They already did. The Zipp 303 S and the Enve Foundation wheels are the cheapest wheels those brands have sold. The Zipp 404s got cheaper when they went hookless.
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The pressure will only increase by 6psi at 14k feet. I doubt that would have caused your failure. Even in the vaccum of space they can only increase by 15psi.
I just realized the Pirellis I was sold as being hookless compatible say âDo not install on hook-less rims.â Hmmm⌠Well, no issues so farâŚ
In this case itâs less about cost savings and more about more consistent manufacturing processes and higher potential volume.
Better quality control leads to fewer warranty calls, which can help manufacturers save money, but thatâs money in their pockets.
Higher volumes can mean lower prices to the consumer due to a shift in supply vs demand, but in our industry, the main beneficiaries to oversupply are those who jump on clearance deals, Black Fridays, etc. Those who buy the latest and greatest never see a dime of those savings.
One ill-timed nap later and Iâm on a mission to figure this out from the Zipp original source:
Hereâs the launch video of hookless from Zipp, in March of 2021:
ZIPP Hookless Technology - YouTube
Their claimed benefits are:
- 1:18: Speed. âWith hookless, a wider rim and lower air pressure actually does make you faster.â Then the standard low pressure // low vibration on rough pavement, ââŚyou can save up to 50 watts of powerâ lolk
- 1:40: "Wide rims with lower pressuresâŚlet you gain added grip going downhill.
- 1:50 âWith our wider rim, the tire creates a wider and shorter contact patch⌠improves rolling resistance.â
- 2:07: "Our hookless technology also creates a smoother and more aerodynamic surface where the tire meets the rimâŚHookless [helps you reduce drag.]
- 2:21: âTheyâre significantly lighter⌠Out hookless wheelset is 300grams lighter than legacy wheelsetsâ
- 2:37: âThe design lets us compress the carbon even tighter to use less material and create an even stronger rim.â
And then my 2c trying to parse through the marketing: Thereâs a lot of comparing wide hookless to legacy/narrow clincher. Point 4 even shows this in their graphic. I overlaid their graphic and made the hooked wheel transparent; wider is hookless:
For point 5, they are saying a new Zipp hookless is 300gr lighter than its hooked predecessor. Thatâs true; the 2020 release of the 303 Firecrest weighed 1352 gr, 300grams less. Except, that was far from the only change. Major multivariate change here.
source: Zipp launches âlighter and fasterâ 303 Firecrest wheelset | road.cc
Anyway, I know Iâm dissecting a marketing video thatâs 2 years old, but I guess my takeaway here is: Points 1-4 are achievable with simply moving to wider wheels in general, hookless or not, point 5 isnât at all solely attributable to hookless, and point 6 doesnât seem to be playing out consistently.
I rate this a meh out of 10.
NB, at the time, Road.cc reported:
Zipp doesnât put restriction on the brand of tyre to be used, unless the tyre specifically states incompatibility on hookless rims (it says that, along with other rim and tyre manufacturers, it is currently involved in discussions with ISO â International Organization for Standardization â for the creation of a new norm for tubeless systems on the road).
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I got my 303s for like $800. Cheapest zipps Iâve ever bought. Question is are they as good? Time will tell I supposeâŚ
You are assuming a direct relationship between the move to hookless and the lower retail for those wheels, but that ignores a whole host of other issues such as lower cost on other components (hubs), market price compression (a huge factor), etc.
Going hookless did not allow them to suddenly retail those wheels for ~$1k less.
They also made the 404, 808 and 858 both cheaper and lighter when they went hookless.
When manufacturers tell us that going hookless will enable them to make lighter, cheaper wheels, and then follow this up by giving us lighter, cheaper wheels, call me naive but Iâm inclined to just believe them 
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Again, what you are likely seeing is a response to competitive price pressure / price compression in the market.
Wheels are being commoditizedâŚin the past, the big brands could justify their huge premiums. That is no longer the case. Going hookless likely helps reduce the margin impact but it is not the primary reason the prices have come down as they have.
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Exactly. Back in the rim brake days, there was a high risk of a substandard carbon rim delaminating on a long descent. I would never trust the smaller players. The risk just wasnât worth it IMO. So I didnât buy carbon wheels because I couldnât afford Zipp, Enve, etc at the time.
With disc brakes, the rim canât overheat. So I bought Light Bicycle and Nextie (hooked) rims with no concern. I think many felt similarly, plus more companies gained experience with carbon, so we ended up with a lot of competition and buyers willing to use smaller brands. That drive down both costs and prices and forced the bigger players to lower their prices to compete.
I feel like with road hookless and road tubeless is a similar situation. Iâm team latex balloons and hookers 
but if I were to ride road hookless or tubeless it would only be Zipp, Roval or similar.
But even then itâs a risk with the tire. Iâve ridden Conti tires for more than a decade, but they sure donât seem to have a good enough tire for hookless nor tubeless. Too many failures even on supposedly valid combinations.
The fact that ETRTO canât seem to get to a consensus on what works should scare the shit out of everyone. Iâm not going to put myself at (IMO) significantly increased risk, even if they cost half as much and saved a kg. Iâm sure as hell not going to be at the possibly literal bleeding edge for very minor gains.
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The Cycling Tips/Geek Warning crew take on this video: Geek Warning: More MTB-like gravel bikes, a sharper Microshift, and hookless blow-offs â Escape Collective â Overcast
Ff to around 30 minutes.
Short version- theyâre not fans of road tubeless, but they dismiss this video as sensationalistic.
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Totally possible. Itâs just that you need to be going about 120mph.
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The guy has done a follow up video to this, in which he says that Continental have asked for the tyre / wheel in order to investigate, will be interesting to hear what they say (I hope they do a press release)
(Warning ⌠Video is filmed under floresent lights, so a lot of fickering)
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Iâm sill stuck on the n=1 nature of his claim. Given years of testing, QC checks, liability reviews, and the fact that tubeless/hookless are in use by tens (hundreds?) of thousands of riders and have been for several years, Iâm pretty convinced that tires arenât popping off of rims when used properly outside some very unusual circumstances.
Consider the contrary. If I posted a video of my Conti 25s pumped up to 120psi on a hookless rim, would you believe my my example was sufficient to change the established consensus that that is too much pressure for that combination, or would you reasonably note that âmaybe it worked for that guy, but that is an outlierâ?
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Just to be clear, totally with you, something seems off about the original video and the points in podcast you linked all seem to make sense, I just mentioned that Conti had got involved as it would be good to have another view on this âsensational videoâ, where n=1, I know that somebody is going to post you canât trust a multi national corporation, but it def needs outside investigation, my initial thought was that he has damaged the bead
There are so many unanswered questions about this, does it always happen at the same point, does it only happen on one of the wheels, if you swap tyres ⌠e.t.c e.t.c
I donât understand why he didnât contact the companies involved first (like said in the podcast you linked) as thatâs the great thing about dcrainmaker and gplama, if they do find a issue they contract the company before releasing a video, there are always two sides to a story, and like you say n=1 seems a bit strange ⌠also why did he do it in the kitchen if he knew it was going to happen
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Iâve had a tubeless tire blowoff cornering at low speed because of low pressure. Hooked rim (Enve 5.6 Disc). My bad. Also had a tubeless tire that was clearly out of spec (slightly too big) but I was too dumb, it was early days of tubeless for me (Jan 2018) and another blowoff on my hooked rims. Happened in the middle of nowhere in the Sierra mountains, somebody had to ride ~10 miles to their car and come back to pick me up. Now Iâm smart enough to know that if a tire goes on too easy, its not a tire Iâm going to ride.
Locally I know two people that bought Enve 4.5 AR when it first came out, so years ago now. They had blowoffs on those hookless wheels, and I wasnât there and they donât really talk about it.
Honestly the scariest issue I had was sudden loss of pressure in my front tube tire, because of a thorn, at 35mph near the end of a 15 minute descent. Hence why Iâm sold on tire inserts.
FWIW.
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We are 110% in agreement.
My own hypothesis (extending benefit of the doubt) is that there is SOMETHING unique to his setup. Between the tire, the wheel, and his installation, there are numerous opportunities for something outside the norm to have occurred, or for there to simply be a mismatch between tire and wheel. This is also a good argument for using a major brand wheel and not being effectively a beta tester for a unique tire/wheel combination.
FWIW I had a problem with some high end tires coming delaminated a few years ago. I suppose I could have made a video and suggested the tires themselves were unsafe, but instead I first went to my LBS, who worked with me to figure out the problem (and replaced the tires). When the problem continued, the LBS went to the manufacturer for advice (and replacements), and we discovered there had been a QC problem at the factory, that my defective tires were part of the shipment that got out the door before they knew there was a problem, and that the problem had been corrected. Given that the tires were (and may well continue to be) very widely used without issue, I saw no need to draw attention to what turned out to be an isolated problem the manufacturer was willing to fix. I eventually switched to another tire when I went tubeless, but I have a pair of the old tires in my travel bag for emergency race day backups.
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ClarificationâŚthey are not fans of HOOKLESS for the road, not road tubeless in general.
Maybe there is something Iâm missing, but the question I always have, is what scenario could a hook actually help?
If a tire somehow loses contact and airtightness with the horizontal portion of the rim, is a hook on the sidewall really going to save things? It just strikes as, at best, a bandaid for a broken setupâŚ
Higher tire pressures is the big one.
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