The alarming image from this week’s UAE Tour was Fabio Jakobsen’s front tyre with the foam insert ripped clean off his rim after hitting a rock at speed. It once again opens the debate on hookless vs hooked rims, and forces us to look bluntly at the safety margins with hookless road wheels.
The wheel supplier Ursus, describes the rim as a mini-hook profile, and while some might argue a mini-hook profile provides a hook for the tyre bead to grip, I would suggest that it bears a closer resemblance to a hookless system. It provides less security for the tyre bead than a traditional hooked rim bed.
