00:00if you've kept up with the latest wheel releases then you've probably noticed
00:04one thing hookless rims they seem to be everywhere but what are they well this piece of technology
00:10is relatively new to the road and gravel market and what benefits does it bestow to the user and
00:16what potential negatives are there well today and in this video i'm going to tell you seven
00:21things that you absolutely have to know about hookless rims i quickly need to step back in time
00:33you see in 1970 mavic released its module e rim a rim that was certifiably a game changer
00:41in the world of cycling you see before that rim existed the only choice for racing was tubular
00:47tires wherein you glue a tub a tubular tire onto a rim for every other type of cycling there was
00:54something called wire-on tires but these tended to be heavy and quite slow the difference with the
01:00module e was it incorporated a hook which allowed it to capture a lighter foldable beaded type of
01:06tire and prevented it from blowing off at high pressures ever since then that has been the most
01:12commonly used form of rim for bicycles but now we're starting to see more and more hookless rims
01:25put simply and as the name suggests a hookless rim is a rim without the hook that would usually
01:31capture the bead of a tire if you look at a profile you'll see that it lacks a hook at
01:36the top of the
01:37side walls of the rim and instead it is completely vertical now this means a couple of things that
01:43are quite important that you need to know the first one is that you cannot use clincher tires this is
01:49a
01:49tubeless only setup that's not to say that you can't run tubes for example if you had a catastrophic
01:54puncture you absolutely could but you could not change the tires to a clincher version even more
02:00confusingly hookless rims aren't actually compatible with all tubeless tires on the market and i'll come
02:06into that a little bit more later on in this video cycling is lagging and not leading when it comes
02:20to hookless rims in fact it has taken from about the 1970s until now for cycling especially road cycling
02:27to catch up with other pneumatic forms of transport mountain bikes have used hookless rims for a little
02:33while now but road cycling has sorely lagged behind however that does seem to be changing and although
02:39they're hardly universal yet there are a lot of notable brands putting quite a lot of time and energy
02:45into developing hookless rims for the road and gravel market these include envy zip cadex the sister
02:52company to giant and giant themselves all of whom are putting money into hookless rims and today i'm using
02:57giants slr one wheel to perfectly demonstrate exactly what hookless rims are and what all of these brands
03:04are espousing when they say it bestows a lot of benefits to the user i'll start by explaining exactly
03:16what the hook is and it's pretty self-explanatory the hook is part of the rim profile that captures the
03:23ties bead and prevents it from blowing off when inflated on hooked rims if you feel the side of
03:30the rims there you'll naturally feel a little lip at the top and that is exactly what we're referring to
03:36when we talk about a hook meanwhile on these hookless rims you'll notice if you can see up close that
03:43the
03:43rim profile is completely straight with vertical sides and that's where they're lacking the hook
03:49now in the early days of tubeless mountain biking setup it wasn't uncommon for riders to experience
03:56something called burping burping was the sudden and unexpected loss of pressure between the tire
04:02and the rim wall now this could happen for numerous reasons it might be that the tire bead wasn't stiff
04:08enough or that the pairing between the tire and the rim wasn't quite right and air was able to escape
04:13either way imagining burping happening on a road bike is absolutely terrifying now proponents of
04:22hookless rims actually say it's a much safer way to have a tubeless setup and that might seem strange
04:28because you're literally removing the hook the thing that was designed for years to keep tires in place
04:33however zip have done a lot of research into this and have found that the pressure required to blow
04:39a tire off a hooked rim and a hookless rim is actually very similar as another example envy say
04:45that by removing the hook from hookless rims brands can actually make sure that the bead seat diameter of
04:51the rim is accurate and consistent the whole way around allowing for a better pairing between the tire
04:56and the rim now this leads neatly onto another aspect that brands are keen to push when it comes to
05:02hookless rims that is superior manufacturing
05:12proponents of hookless rims are keen to talk about their simpler but superior manufacturing process zip
05:18for example told us that hookless rims allow better carbon compaction better resin distribution throughout
05:23the rim more accurate bead seat diameters and ultimately less scrap and less waste to help
05:31demonstrate this point i'm going to talk a little bit about rim manufacturing but i'll keep it brief
05:36because it can be a bit complicated but in short with hooked rims brands use a silicon mandrel to mold
05:43the tire bed cavity now that silicon mandrel is quite soft and can only be used once and then it
05:50needs to be
05:50thrown away however with hookless rims brands can use a steel mandrel to mold that tire bed cavity and they
05:58can
05:58get many more uses out of that because it's much harder that's not the only benefit either a steel
06:04mandrel allows them to create more accurate and more consistent tire bed diameters allowing for a
06:10better pairing between the tire and the rim the other manufacturing benefit of hookless rims is that
06:15you can get a better distribution of resin in the rim now this not only allows you to create a
06:21better
06:21interface between the tire and the rim which is obviously incredibly important it also crucially allows you to
06:27drop the weight of the wheel however that's not the only thing you drop with hookless rims brands are
06:32also keen to state that they are ultimately cheaper for the consumer because of these more efficient
06:37manufacturing processes now zip are very keen to state that their new 303 firecress wheels are 300 grams
06:45lighter than the old model because they have moved to a hookless design and also they are 30
06:5142 percent cheaper than those old models as well of course inevitably there will be those that say
06:57the drive behind hookless isn't because of performance reasons for the user but actually
07:02because of cheaper manufacturing costs for the brands and they might well be right it's still
07:06a little early to tell but it will be really interesting to see in the future as hookless
07:12rooms become more available and more common on the cycling market where the prices really do go down for the
07:18end user
07:25until very recently if you'd asked me what the widest internal rim widths i'd expect to see on a wheel
07:30i'd have told you 21 mil that was usual for both zip envy hunt all of these wheel manufacturers had
07:37internal room widths that were that wide however with their latest releases both zip and envy have wheels
07:42which have internal rim widths of 23 and 25 millimeters but why have they done this well it all
07:50comes down to the shape of the tire you see on a hookless rim the tire side will sit further
07:56apart
07:56because they're not being pulled inward by the hook if previously you'd put a wide tire on a rim
08:01with a narrow internal rim widths you'd have got a bulbous shaped your tire and it would have looked like
08:05a mushroom coming off the top of the rim now that interface between tire and the wheel has long been
08:11the
08:11subject of study for aerodynamicists who all say that a flush interface so one that sits neatly the
08:19rim into the tire and not a bulbous shape is much more aerodynamic what's more because those sidewalls
08:25are further apart you're able to run your tires at lower pressures this not only creates a more
08:31comfortable bike ride but also has been proven to make the bike faster zip say that on a smooth asphalt
08:37road a wider tire can expect to save between three to five watts up to 40 watts on a rougher
08:43surface
08:44now of course not all riders are going to want to go for wider tires but if you look at
08:49the recent
08:50trend of gc bikes and the sort of top end race bikes on the world tour you'll definitely see that
08:55there is a trend towards wider tires on fast bikes
09:04the reason you might be limited in tires for your hookless rims is ultimately due to the lack
09:10of standards around them basically the rate of change on hookless rims and tubeless tires have gone
09:17so quickly that the two governing bodies the etrto that's the european one and the iso the international
09:23one are yet to be able to sign it off they have fears that high pressures might blow the tire
09:29off
09:29the rim and it's not something they've experienced yet because mountain biking where hookless rims have
09:34been used the most tend to run their pressures much much lower than we would on the road however
09:40with road and gravel companies using that technology from mountain biking they've been pushing
09:45the rate of change in hookless rims much faster than those two governing bodies can keep up for this
09:52reason it has been left to rim and tire companies to work out which tires are compatible with which
09:58rims and most of this legwork is being done by wheel manufacturers for example giant told us that
10:04they're working really closely with tire brands in their testing protocols which involves inflating a
10:09tire to 1.5 the maximum pressure standards to see if it will blow off the rim now if you
10:15look at zip
10:16envy and giants websites all of them have lists of tires which are compatible with their rims but some
10:22of them are smaller than others for example zip only lists five brands that it feels are compatible
10:27with its rims whereas envy and giant list a little more it's all a little bit murky and quite confusing
10:34at
10:34the moment and not unlike the wild west really but as the pace of change increases and the steady march
10:40of technology carries on expect to see tire brands and rim manufacturers working together to create
10:47more compatible products early adopters of the tubeless setup will no doubt welcome hookless rims and the
10:59better interface between tires and rims that it offers and therefore a more secure setup however
11:05as we know from our comment section not everybody wants to set up their tires tubeless and there will
11:11be those that are saying there's no demand for hookless rims and that it's not necessary in the
11:16road market now it does feel important to say that at the time of filming neither continental nor vittoria
11:22two of the biggest tire manufacturers in the world say that their tires are compatible with hookless
11:28rims it will take a couple more of the big name tire brands to get involved and ultimately for etrto
11:35and
11:35iso to get involved and to set some standards but the upshot for the end user could be better value
11:41and
11:42lighter wheels so there you go seven things that you have to know about hookless rims a new technology
11:50for the road and gravel market but one that seems to be advancing at quite a pace if you have
11:56any
11:56questions about these new type of rims then please do leave them in the comments section below and
12:00i'll do my best to answer them and if you have found this video helpful do give us a thumbs
12:04up and
12:05subscribe to the channel it really does help us out now i'll be back soon with some more great tech
12:11content and i'll see you then
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