Off The Hook – Bike Snob NYC

Well, it’s a so-called “Leap Year,” and today is so-called “February 29th.” However, it seems to me that if we have an extra day every four years it shouldn’t even have a number–it should just be a totally blank space on the calendar during which everybody can do whatever they want. Oh well, I guess it’s just another way the Time-and-Date-Industrial-Complex robs us, but if you choose to reclaim it and drop completely off the grid for 24 hours you have my blessing.

Yesterday’s weather was grey and intermittently rainy–dare I say evocative of the Spring Classics even:

Perhaps this is why one aging Fred saw fit to lower his distended belly towards his pink top tube and lay down the POWER:

Yes, a surreptitious glimpse at his inadvertently-revealed cycling computer confirms the intensity of this workout:

And that’s not even kilometers per hour, that’s MILES PER HOUR, so chew on that!

In addition to the gloves Pearl Izumi sent me and that you see above, I was also wearing the rain jacket they sent me, and it was the first time I’ve worn it in actual rain:

In fact it rained pretty steadily for about the last half hour of the ride, and I’m pleased to report that my torso remained both dry and comfy. I’d also like to point out that open breast pocket you see above, and note that it’s a perfect place to stick a phone if you don’t like rummaging around for it in a jersey pocket. And between the pink bike, the orange jacket (Pearl Izumi calls it “Screaming Red” but it looks orange to me), and the yellow cap, I realize I look like a soggy bowl of Froot Loops, and I can assure you I’m perfectly okay with that:

Hey, I’ve been there before:

Speaking of pro cycling (the Spring Classics, not my scorching 11mph average speed) I see there’s been a big kermesse kerfuffle about some crazy hookless rim tire explosion at the UAE Tour:

Vittoria says it’s not their fault, and so does Zipp:

And instead they’re all just blaming the rock:

So far I haven’t seen anybody address the fact that a rock is technically just a large piece of gravel, so perhaps all of this could have been avoided if he’d simply been riding a proper gravel bike. It does seem to me like a high-performance racing tire should stay on the rim even if the rider runs into a piece of oversized gravel, but then again until just a few years ago almost all professional racers were riding around on tires that were basically attached to the rim with nothing but air pressure and a couple layers of rubber cement, so maybe hookless rims aren’t so crazy in comparison.

Regardless, as someone who no longer keeps track of the latest advancements in cycling technology unless I find them funny, until now I was barely aware that hookless rims were even a thing, let alone the subject of fierce debate. I did vaguely know that tire and rim compatibility has become increasingly complex in recent years, and in fact when I had that wooden bike it came with carbon wheels which I eventually discovered were sawing through my tire:

I’m pretty sure they were Vittoria tires, by the way. In any case, that’s when I learned that in the crabon-verse there were now certain tires you were supposed to use with certain rims because of exactly this issue–and that wasn’t even accounting for hookless, which I’m not sure was even a thing for road bikes yet. Regardless, it’s a thing now, and five seconds of search engine jockeying reveals various tales of hookless rim ass-plosions, and even a rider who sued Re-NAY Her-SAY because of one:

This is of course deeply misguided because everybody knows that any “problem” you have with a Re-NAY Her-SAY tire–the most exquisitely crafted and utterly sublime tire in all of cycledom–is probably your fault:

There’s a fun little exchange in the comment section of that Bicycle Retailer story, by the way:

So why do we need hookless rims, anyway? Well, like any ignorant newbie I consulted an explainer, and buried deep in all the verbiage about was the actual answer:

I should have known.

Fortunately, as an aging Fred who keeps it pinned at a blistering 11mph (see above) I’m quite content with the old-fashioned aluminum clincher rims of yesteryear. But unfortunately, I realize they too could potentially become extinct. Consider the latest road rims, like the ones I just acquired:

Like more and more rims these days, they’re tubeless compatible. This is fine, because there’s nothing stopping you from using tubes with them, and who knows, maybe one day I’ll feel like going tubeless on the gravelized Milwaukee or something:

But the problem is that if you don’t go tubeless and you get a flat it can be difficult to get a tire properly seated on the rim without a floor pump, and while you won’t wind up stranded you might have an annoyingly wobbly ride home. Yes, you’ll probably have better results with a frame pump, but I don’t always carry one, since I can generally get what I need out of a mini pump. And yes, I suppose a CO2 will probably seat it, but I’ve never carried one of those, because with a pump (frame or mini), a spare tube, and a patch kit, you’re good for as many flats as you have patches, so carrying a one-shot CO2 on top of that just annoys me on principle. (Plus, not carrying CO2s offsets all the extra weight of my primitive hooked rims.) So as tubeless compatibility gets built into more and more rims, I wonder if the days where you’ll be able to just change a tube, air up with a mini pump, and keep riding without having to worry about the tire seating itself are numbered.

That’s not to day I don’t like tubeless–I most certainly do. Like most people I’ve been using tubeless offroad for years now. It’s also good to know I have the option on the Milwaukee, and I certainly wouldn’t ride the Jones any other way:

To use tubes in a 3-inch tire that’s ridden offroad at pressures lower than my average speed on a road bike would be ridiculous. But for a skinny tire that’s staying on the road I’ll take the tiny handful of flats I may get over the course of a year, especially since changing them is so easy…unless it stops being easy because all the rims have gone tubeless and I’m forced to give up. It’s certainly not hard to imagine something like a non-tubeless non-disc road rim going the way of the slotted cleat. And if the hooks disappear on top of that, then forget about it.

Maybe it’s time to start hoarding Open Pros: