I’ve argued with Dan a lot about hookless on here. But he did say this in a previous post linked above:
Which is precisely what a lot of us have been saying over the years. Unfortunately hookless is being discussed in articles (on ST and other sources) in a broad sense. TT/Tri have been lumped in with road, gravel, mtb, etc. There’s a large group that are against hookless for tt/tri and road and they are vocal. While the authors are typically talking at a more macro level. Like all things on the internet, neither side is able to see through the other sides lens.
no no no…please read carefully, those comments are someone else’s, never said that never would
but my butt is still hurting since you suggested sticking IMUs up it to measure ONJs…remembr that ?
Here is your idea in that first thread
“over the winter the UAE team stuck the pill-shaped suppositories up their asses and over repeated rides found that they could save significant olivia newton johns through the use of wider tires. this opened the door for the use of ENVE’s hookless rims, won a couple of grand tours, and there you have it.”
if we go back to (when was it?) 2017 or so we had a similar discussion about disc brakes in tri bikes. first they were bad for all applications. but then when it seemed like they were at least tolerable in a road race they were still bad in tri because they were (and always would be!) an aero penalty.
my argument back then is the same as it is now for a hookless rim or, more broadly, a wider tire. if you just take a wide tire, or a disc brake, and put it into a system built for narrow tires and rim brakes, then the entire system is not optimized for the new tech. if you’re patient and let the makers of all the other system components catch up then you might have something.
accordingly, we now have bikes that are optimized for disc brakes and it took several generations of frame design before we got there. it’s going to take several generations of tire before we get to full optimization for hookless (or microhook, or some other kind of hook) designs. as you see now, we have bikes (first tri, now road) with very wide stays and chains that optimize fatter tires. in this way, the entire system remains relatively aero while allowing for the better rolling resistance and less vibration you get with a wider tire.
there’s always going to be this need for patience in the case of the bicycle, because unlike (say) cars and motorcycles bicycles are not made by a bunch of different manufatures of component parts who each have their own design ideas. chrysler doesn’t have to argue with seat or brake or intercooler manufacturers. the makers of those sub-assemblies either make what chrysler wants or they don’t get the contract. any new idea in bike design requires a consensus of all the sub-assembly makers before you get full optimization and that cycling is likely to take upwards of a decade.
i’m not (at least as of this moment) in the game. i don’t talk very often to wheel and tire makers. but i do have a guess about this, which is that we’ll end up with a rim wall inside “shape”. not a hook in its traditional sense, not vertical featureless wall, but something in between that can be manufatured without a separate bladder for the hook. that wheel from enve has a hook that looks like of like a vertically oriented bead hook that sits on the rim shelf. or maybe it’s just a wall, but canted inward.
maybe media companies are performing blow-off tests on these various designs. if i was still in the game i’d be tempted to do this, to put some data to the designs wheel and tire companies are producing.
But at some point (going wider), you stop making gains and go backwards. A bike optimized for 40mm tires isn’t going to be faster than a bike optimized for 25mm or for 28mm. My theory has always been that you start giving up speed once you get past 25mm and it gets exponentially worse the wider you go. Though the delta between 25mm vs 28mm is small and much smaller than it was 5 years ago and most certainly 10+ years ago. Which goes to your other point and I agree that a 28mm or even 30mm optimized system can be relatively aero. But some of us aren’t looking for relative but rather absolute.
This is true AND wider does not always equate to better RR so you are getting a double whammy
Manufacturers could/should wrap their heads around optimal performance. The Rolling road data published in 2022 just made no sense. It was almost looked like they made data to justify their decisions rather than design decisions to achieve peak performance.
At least 3 WT teams + UAE are now measuring this stuff and hopefully we will see more pushing back on the manufacturers to figure out what is optimal and then ways to make optimal safe. I’m not sure we got that right last iteration.
I have the scene from Billy Madison in my head where he’s in the tub and there’s the argument between shampoo and conditioner being better.
I think a presidential candidate could easily pick up another 50 votes one way or the other by picking a side on the hookless/hooked debate. Dems jumping to MAGA…MAGA going full left…all based on this one topic.
PS. Loved seeing the Parcours data on aero! Nice work.
For several years, there was a huge marketing push for “wider tires are faster”. Crr wise was the implication. It happened when we transitioned from 23mm to 25mm and when 28mm started to get pushed over 25mm. There were many threads on this over the years. Bicycle rolling resistance didn’t help the situation as the way they published their data made it seem like the wider tire was faster as well. I’m glad we’ve put that behind us to not be true.
I’ve never understood how zipp thought publishing that rolling road data on road/tt/tri wheels was a good idea. For their gravel wheels, it makes sense. But not for an 808 or 858.
We as consumers need to push back on mfg’s. We need more education on hookless. I’m concerned for the newby or non technical triathlete who buys a new tri bike with hookless wheels and pumps them up to 90 psi. ST has done a better job than anyone educating about hookless but it can still be too nuanced. We need broader education by the mfg’s and everyone else.
i for SURE agree that a bike optimized for one tire isn’t going to do as well on another. the fastest tire isn’t going to be the fastest until the entire system is built for it (e.g., wheels and frames). but the very person who’s recent comments prompted this thread told me that he thought maybe 32mm might be the point where aero begins to overtake width, so, 30mm, 32mm, in there somewhere. that’s what my own instinct and experience tells me, but, for sure, that might be different for road race than for TT and tri would be in between. as for me and for a LOT of people who make up their own minds without any financial push/pull, 30mm to 32mm is the sweet spot for road race.
but to be fair this is the solution for hookless, pretty hard for the tyre to come off lol
sometimes one has to adapt the system to a certain issue to make it work lol
[quote=“ecce-homo, post:111, topic:1290723, full:true”]
If you quantify the benefits, they are marginal at best, whereas one of the drawbacks is life threatening. No way a responsible industry would try to push that onto consumers. [/quote]
this discussion of aero and weight savings is missing the forest for the trees. I think this quote is the best way to encapsulate why this is so polarizing. And, personally, why I think hookless for road needs to go away. This isn’t a harmless argument. What if you sell your bike on ebay to someone who doesn’t know what hookless is, they receive it and pump up the tires to 80psi and go for a ride. The consequences of that mistake could be deadly. literally. yes, this is an extreme example, but even the staunchest hookless defender cannot tell me that scenario is impossible. which is exactly the problem.
This. Aero and weight savings are pretty much BS by the manufacturers. The only savings have to be in the manufacturing, otherwise, why would they push the technology. I have two pumps and have seen variations of around 5 psi depending on which one I use. Who knows what’s the accuracy range of all inflation options out there.
I can picture a Saul Goodman type of ad in the nearby future: “Have you or one your loved ones been injured by hookless rims, you may be entitled to some cash compensation, call XXX today!” Couple of bad lawsuits and hookless might go the spinergy rev x way,
Here’s a practical, personal example of why I think hookless either needs to be dead or improved…
I currently have a set of hookless rims on my road bike, and I absolutely love them. I have 30mm wide tires running at 60 PSI, and they are glorious and fast enough for how I ride my road bike.
Next year, I am planning to buy a tri bike to replace my 9-year-old rim brake bike. I care greatly about speed and will want the fastest possible setup on my new bike. If the following two statements are true, then a hookless wheel set would be a downgrade. Therefore, I will not buy a bike or wheels until the whole hookless performance thing settles out.
My fastest triathlon time trial tire would likely be 25mm or 28mm
My fastest tire pressure would likely be >72 PSI
Problem #1: You cannot put a 25mm or 28mm tire on a hookless wheel without violating the optimal “rule of 105” for aerodynamics and be compliant with the ETRTO interior width and tire size relationship.
Problem #2: Fastest tire pressures for 25mm and 28mm tires are looking like high 70s. This exceeds the maximum hookless tire pressure limit, so I would have to ride a lower pressure with higher rolling resistance.
If I could get a premium-quality hooked 90mm/disc wheelset, then I might buy. But it is highly unlikely I would buy a bike if I had to throw away a sub-optimal hookless wheelset.
