The Overlord always says a centimeter change in a your bike fit can be the difference between a good ride and a bad. But what about a second or two seconds when your crashing, is that enough to be the difference between a fall that you get up from and a horrific crash?

After the incident on Sunday, we’re beginning to question some things about running tubeless on road. Especially the hookless tubeless set ups that are becoming more common.

What actually happened- a client was running low pressure on their hookless tubeless set up when they hit a rock. Their front tire flatted and separated from the wheel while descending.

There are a million different scenarios that we encounter out riding and we’re not trying to answer all of them. We just want to start a discussion on what could have been done differently- if anything.

Would two extra seconds be enough time to unclip and go down separate from your bike? Would it give you time to shift your weight away from the tire that is flatting?

How do you gain those precious seconds?

We know that to gain them you can’t have your tire separate from your rim.

When your rim is running on the ground after you’ve flatted, you have no traction and you go down and hard.

But if you had a tube instead of tubeless, would that have kept your tire in place? Would a hooked (with bead hook) tubeless set up provide you with enough stability in your tire to gain those seconds?

Yes there is sealant in your tubeless set up, but if you’re going for performance and speed, you’ve got those tires set at a low pressure. Too low to distribute the sealant. And once punctured, way too low to get the sealant to go where you need it.

We understand running a hooked tubeless set up as flat prevention in a debris filled city ride. What we question is the application in pursuit of performance especially in regards to a high speed descent.

We have safety concerns that we didn’t have prior to Sunday. It could be that we’re being a little sensitive as the Overlord had to be first on scene waiting for emergency responders to arrive. We want to know what you guys think- especially those willing to descend at 40mph+ in our mountains with our road debris?