grumpier.mike wrote:
jharris wrote:
grumpier.mike wrote:
The big unknown is whether hookless rims are going to be a good idea. Some of the tires most people would recommend, like the GP5000 TL, don't work on these wheels. ENVE has their brand specific tire, but the rolling resistance just isn't good, so why buy a fast wheel and add a slow tire. I think the Zipp tire is better, but still not class leading. Where hookless tire tech will land is an unknow, but no matter what I would expect to be running a big tire to get it work, so probably 28-30mm, which might be a bit of an aero compromise. I personally would never buy another tubed rims. Tubeless is a bit of a hassle to set up, but the resistance to flats is remarkable. This is probably doubly important when running some of the faster tires like the Corsa Speed.
I am not totally up on all the Zipp and ENVE options, but it seems that their hooked rims might be some of their older but still more expensive wheels. I am probably biased, OK I am biased, but as far as I am concerned you can never go wrong with the hooked rim HED wheels. They are not as flashy, but they are always some of the best tech, they really focus on form over function and the price is almost always much better (though the new 303s is a bargain). If it were my credit card I would probably get a set of Vanquish 6s and 4s for roughly the same price as one pair of Zipp NSWs. You get a hooked rim so you know tire choice is going to be easy.
I didn’t even know that was a thing. Hookless and non hookless rims. Are hooked rims tubeless as well as non hookless? I’ve never run tubeless yet for road bike. All of my mountain bikes have been tubeless for years.
Oh ya, some companies are going to hookless carbon rims. From what I understand, the manufacturing process is much easier and requires fewer molds to "reach in" and form the hook. My understanding is that is came from the mountain bike world and it is a perfectly good idea at the low pressure you would run on a big tire. The road world has three problems 1) tires are smaller and require higher pressure 2) there is no industry standard for road tires. 3) the tire and rim have to have a pretty tight tolerance to work well at higher pressure and hookless really puts all the emphasis on the tire dimensions being really accurate. Now we have all probably experience a tire or or two in out lifetimes that was either a really loose or tight fit a rim, which just goes to show that getting the dimension of a tire really accurate is hard and the industry isn't particularly used to those requirements.
If you take the new Zipp 303s as an example, they set the maximum pressure at something like 74 psi. You can see that a big rider using a 25 mm tire could have an optimum tire inflation pressure above the max spec. Th new Cadex wheels are hookless and they have their own line of tires as well. Again the GP5000 is a no-no. They do however, state that you can run any tire on their hookless rim as long a it is installed below 40 psi. My guess is we are seeing the mountain bike tech transferring to road before it has matured. It seems to be fine for gravel, but it may be a while until it is ready for prime time.
Gotcha. Hooked for me it is.