I’ve been running tubeless road for quite some time with no issues. However, I have a new bike with hookless wheels for the first time. Hookless in and of itself is not a major concern for me as I am pretty specific about tire pressures.
That said, I was wondering if there are any concerns with the dried and hardened sealant that inevitably forms around the bead of the tire. Normally I pick at some of the bigger pieces to remove them but for the most part I just leave it as is and remount the tire.
Is there any concern with this dried sealant and hookless? Or am I overthinking things?
If you’re concerned, why not just run tubes? That would personally be my call because I don’t think the dried sealant is going to make the set up any more sketchy than it already is.
I would swap the hookless for hooked and then none of these risks even arise. I sold my Enve hookless when the ERTRO changes came out and got the equivalent level Reserves for a net changeover cost of about $100. I see manufacturers (Zipp iirc) are now moving away from hookless and so selling yours now avoids the risk of holding a stranded asset.
This concern makes sense to me. I don’t run hookless on anything but my MTB, but if I was, I would be meticulous about making sure that interface is pristine.
My second - older - set of rims is Enve 4.5 AR. They are hookless and have 25-mm internal rim width. Prior to becoming my spare set of rims, i ran them with Schwalbe Pro One TLE 700x28c (Enve-approved tire/rim combination). Each time I unmounted the tires to remove dried sealant, I tended to focus on the beads. My concern was not that the bead might pop off the rim while riding but rather how the dried sealant on the beads might make seating the tires harder. I had over 20,000 miles in that combination tire (several sets)/rim combination without any issue.
What sealant are you using? With some sealants like Orange Seal Endurance, removing dried sealant from tire beads is tedious but not difficult. With some sealants like Silca’s first gen ultimate tire sealant, it’s damn near impossible to clean the tire beads off dried sealant, especially when some of those carbon fiber pieces became “bonded” to the beads.
Im running Orange Seal Endurance both on road and gravel bikes, as per long time geek warning crew recommendation and can say that cleanup/removing old sealant is much nicer. Give it a try after finishing off Stan’s!
No personal experience with hookless specifically but I do try to remove old sealant generally when dried and especially around the bead. This is not for safety reasons so much as it is to ensure a more uniform connection between tire and rim during install. If you have the goobers in there they can create little air gaps that make it harder to re-seat the tire unless you’re using a compressor or other continuous high-volume inflation device.
