[Closed] Hookless Rims

Hang on they're all hookless aren't they?!

Good or bad?

Good

What do I need to know>?

Nothing, which appears to be a spot of luck😀

@joshvegas thinks they're all hookless...

... they are now!

… they are now!

Errrrmmm... Not really. They are becoming more and more popular, but not all as yet.

Good or bad?

For MTB good, for road not so much as yet...

Cheers!
I.

What do I need to know>?

If you have hookless rims on your road bike, don't fit Continental GP5000s.

It's one of my favourite bike progress things ever... A few small companies started making a thing out of it, I think mostly because it's way easier to make a carbon rim without a hook. Naturally everyone said your tyre'd fall off. (I got the absolute piss taken out of me when I got one of the early Lightbicycle ones, "obviously" people said "whoever designed that didn't know anything about bike wheels", and obviously cheap chinese rims would explode)

Then, a junior Specialized engineer who'd just joined the company from outside the bike industry said, "right, see these new carbon wheels? How about if we try this hookless thing?" The rest of the team said, don't be daft, rims have hooks." but he somehow got them to test it, and it worked, and there were literally no drawbacks and lots of benefits and everyone'd been doing it wrong for years. (as described to one of the bike mags by the head of the Roval line)

Just one of those things that everyone knows is necessary so nobody thought about it. In roughly the same timescale, the biggest idea that the actual established bike industry had was "let's make the wheels a little bit bigger, but not big enough to really make a difference"

SO yeah, they work, it's better, there's no drawbacks and lots of advantage. It's not that big a deal that if the rim you really want still has a hook you should walk away, but, it's just better.

I genuinely thought rims had been hookless for yonks.

And all my bikes are 26inch still.

I have some absolutely ancient Weinman Bontrager rims from the 90s that are hookless too, no idea what the deal was historically.

I guess it's kind of like eyelets, people still think spoke eyelets are a sign of a stronger and more quality rim, there was that spell when people would say "Don't get Flows, get 719s, they've got eyelets" and then just ignore that 719s were heavier, narrower, and always cracked at the eyelets... Took a long, long time before people started really accepting eyeletless even when it was clearly working.

Now i think i probably have hooked rims but failed to notice because i assumed they weren't.

Crests aren't though right?

Good info so far, thanks all.

Why are road worse than MTB? Also do you need specific/compatible tyres or do they work with any?

For my use it would be gravel wheels.

Weren't Stans one of the companies that really pushed the hookless thing?

Along with no eyelets and being tubeless and being wider and being lighter.

Only hookless rims I've got are mavic ex830, performed perfectly so far, initially a PITA to get the tyre on so it's not gonna pop off without a fight.

A few years ago when Stan was Mr tubeless he patented a barb shaped hook and made rims with it. Has he gone hookless now?

All my MTB and 50% of my road/gravel rims are hookless. I’malso using GP5000TL on the road/gravel rims and they've been fine for thousands of km. Max pressure used is 65psi.

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trailwagger
Free Member

Good info so far, thanks all.

Why are road worse than MTB? Also do you need specific/compatible tyres or do they work with any?

For my use it would be gravel wheels.

Hookless is fine for the road/gravel. My new Zipp’s are hookless.

Also do you need specific/compatible tyres or do they work with any?

They require the tyre bead to be the correct size, some are, some are not

Enve has a reasonable explantion with pictures

https://www.enve.com/en/journal/behind-the-product-the-hookless-bead-how-it-works-and-who-theyre-for/

I dont understand why it has taken the cycle industry so long, when motorbike and car tyres have been using it successfully for years.

I guess it’s kind of like eyelets, people still think spoke eyelets are a sign of a stronger and more quality rim, there was that spell when people would say “Don’t get Flows, get 719s, they’ve got eyelets” and then just ignore that 719s were heavier, narrower, and always cracked at the eyelets… Took a long, long time before people started really accepting eyeletless even when it was clearly working.

Eyeletless rims can be fine, they can also still crack (like Flows, Mk3s are still "cracking" rims (normally if over tensioned to be fair on new rims, but they also fatigue crack)

For road/gravel rims on light bicycle they seem to recommend hooked for higher pressures (heavier riders). I take it that's because a lot of tyres are not built within spec for hookless rims, they way MTB tyres are.

I’malso using GP5000TL on the road/gravel rims and they’ve been fine for thousands of km

Read what it says on the sidewall...

The cycling industry has a long and distinguished inability to make anything to tolerance, what makes you think they can suddenly make an inherently less safe wheel rim properly?

I will continue to actively avoid hookless

bigyan
Free Member

Eyeletless rims can be fine, they can also still crack (like Flows, Mk3s are still “cracking” rims (normally if over tensioned to be fair on new rims, but they also fatigue crack)

Sure, but that' not an eyelet/eyeletless thing- the Mk3 is cracky not because it doesn't have eyelets, but because Stans have no idea how to make a competitive rim in 2020 so they just spread the metal thinner. If they had eyelets, the extra weight spent on that would probably mean they'd be even worse.