Help, Hookless rim causing punctures?

I ride a kona hei hei cr XC bike which came with WTB KOM Team i30 TCS 2.0 rims and maxis recon 2.25 tyres. I had no problems with punctures for 2 years while riding tubeless with 18 psi in the rear tyre.

After 2 years of riding I destroyed the rim and my local bike shop rebuilt the wheel with a reserve 30 hd al hookless rim. which I realized afterwards is definitely not a xc rim and is advertised for trail/enduro.

Since the new rim I have been getting an average of 1 sidewall puncture per week. I have increased the rear pressure and now run the rear tyre at 26 psi, yet I and am still having the same problem. the punctures are alway in the same area of the tyre on the black line just above the bead. see image below of plugged hole.

My question is does anyone else have this problem? is this a question of hookless rims having a narrower/sharper edge causing more sidewall punctures? Or is the wheel just so stiff with the new rim that the tyre absorbs all of the force of rock strikes?

Im considering rebuilding the wheel with a non hookless xc orientated rim unless someone has better advice.

30mm rim is too wide for a 2.25 inch Maxxis Tyre. Even the 2.35 Maxxis are pushing it on 30mm rims. The sidewall is exposed and will be the widest part of the tire.

You need a 2.4 Wide Trail equivalent.

Poor show by the LBS to put that together TBH.

Have exactly the same problem with Zipp 404 wheels which are hookless, total PITA. Generally destroys a £90 road tyre each time I hit a pot hole as I can never properly fix the sidewall tears in road tyres.

snotrag
30mm rim is too wide for a 2.25 inch Maxxis Tyre. Even the 2.35 Maxxis are pushing it on 30mm rims. The sidewall is exposed and will be the widest part of the tire.

I was going to say the same, but he’s coming from a WTB i30 rim, which I’m assuming is 30 internal also, and had no problems there?

Yes, the top of rim wall on your new hookless aluminium rims are narrower and sharper than the hooked rims you had before.

I’d return them to the shop as unfit for purpose.

Yes the previous stock and rim combination never caused a puncture in the sidewall for the two seasons I rode it.

Hookless/hooked is not an enduro/xc thing though so I think you’re just finding an issue with the specific tyre/rim combo. If you’ve destroyed a rim then something a bit tougher wasn’t a daft suggestion by the shop, I’ve got the same it’s a good rim backed with a good warranty. A hooked rim doesn’t add a huge amount to the rim side to increase radius anyway.

I’d be looking at your tyres, if you’ve had 2 years use out of them then it’s possible they’re wearing anyway. More often than not I’ve binned tyres off after 2 years having worn them out

Ok so what im understanding is to continue with the same wheel I need to move to a recon 2.40 wt.

But its still strange that the stock 30mm rims were not causing this problem. But I guess this is maybe a question of hookless vs not hookless. or is it a question of stiffness.

Im leaning towards trying a 2.4 wt tyre on the current wheel and keeping it for abuse. and then purchasing another wheel to keep for a faster xc tyre.

But do I really purchase a rim that is of a narrower size than what was originally stock on the bike? or do I keep with 30mm and look for a lighter/ less stiff non hookless rim like the original wtb?

everything above makes sense on its own but the fact that the original combination was 30mm with a 2.25 and worked well is a bit of a contradiction.

In regards to tyres being worn out I’ve destroyed 4 recons all in the same area. the problem has been the same on a brand new recon so its not a question of age. Ive also looked for heavier tyres but there is nothing in the xc range that has better protection than exo that I can find. Everything that is exo+ is way to heavy for my xc needs.

I think it’s more likely what @mrhoppy says, the tyre is getting old and weaker

I used to run Mavic hookless 30mm rims a few years back with various 2.35 & 2.4 tyres without any such issues and the sidewall thickness was quite narrow on those, tyres weren’t even the tougher casings.

I’ve been running Mavic hookless rims for the last 20 months with no issues – with tubes! I actually had my first puncture in two years on Tuesday but it was nothing to do with the rim. 30mm width, 2.35″ tyres.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I bought a new tyre today, a 2.35 ikon with exo casing. I will give it a try and see if the problem persists.

I’ve had various hookless rim wheelsets without issue. But loads of pinch flats with Traverse aluminium rims. Seem to have a particularly sharp edge. Even with a tyre insert it just started slicing through that too. Ended up with either way higher pressure than usual or more recently a much tougher tyre. The carbon Traverse rims have a 5mm bead width the prevent this and protect the rim.

bitmuddytoday sounds like you had the same problem as me. Im going to try the slightly larger tyre that I just purchased. Im not very confident it will work, so I will probably also end up changing the rim to something with a wider edge.

30mm rim is too wide for a 2.25 inch Maxxis Tyre. Even the 2.35 Maxxis are pushing it on 30mm rims. The sidewall is exposed and will be the widest part of the tire.

Really, given a lot of XC rims are 29/30mm ID and XC tyres are normally in the 2.25″ to 2.35″ range, you don’t tend to see people continually suffering from pinch flats on hookless rims on those. Speaking from personal experience my Hunt Provens are hookless & 29mm ID, I run 2.35″ wide spesh XC tyres under 20psi front and rear and don’t have an issue, one of my mates does the same with DT Swiss 30mm ID rims with tyres like the schwalbe ray / ralph combo at similar pressures and he’s stupendously fast.