So I was reading this Hed wheel review and the author says,
“Perhaps a bigger change, and one that seems to be trending across the industry, is a move back to hooked rims.”
I assume the author is talking about gravel. But anybody else hear this? Any details as to if/why this is happening?
The article:
“Perhaps a bigger change, and one that seems to be trending across the industry, is a move back to hooked rims. While the lower pressure and higher volume of gravel tires seem to make hookless less of a potential drawback, it’s also important for a smaller player like HED to read the room and give the people what they want, which seems to be a hooked rim.”
The full quote
HED has always been hooked and never had plans of moving to hookless. To my knowledge it’s only Zipp, Enve, and Cadex. Other manufacturers seem to be fairly planted in their “we’re staying with hooked” position.
I don’t know a single person who has bought hookless rims. I know several people who ride hookless rims because it’s what came with their road bike when they bought it.
This is the market niche for hookless. Saving $8 in cost on a $8,000 bike because the average road bike consumer will first look at price, frame, paint, components, handlebars, wheels depth. You usually have to click around to the specifications page to see any mention of hookless. Some might say they’re trying to hide it, at least safe to say they’re not trying to advertise it.
Not sure I follow your post.
But you are saying (other than Hed) that there is no industry trend going back to hooked rims?
Sort of, I’m saying other than a few companies there doesn’t seem to be a trend moving towards hookless rims. Disc brakes…sure, that was an obvious trend. It doesn’t seem to be the case with hooked vs. hookless. At least that’s my opinion.
One thing lost in the discussion, hookless is driven by carbon rims. It’s much more complicated to make a mold that needs to retract out from under a bead hook, than make a mold that simply retracts from the rim. Aluminum rims are extruded, then rolled into a round shape. The extrusion die doesn’t care if there is a hook, or not. There is no cost savings to making a hookless aluminum rim.
imo this is where i think the industry might be going. i saw this at sea otter. it’s a hooked rim. see the hook? i wish i had a clearer pic of this, but, it’s hard to see the hook. even in person. extremely small bead hook. basically a hookless rim that an be called hooked, so as to avoid the stigma.
Interesting. Does this rim pictured perform (in terms of holding tires on at much wider pressure ranges) similar to fully hooked rims?
Also, why do hookless rims have a ‘stigma’?
I think the confusion that DarkSpeedWorks has stems from a typo. I ‘think’ you meant to say that other manufacturers are sticking with hooked, but you said “we’re staying with hookless”. Given your previous sentence about only 3 manufacturers going hookless, your sentence as typed doesn’t make sense.
Whoops, you’re correct.
as with disc brakes when they came out, hookless rims were considered unsafe. the idea was unsafe, not the rim. so, there’s been a ton of negative industry press about hookless or, more specifically, road hookless. but road hookless has bled back a bit into gravel hookless because “hookless” is evil. so, you put a tiny, inconsequential bead hook in there and you call it hooked to avoid the stigma. also, some of these companies can put that baby hook in without including it in the wheel mold, which makes it cheap and easy. meanwhile, the world of road race is quickly moving to larger tires, as in 30c to 32c, with wheels that optimize this tire size. this makes the hooked/hookless debate kind of moot, since you don’t ride those tires at a pressure that exceeds what is considered safe for hookless. nevertheless, my ituition tells me the baby hooks are going to become a thing and i’m interested in seeing blow-off tests to see whether the baby hooks (my term) add to the blow-off pressure.
Nothing new here. This is a vid about SRAM filling a patent for adding “hooks” to hookless rims - from TWO years ago! Jump to 4:30 in the video
Is there a problem with Hookless? SRAMs relentless IP filing!
From an engineer at one of the big wheel companies : "we’re doing a micro hook design to go higher pressure for that wheel’.
Is this just another way of saying “hookless didn’t work out like we expected”?
I think people started testing for performance and realized some of the hookless limitations made it sub-optimal for specific applications (like triathlon and TT).
So they are finding solutions for those specific applications.
Believe it or not I may be ordering a set of hookless wheels 
i’ll be interested to see where this all goes. i don’t know enough to know whether hookless pressure limitations mean that wheel style is not workable in TTs. i think a large part of that question will be answered by the tire choice. as i have been fond of saying (not that anyone’s listening) tire is the first choice. the tire drives every other design decision. when i talk to wheel companies what i’m hearing is a rapid escalation in wider tire / wider internal bead width at just about every cycling discipline. this either drives or at least allows the designs you know see from stromm and factor (and others).
i don’t care one way or the other about bead hooks except to dispel silly misconceptions and urban mythology, and to remind folks there are pressure limits. the micro hook might be where we end up. i suspect the macro hook is on its way out.
IMHO, the OP asked the wrong question - I don’t think the “industry” ever did move to hookless.
Us maniacs are a very small subset of the bicycle world, and the few manufacturers who moved to hookless serve an even smaller subset. You’ll know when hookless has become mainstream when an uber big manufacturer like Shimano embraces the technology. From a liability perspective, I don’t think that will ever happen, at least not in the US.
Like you, I too am not in love with hooks or with hookless.
But, call me crazy, I am at least somewhat in love with my face. As in, I really really really really do not want to get launched into the unknown because of a tire coming off or blowing off at speed when pressures spike (bike with narrow tires ridden or parked in the sun in super hot conditions, etc.) or when pressures suddenly drop (puncture or tire gash, etc.).
me too. i’m just like you. same concern. nevertheless i ride hookless wheels in almost everything, only because the best wheels i could find for my use case happened to be hookless. i don’t know but can only guess that pogacar, mcnulty, del toro, et al, feel the same way and before you say, “but they’re getting paid!” i highly doubt pogacar could or would be forced to ride a tech he felt placed him in peril. i unconditionally respect you having your opinion about what you consider safe and i hope you don’t mind that the rest of us are allowed the same respect. (and, btw, i am not getting paid to ride anything.)
