This does not seem like a reasonable comparison.

After thinking about it a bit, it appears the rim companies are trying to shift the safety responsibilities to the tire manufacturers, the wheel makers and the end users themselves.

Well the SRAM online tire calculator suggests about 4-5 psi lower for hookless rims (all other things being equal, using 28 mm road tyres). Presumably linked to the difference in volume for a given internal rim width.

Looks like with the 72.5 psig pressure limit one should run wider tires I’d one is on the heavy side. So for rider and bike at 230 lbs the minimum wide tire is about 28mm. Of course the newer hookless road wheels look like they are made for 28mm tires. But if one weighs more one needs to look at wider tires.

Yep, even at 175 lbs., the SRAM calculator pushes me up to 28mm hookless.

I'm far more concerned about the carbon steerer on my bike suddenly snapping than I am about my 28mm tubeless tires at 60psi blowing off of my hookless rims. I get that there are people out there who don't understand what they've bought and will install incompatible tires and/or exceed pressure limits. I'm not one of those people.

The benefits of hookless are fairly clear to me. I was able to buy a 1500g 45mm deep carbon wheelset from a top tier brand for $1200. I am going to run wider/lower psi/tubeless anyway, so I don't need a more expensive rim that can hold a 23mm tire at 120psi.

You found hookless carbon rims cheaper than hooked carbon rims? A lot of people insist the lower manufacturing cost of hookless doesn't get passed on to the consumer. I'm so confused ...

Thank you, Hiro11. These two points make a lot of sense, assuming by "fixture" you mean the mold in which the CF rims are formed.

To date, I have bought two pairs of CF wheels, both hooked. The first set, Mavic Cosmic SLR 40 (top of the line rim brakes, <1,400 g), had a defective rear wheel where the side wall bulged out after the tire (with tube) was inflated, and had to be returned. The second set, FFWD F4R FCC, has been working out great so far.

Maybe. I'm just a consumer who occasionally posts on the internet. There are industry insiders here who probably have more direct insight on this.
I don't recall seeing many aero carbon wheels from major manufacturers in the $1100-$1600 range before they started making hookless rims, so from my perspective this seems like a benefit.

To be clear, I don't really care if my rims have hooks or not. I don't think I need them, as I'm not interested in running narrower high psi tires and I'm fine shopping from a narrower list of "hookless compatible" tires. I didn't specifically seek out a hookless rim.

Lower price
Easier tire mounting
Lighter weight

Of those I wouldn't consider weight to be a significant factor. Ease of mounting is very welcome IMO! Price sensitivity is individual, but who wants to pay more than they have to?

Slightly harder to top off sealant (won't stay on rim if deflated)
Less proven
Smaller tire selection

Though I think hookless has pretty much caught up at this point, with a good selection of reliable tires.
For topping off sealant there are valves which permit doing so without deflating.

Both hooked and hookless are rideable deflated, though the tire will almost certainly be destroyed doing so.