Are hookless rims safe for road tyre pressure?

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dmulligan
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by dmulligan

I am currently trying to choose between a few of the wide U shaped rims available and one of them appears to have no bead hook or at least have a diminished bead hook. Is this safe @ road tyre pressure? I plan to run 25mm Continental GP 4000S II clincher tyres with tubes at about 90 PSI or lower if the wide rims allow me to so I am not talking very high pressure as road tyres can sometimes go.

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HermesSport
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by HermesSport

Generally, no. Various firms have experimented with hookless road rims, however none have been able to perform safely.
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ergott
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by ergott

Best answer is contact the manufacturer. Generally speaking the only hookless rims I've seen on the market are mountain bike rims. Lew experimented with it for road years ago.

What rims are you looking at?

dmulligan
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by dmulligan

It turns out that the rims are available without hooks for low pressure CX applications and that they are not standard that way.

TheKaiser
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by TheKaiser

Like Ergott said, Lew did it, and may have even brought that design to Reynolds for a bit if memory serves. It may be tough to generalize about them, because there are 2 issues. Sidewall strength, and tire retention. The BSD of the rim and tightness of the tire is the key for tire retention, whereas sidewall strength depends on a combination of pressure and tire size. As tires get smaller, the relative force of a given pressure decreases. As a result, a rim that can only take 50psi in a MTB tire may take 90psi OK in a 23mm road tire.

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