7 Things You Need To Know.
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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
00:11is 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 the 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 a
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
02:57giant's slr one wheel to perfectly demonstrate exactly what hookless rims are and what all of
03:03these brands are espousing when they say it bestows a lot of benefits to the user
03:14i'll start by explaining exactly what the hook is and it's pretty self-explanatory the hook is part of
03:20the rim profile that captures the ties bead and prevents it from blowing off when inflated
03:27on hooked rims if you feel the side of the rims there you'll naturally feel a little lip at the top
03:34and that is exactly what we're referring to when we talk about a hook meanwhile on these hookless rims
03:40you'll notice if you can see up close that the rim profile is completely straight with vertical sides
03:46and that's where they're lacking the hook now in the early days of tubeless mountain biking setup it
03:53wasn't uncommon for riders to experience something called burping burping was the sudden and unexpected
04:01loss of pressure between the tire and the rim wall now this could happen for numerous reasons it might
04:06be that the tire bead wasn't stiff enough or that the pairing between the tire and the rim wasn't quite
04:11right and air was able to escape either way imagining burping happening on a road bike is absolutely terrifying
04:19now proponents of hookless rims actually say it's a much safer way to have a tubeless setup and that
04:27might seem strange because you're literally removing the hook the thing that was designed for years to
04:32keep tires in place however zip have done a lot of research into this and have found that the pressure
04:38required to blow a tire off a hooked rim and a hookless rim is actually very similar as another example
04:45people envy say that by removing the hook from hookless rims brands can actually make sure that the bead
04:50seat diameter of the rim is accurate and consistent the whole way around allowing for a better pairing
04:56between the tire and the rim now this leads neatly onto another aspect that brands are keen to push when
05:02it comes to hookless rims that is superior manufacturing
05:06proponents 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 demonstrate
05:31this point i'm going to talk a little bit about rim manufacturing but i'll keep it brief because it
05:36can be a bit complicated but in short with hooked rims brands use a silicon mandrel to mold the tire bed
05:44cavity now that silicon mandrel is quite soft and can only be used once and then it needs to be thrown away
05:52however with hookless rims brands can use a steel mandrel to mold that tire bed cavity and they can get many
05:58more uses out of that because it's much harder that's not the only benefit either a steel mandrel
06:04allows them to create more accurate and more consistent tire bed diameters allowing for a better pairing
06:10between the tire and the rim the other manufacturing benefit of hookless rims is that you can get a better
06:16distribution of resin in the rim now this not only allows you to create a better interface between the
06:22tire and the rim which is obviously incredibly important it also crucially allows you to drop the weight of
06:28the wheel however that's not the only thing you drop with hookless rims brands are also keen to state
06:33that they are ultimately cheaper for the consumer because of these more efficient manufacturing
06:38processes now zip are very keen to state that their new 303 firecress wheels are 300 grams lighter than
06:46the old model because they have moved to a hookless design and also they are 30 cheaper than those old models
06:53as well of course inevitably there will be those that say the drive behind hookless isn't because
07:00of performance reasons for the user but actually because of cheaper manufacturing costs for the
07:04brands and they might well be right it's still a little early to tell but it will be really interesting
07:09to see in the future as hookless rims become more available and more common on the cycling market
07:16where the prices really do go down for the end user until very recently if you'd asked me what the
07:27widest internal rim widths i'd expect to see on a wheel i'd have told you 21 mil that was usual for both
07:33zip envy hunt all of these wheel manufacturers had internal room widths that were that wide however with
07:39their latest releases both zip and envy have wheels which have internal rim widths of 23 and 25 millimeters
07:47but why have they done this well it all comes down to the shape of the tire you see on a hookless rim
07:54the tire side will sit further apart because they're not being pulled inward by the hook if previously
08:00you'd put a wide tire on a rim with a narrow internal rim width you'd have got a bulbous shaped
08:04your tire and it would have looked like a mushroom coming off the top of the rim now that
08:09interface between tire and the wheel has long been the subject of study for aerodynamicists who all
08:15say that a flush interface so one that sits neatly the rim into the tire and not a bulbous shape is
08:21much more aerodynamic what's more because those sidewalls are further apart you're able to run your
08:27tires at lower pressures this not only creates a more comfortable bike ride but also has been proven
08:33to make the bike faster zip say that on a smooth asphalt road a wider tire can expect to save between
08:40three to five watts up to 40 watts on a rougher surface now of course not all riders are going to
08:47want to go for wider tires but if you look at the recent trend of gc bikes and the sort of top-end race
08:53bikes on the world tour you'll definitely see that there is a trend towards wider tires on fast bikes
09:05the reason you might be limited in tires for your hookless rims is ultimately due to the lack of
09:10standards around them basically the rate of change on hookless rims and tubeless tires have gone so quickly
09:18that the two governing bodies the etrto that's the european one and the iso the international one are
09:23yet to be able to sign it off they have fears that high pressures might blow the tire off the rim and
09:30it's not something they've experienced yet because mountain biking where hookless rims have been used
09:34the most tend to run their pressures much much lower than we would on the road however with road and gravel
09:41companies using that technology from mountain biking they've been pushing the rate of change in hookless
09:47rims much faster than those two governing bodies can keep up for this reason it has been left to rim
09:54and tire companies to work out which tires are compatible with which rims and most of this leg
09:59work is being done by wheel manufacturers for example giant told us that they're working really closely
10:05with tire brands in their testing protocols which involves inflating a tire to 1.5 the maximum pressure
10:12standards to see if it will blow off the rim now if you look at zip envy and giant's websites all of
10:18them have lists of tires which are compatible with their rims but some of them are smaller than others
10:23for example zip only lists five brands that it feels are compatible with its rims whereas envy and giant list
10:29a little more it's all a little bit murky and quite confusing at the moment and not unlike the wild west
10:37really but as the pace of change increases and the steady march of technology carries on expect to
10:42see tire brands and rim manufacturers working together to create more compatible products
10:55early adopters of the tubeless setup will no doubt welcome hookless rims and the better interface between
11:01tires and rims that it offers and therefore a more secure setup however as we know from our
11:07comments section not everybody wants to set up their tires tubeless and there will be those that
11:11are saying there's no demand for hookless rims and that it's not necessary in the road market now it
11:17does feel important to say that at the time of filming neither continental nor vittoria two of the
11:23biggest tire manufacturers in the world say that their tires are compatible with hookless rims
11:29i'd hazard that it will take a couple more of the big name tire brands to get involved and ultimately for
11:34etr to and iso to get involved and to set some standards but the upshot for the end user could
11:40be better value and lighter wheels so there you go seven things that you have to know about hookless
11:48rims a new technology for the road and gravel market but one that seems to be advancing at quite
11:55a pace if you have any questions about these new type of rims then please do leave them in the comment
12:00section below and i'll do my best to answer them and if you have found this video helpful do give us
12:04a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel it really does help us out now i'll be back soon with some
12:10more great tech content and i'll see you then