over the last year or so i've heard rumors of exploding tires and hookless rims
and i don't really know what any of it means so i visited my friend dov who is a wheel manufacturer
and engineer and he actually makes some hookless wheels what the hell is hookless and why are wheel
manufacturers making wheels that are hookless what does it even mean so the vast majority of
bike wheels uh or clincher bike wheels have always had a bead hook and what i mean by that is this
little bit at the top of the edge here you can see there's a hook that will keep the tyre bead
attached and firmly attached to the rim for a hookless rim we no longer have that so you can
see that there's a smooth side to the rim and all that's doing is just removing the bead hook what
that means is that you no longer have the safety mechanism holding the bead onto the top of the
bead of the tyre onto the rim which may or may not sound scary but then you've got to remember that
every other wheel with a tire so on your car motorbike or even airplane has a hookless design
so really what it's relying on is the strength of the tyre bead against the side wall of the
rim to hold it in place so that's what hookless is this is actually a gravel wheel from parkour
which is hookless all of dove's off-road wheels are he doesn't make a road one at the moment but
a lot of manufacturers have started to make hookless versions of their road wheels which
come at a slightly lower price point i asked him the question why there's a few different
arguments for why you would run a hookless wheel number one is it's actually cheaper to manufacture
and i think that's why we're seeing a lot of the bigger wheel brands going down that route because
when you're molding the wheel you can use a metal tool inside the rim bed whereas with a hooked rim
in order to mold the hooks in place you have to use a soft disposable tool so it makes the process
of manufacturing cheaper from our perspective the main driver for using a hookless rim on our gravel
wheels is that it actually makes the rim stronger so if you are riding over rough terrain if you are
running a tire at a lower pressure to make it more comfortable if you bottom out and you actually
impact onto the rim itself a hookless structure will be stronger and more impact resistant
which means that for a gravel wheel for us is the perfect use for road use obviously that's
slightly less of a concern unless you're doing something really crazy so for that i think we're
in a position whereby we don't need to do hookless rims for the road because we don't need to hit a
certain price point to be competitive so we're more looking at is there a performance benefit
we've looked it in the wind tunnel we've looked at whether it makes a wheel more aerodynamic
and the first results we've had back show that actually there's not that much of a difference
so for that reason we're not yet looking at hookless on the road but as things progress
it's definitely something we're keeping an eye on long-term viewers of this channel may remember
when we did some scientifical experiments in dove's garden where we we might have exploded some
wheels now clearly we are trained experts and we used a cat flap with a track pump through it and
we were protected fully by the glass door in his garden so whatever you do don't try that at home
60
that's the magic 72 72.
brilliant i can see the ceiling it's 90 100 and it's making a noise
oh look at that ceiling
it's 150 psi i think i can hear it
that's 180 psi
that wheel is true as you would have seen from the footage we got to some pretty high
pressure numbers and the wheel did eventually explode but you would no way be running that kind
of pressure 180 psi in your wheels the question is are they safe yes but it comes with a caveat
so the etrto the european governing body for tyres and rims have for the time being put
a pressure limit of 72 and a half psi or 5 bar on any hookless bike rim and the reason for that
is to avoid the potential of a blow-off so the potential of the rip the tire actually blowing
off the rim that has implications you have to stay within the tire pressure guidelines in order to
remain safe for narrower tires or for heavier riders that might come with some restrictions
equally you have to run a tubeless setup or rather you have to run a tubeless ready tire
on a hookless rim in order to maintain the tolerances between the tyre bead and the rim
doesn't mean you have to run a tubeless setup you could put an inner tube in there but really
you're looking at the worst of both wells in that case we have tested a number of different
tyre combinations with hookless rims and to be honest the results vary some will stay on the rim
way past 72 and a half psi some they get a little bit close before you get a blow off so
the technology is catching up but for the road we're not quite sure it's there yet
gravel's a totally different beast at that point you're running a wider tire at a much
lower pressure so frankly if you're running your gravel tires anywhere near to 72 and a half psi
you're far far too high in fact most of the time manufacturers there their stated maximums will
be lower than that so for us for gravel it's a no-brainer which is why our new gravel wheels
with the altar are hookless the benefits are there the road we'll see so there you go now
you know all about hookless wheels and so do i i hope you found that information useful if
you'd like to check out dove's website he makes carbon wheels and if you were in the market for
them then it would be very nice if you bought some from him because he's a small business
running in the uk and make some fantastic stuff all aero tested by him that certainly won't be
the last video that we do together on the topic of wheels so if you have any questions please
put them in the comment section down below and we'll do our best to answer them or if
it's a big topic make a video in the future thank you for watching and see you guys soon
you