Any idea when enve will be rolling out hookless to their 7.8 ses's? I'll be in the market for wheels once I switch to a disc brake tri bike but don't want to pull the trigger until hookless is more widely available on some of the top wheels used in triathlon (enve 7.8/disc, zipp 808/858/disc, etc).

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i don't know. i only know that most wheel brands i talk to aren't going to continue with hooked beads. in my opinion, hookless bead wheels are safe to buy, because schwable has pro ones in 25mm, 28mm, and 30mm, and the pro one TT for those who're looking for a tire that's crazy fast. all these are designed with ETRTO hookless spec in mind. kienle is running the pro one TT on his hooked zipp 858s, and that's fine, but were i to run the absolute fastest combo i could, i would probably take a look at CADEX's entire line of wheels, and then run pro one TTs on there. having said that - now that you forced me into this line of reasoning - i do believe i *might* have a set of CADEX 65s front and rear, and a set of pro one TTs, in my workshop. maybe i'll put all that together and see what it looks like, snap a few pics. but no, i have no idea when ENVE is going to move to hookless on the 7.8s.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Hookless rims are in theory supposed to help with the mounting of tires on TLR rims right? Hooked wheels may still be safe to buy (from a performance perspective) but if I’m going to make the swap to disc brakes and TLR wheels, I would like to be on the forefront that solves all the problems with TLR. I’m in no rush so I’m willing to wait.

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Me either. We don't get to wait much longer with disc brakes but at least those have a demonstrable braking advantage over rim brakes -- at least on carbon wheels.

The advantages of hookless cycling tires appear to be still a promise. Waiting until you have to change is not a bad call. And whenever someone tells you that "You're already running hookless in your car tires", don't forget that in your car you also have

- a ground contact patch about 8 times the size of a bicycle tire
- four tires not two
- a seatbelt
- an airbag
- anti-lock brakes
- a metal, crumple-zone cage around you.

What about motorbikes?

Tubeless isn't perfect yet, I see hookless rims as the next stage of getting to the point where there they become the norm, not something seperate in itself to tubeless.

Weight benefit? Look at Zipps 303, their new hookless wheelset is over 320g lighter than the old hooked version.

They are also significantly shallower. Apples and oranges.

i have both, or had both. actually all 3, the old zipp 303 firecrest, the new 303 S and the new 303 firecrest. i don't see how you think the new 303 is shallower than the old, unless what you mean is the old is shallower than the new.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The reviews I've read state that the new wheel is 40 mm deep whereas the old one was 45. Is that wrong?

yes, i've seen it written that this was a 45mm wheel, but that's exceedingly generous. i never measured it, but i'd be surprised if it was 40mm. mind, it was a great wheel. i put this on my litespeed gravel bike, with 36mm tires. i flatted about 3 and-a-half miles from home on that wheel, rode it on the dirt the whole way home, figured that's it. wheel done. when i got back i put a new tire on it, pumped it up, and put another bunch of miles on that wheel. great wheel. a tank. breakthrough wheel when it came out. but i'd be shocked of that wheel is even as deep as the replacement firescrest.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Does that 320g difference include the braking surface? If not, then not an "apples to apples" comparison.

Also, the tires on both automobiles and motorcycles typically require a special machine to install/remove. Don't forget about that ;-)

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I only spoke about the differences in rim depth because I was assuming they were both disc wheels. It never even occurred to me that they might not both be disc wheels. But I completely missed this line from the one of the reviews I was reading

The disc-brake-only nature of the rim allowed Zipp to redesign the rim without a brake track, which shed material and grams and contributed to the 300g weight savings.

https://www.cxmagazine.com/...ower-wider-territory

Very good point.

It has been long time since I've been a motorcyclist. So, I am curious, what do riders of big street bikes do these days when they get a flat? (seeing as, unlike cars, they don't carry a spare wheel ... )

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Advanced Aero TopTube Storage for Road, Gravel, & Tri...ZeroSlip & Direct-mount, made in the USA.
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Plugs[/quote]
Many cars also don't come with spares anymore. My last car came with a compressor and bottle of sealant

So plugs for many cars, too.

Why don't you estimate the volume that hooks take up and then multiply that by the density of carbon fiber. You'll find the hooks account for maybe 10g.

The variance between rims (rim vs disc brake even more so) and hubs make a far bigger difference. Just look at equivalent Roval vs Zipp vs Flo weights.

- Roval CLX Rapide 51mm/60mm are 1400g
- Zipp 404 NSW 58mm are 1690g despite being narrower
- Flo 49 AS 49mm are 1730g despite being shallower

The hookless 303s at 45mm depth are 1530g. They're not light. Its just that Zipps have been heavy.

That's disc brake to disc brake. I forgot about the slightly shallower rim depth of the new model so yes that will have a big impact on the weight difference.

I jsut don't see why there's so much push back. No one is forcing anyone to buy something they don't want. There's still plenty of companies making hooked rims and on a positive side for those that don't want them, there'll be a huge second hand market of "bargains" for you.

Actually it is apparently not disc brake to disc brake. Not sure if you saw the link I posted above. But I'm no expert on these wheels so if I've got the wrong wheel in that post, I'll gladly stand corrected and would very much like to know about it.

Regardless the push back you see isn't in response to new technology. It is in response the over-exuberance of claims that often come with it. The implied message that "will be better" equals "are better".

Hi, don't mean to thread drift. But would you be able to link some literature or DM me additional information on why the trend moved towards steeper STA's, and what it was trying to solve?

I'm genuinely curious to catch up on the history. I like steep angles, just don't know why. Hoping your historical insight could shed light.

Huh...I look here, and if we add an additional 120-150g per wheel for a braking surface, it's looking to my eye like the disc wheel setup is going to be ~100-150g heavier overall...

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

Motorbikes = organ donor.

how about i create the *literature* below.

as you may know i'm credited, rightly or wrongly, with the "invention" of the first post-aerobar tri bike; and for the popularization (and maybe the inception) of the first dynamic fit process for bike fitting. there is a nexus between these two, altho they were separated by 15 years.

i wrote this article, a week or two ago as a sort of evergreen marker i laid down in cases just like this, and this is the process i've followed throughout, both in our fit system (later) and in the bike design choices (in 1988).

the thought process was this:

1) riding with aerobars required a position other than that facilitated by the typical road bar. the aerobar turned the bike into something like a front recumbent. a bike with aerobars is fundamentally unlike any other standard (nonrecumbent) bicycle, and the aerobars are what made it that way.

2) most folks didn't go thru that reasoning process. point #1 above was not really a driver. it explained the why, but the why was not important. only the that. it was only important that a critical mass of top athletes rode with their hips 10cm or more forward of where their hips were on a standard road bike. this is critical, because i didn't invent a position; i didn't persuade anyone to ride in this position; i didn't try to convince anyone of anything. i made a wager that if this is where the top athletes were going to position themselves, that these top athletes were right. i wagered on the consensus of professionals. the only thing i did was take a picture of a rider in profile, erase the bike underneath that rider, and redraw the bike in a way that assumed the position that these riders were riding.

so, as you see, what i made was the safest of safe bets. i made the most conservative of bets. whenever i have invented or conceived of something new and *wild and crazy*, the only thing i ever did, in every case, was to bring the obvious thing to market.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Thank you, your article complemented point (2) nicely. Good that you had that handy.

That makes a lot of sense. Empirically confirmed from a trusted sample set of top athletes, that each discovered a common sitting method that worked for them in complete isolation from each other.



Well, I'm looking forward to when hookless matures and stabilizes as a tire+rim technology combo.

It seems we are looking at different wheels Tom, I am comparing the previous generation 303 Firecrest disc brake to the new generation. The old 303 disc brake was 1655g and I can't seem to find the Zipp spec sheet any more other than the comparison in this article https://cyclingtips.com/2020/05/2021-zipp-303-firecrest/