i didn’t keep track, that is, i wasn’t specifically looking. i saw a lot of zipps, CADEXes and ENVEs out there in the tour. did we have hookless blow-offs? i didn’t see or hear of any but maybe somebody has some better 411 than i do.
You troll. I’m calling the moderators. 
You troll. I’m calling the moderators.
i don’t blame you.
They’re all secretly running clinchers.
i didn’t keep track, that is, i wasn’t specifically looking. i saw a lot of zipps, CADEXes and ENVEs out there in the tour. did we have hookless blow-offs? i didn’t see or hear of any but maybe somebody has some better 411 than i do.
I thought I saw one front tire blow out early in a late stage. The commenters focused on it and they showed a slow replay of it. Can’t remember who. And didn’t’ Evenepoel have a tire that was rapidly losing air during the first TT, but he still won the stage?
Big Tubeless conspired with Deep Hookless to suppress all reports of blowouts
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I thought I saw one front tire blow out early in a late stage. The commenters focused on it and they showed a slow replay of it. Can’t remember who. And didn’t’ Evenepoel have a tire that was rapidly losing air during the first TT, but he still won the stage?
There was a bang sounding just like a tire that blows that fooled him (for a few seconds) to think he had a puncture. When he noticed things worked fine he rode on.
I thought I saw one front tire blow out early in a late stage. The commenters focused on it and they showed a slow replay of it. Can’t remember who. And didn’t’ Evenepoel have a tire that was rapidly losing air during the first TT, but he still won the stage?
i would assume evenepoel was riding a roval, yes? a blow off would have to have been on a rider from movistar, UAE or jayco alula to be in this qualifying cohort.
i didn’t keep track, that is, i wasn’t specifically looking. i saw a lot of zipps, CADEXes and ENVEs out there in the tour. did we have hookless blow-offs? i didn’t see or hear of any but maybe somebody has some better 411 than i do.
Definitely a fair point. But also we need to keep in mind in all fairness:
The tour has professionals doing maintenance, I assume on a daily basis.
The tour, even though it’s a long duration of rides, it’s not the same thing as the hobbyist who might only do once every 6 months check in on his gear. And even that we have to admit is pretty well maintained. Most bike owners we all know do a once every 5 years maintenance routine. If that…
So, for a high use, highly educated, frequent upkeeper, frequent replacer (how many tour riders use their tire to the lifespan vs replace earlier than necessary), the product appears to be more than good enough.
And that doesn’t take into account the pressures to cover up small issues, that might otherwise become big issues if it didn’t have world class professional attention focusing on it.
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Basing equipment choices on what sponsor brands give to pro teams is generally not the best way to choose a quality product. A huge endorsement is when teams go outside of sponsorship to buy a product they determine is superior (Princeton Wheels, eg). At most we can say that teams did not find the risk of hookless to warrant purchases outside of sponsorship.
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A TdF team is not exactly the risk scenario that has people hung up. Teams surely are matching their tyres correctly, aware of ERTRO guidelines, checking pressure, and riding on freshly paved roads. This is 180 different than Johnny-bought-a-new-bike who sees the sidewall of his tires say “MAX PRESSURE 120PSI” so pumps straight to 120psi with a dubiously accurate pump gauge then goes and rides typical beat-up roads.
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And this is incredibly cynical, but it only takes 1 incident to ruin the reputation. Imagine MVDP leading the Olympic road race solo with 30k to go and his tyre blows off when he hits a bump. The stat of 0 blow offs in the TdF won’t sway many opinions.
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None of this matters because the industry has largely decided to move to hookless, regardless of consumer preference.
4 - it is exactly the same as disc brakes
The discussions here about how unnecessary disc brakes and thru axles are and here we are
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This is 180 different than Johnny-bought-a-new-bike who sees the sidewall of his tires say “MAX PRESSURE 120PSI” so pumps straight to 120psi with a dubiously accurate pump gauge then goes and rides typical beat-up roads.
It scares me how many times I’ve had to explain to casual bike riders that the max PSI on their sidewall is a maximum pressure for safety and not the actual pressure their tire should be inflated to.
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Basing equipment choices on what sponsor brands give to pro teams is generally not the best way to choose a quality product. A huge endorsement is when teams go outside of sponsorship to buy a product they determine is superior (Princeton Wheels, eg). At most we can say that teams did not find the risk of hookless to warrant purchases outside of sponsorship.
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A TdF team is not exactly the risk scenario that has people hung up. Teams surely are matching their tyres correctly, aware of ERTRO guidelines, checking pressure, and riding on freshly paved roads. This is 180 different than Johnny-bought-a-new-bike who sees the sidewall of his tires say “MAX PRESSURE 120PSI” so pumps straight to 120psi with a dubiously accurate pump gauge then goes and rides typical beat-up roads.
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And this is incredibly cynical, but it only takes 1 incident to ruin the reputation. Imagine MVDP leading the Olympic road race solo with 30k to go and his tyre blows off when he hits a bump. The stat of 0 blow offs in the TdF won’t sway many opinions.
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None of this matters because the industry has largely decided to move to hookless, regardless of consumer preference.
right. i have a query into all 3 brands about whether those teams used wheels other than the hookless beaded rims the sponsors provide. as well as i can tell about 70,000 racing miles were ridden on hookless wheels during the TdF and yes, by pros, pro teams, pro mechanics, all of that, but the flip side they were ridden under loads and stresses nobody is going put on wheels other than those pros, and in pretty harsh conditions. so, i’ll see what the companies write back to me. but, data is data and so far i haven’t found evidence of a single blow off during those 70,000 racing miles. hence my posting here, to see if anyone knows of any.
i didn’t keep track, that is, i wasn’t specifically looking. i saw a lot of zipps, CADEXes and ENVEs out there in the tour. did we have hookless blow-offs? i didn’t see or hear of any but maybe somebody has some better 411 than i do.
Definitely a fair point. But also we need to keep in mind in all fairness:
The tour has professionals doing maintenance, I assume on a daily basis.
The tour, even though it’s a long duration of rides, it’s not the same thing as the hobbyist who might only do once every 6 months check in on his gear. And even that we have to admit is pretty well maintained. Most bike owners we all know do a once every 5 years maintenance routine. If that…
So, for a high use, highly educated, frequent upkeeper, frequent replacer (how many tour riders use their tire to the lifespan vs replace earlier than necessary), the product appears to be more than good enough.
And that doesn’t take into account the pressures to cover up small issues, that might otherwise become big issues if it didn’t have world class professional attention focusing on it.
And I doubt there are any here in the 65kg weight category with mechanics checking tires daily. Not a very realistic take.
I’d like to know who provided the wheels and tyres for the GB team in the Olympics, in mens TT and MTB. Because they’re very puncture prone!
i didn’t keep track, that is, i wasn’t specifically looking. i saw a lot of zipps, CADEXes and ENVEs out there in the tour. did we have hookless blow-offs? i didn’t see or hear of any but maybe somebody has some better 411 than i do.
It would probably be better to get a sampling from Grand Fondo’s or something like the El Tour de Tucson
Seems like it was more difficult this year to really figure out who was riding what. For example, my real interest is TT’s, so I was excited to see that Escape Collective had a two-part story on the TDF’s Time Trial bikes. Absolutely beautiful pictures, but almost NO substantative verbage on the all important front tire, used on the top three winning bikes in each race. You’d think with all the current tire controversies there’d be more - Size (width), Tube or Tubeless, Hooked or Hookless. Maybe they were unofficially told to please stay away from it.
i didn’t keep track, that is, i wasn’t specifically looking. i saw a lot of zipps, CADEXes and ENVEs out there in the tour. did we have hookless blow-offs? i didn’t see or hear of any but maybe somebody has some better 411 than i do.
It would probably be better to get a sampling from Grand Fondo’s or something like the El Tour de Tucson
so, if i go to el tour, count how many hookless there are, and note there were no blow-offs, your take away would be what?
right. i have a query into all 3 brands about whether those teams used wheels other than the hookless beaded rims the sponsors provide. as well as i can tell about 70,000 racing miles were ridden on hookless wheels during the TdF and yes, by pros, pro teams, pro mechanics, all of that, but the flip side they were ridden under loads and stresses nobody is going put on wheels other than those pros, and in pretty harsh conditions. so, i’ll see what the companies write back to me. but, data is data and so far i haven’t found evidence of a single blow off during those 70,000 racing miles. hence my posting here, to see if anyone knows of any.
That’s good and has the potential to provide good data. Preface by saying I have huge respect for you and hope the 3 brands you’re talking to would as well…but…do you have confidence that they wouldn’t classify a blowout as a a regular flat? There’s not a great way for the viewing public to know if a domestique outside the camera lens suffered a flat from glass or a blowoff due to excess stresses. Even more so for pinch flats vs. blowoffs.
It’s one of those things where the perception is that the industry is forcing an arguably worse product on customers to save money, but claiming that the product is just as good. What evidence will be enough to convince a preponderance that it’s good enough?
That everyone running hookless rims were also running an appropriate tire and an appropriate pressure?
I remember when I first got into biking (which was not as long ago as you) and there was a ton of things I didn’t know. And even more that I didn’t know that I didn’t know. I bought a lot of stuff because it was on a good sale or looked cool. I built up a bike on my own and bought a stem that was far too long (because I didn’t understand how top-tube lengths varied between bikes) and was something like -17 degrees which I didn’t understand so I had a massive amount of spacers under it so my bars were high enough. I also bought a mountain bike crank because it was 70% off only to find out it didn’t fit my frame/bottom bracket because I didn’t understand there were multiple types of cranks in terms of widths, bottom bracket types, etc. When I did finally get the right crank and cassette I ended up with a bike that was really hard to pedal up hill since I didn’t have easy gears since I didn’t fully understand gear ratios.
I could go on and on with all the dumb things and mistakes I made because I didn’t know enough (and didn’t ask someone appropriate or comprehend what I was reading well enough). I imagine there are lots of other people out there that were or have been like me. If hookless rims were a thing back then I might have bought a pair and I could totally see a scenario where I bought the wrong tires for them or pumped them up with too high of pressure (which reminds me that when I first started I didn’t have a floor pump and would just go to a gas station to use their compressed air to blow up my tires).