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Knight Composites lays up fast, easy tubeless-ready aero carbon TLA road wheels

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Claiming to be the world’s easiest road wheels to set up tubeless, Knight Composites’ new aero carbon TLA wheels aim to simplify the move to road tubeless. Built around a new rim and wide hookless profile developed closely with Schwalbe, Knight promise tubeless setups as easy as clinchers.

Knight TLA tubeless-ready aero carbon wheels

Knight’s goal was to set a new road tubeless, as many cyclists have been reluctant to make the jump even with the promise of all around improved performance. Much like in the early days of MTB tubeless, wide variability in tire & rim dimensions had made tubeless setup hit or miss. And at the high pressures of road tires, for many it just wasn’t worth the trouble.

Knight tackled those issues head on, partnering with tire maker Schwalbe to create a new hookless carbon road rim profile that can be set up tubeless without a compressor. Knight says “riders who had never tried tubeless before had the Knight TLA system up and running in less than 10 minutes – using a standard floor pump.” At the heart of that system is the hookless bead and a rim shoulder that tapers inward “to lock down the tubeless tire bead – with up to twice as much sealing surface as traditional hooked rim designs.” They also feature a new deeper center channel and overall lower rim wall heights for easy tire fitting.

Hookless rims need road tires with beads resistant to stretching like Schwalbe’s carbon-reinforced tires, so you may be limited to what tires should be used at the highest of pressures. That said, the Knight/Schwalbe Pro One combo was lab tested to over twice the maximum stated pressure without issue, outperforming hookless combos from other wheel makers.

Tech details

Aero concerns were of course a focus as well. The wide rim profiles – overall 28mm in the deeper rim (no detailed rim internal widths provided yet) were specifically optimized with a Schwalbe Pro One 25mm tire, and with a smooth aerodynamic transition from rim to sidewall.

The new TLA wheels build on Knight’s existing Trailing Edge Aerodynamic Manipulation Technology (TEAM) aero concept, which focuses on how air flows from the tire, to the rim, back to the tire, and ultimately to the bike frame. By optimizing the aero center closer to the rim bed than ever before, they claim improved aero performance in wide ranging real world conditions.

The new Knight TLA wheels are available in 35mm & 50mm depths, and in both rim & disc brake variants, all laced around Rotor’s new RVolver hubs with Sapim CX-ray spokes. The new TLA wheels also get an updated look too, with new shield graphics. (The wheels we previewed at the top of the page still had the old chess piece graphics.) Rim brake wheels are still quite light at 1430g for the 35mm deep version, and 1510g for the slightly deeper 50mm wheels.

Pricing & Availability

 

No matter rim brake or disc, and 35mm or 50mm deep, all of the new TLA wheelsets retail for the same $2300 with either black or titanium silver logos. If you want custom colors, Knight offers 9 custom color versions to match your Santa Cruz, Fox team fork, or a couple other mountain bikes for an additional $125. They are available now direct from Knight.

Beverly Lucas, CEO of Knight explained it that “tubeless-ready road tires are clearly the future, but as everyone knows, they are normally incredibly hard to fit and run – something I have found on my own road, gravel and cross bikes. Our new TLAs are so easy to set up and, at the same time, they are super-fast and light… the TLAs are absolute game changers.”

KnightComposites.com

 

 

 

 

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JG
JG
6 years ago

These look nice, but 6 bolt hubs a deal killer for me. When you frequently swap wheels between several disc brake bikes, center lock hubs are crucial.

Rye
Rye
6 years ago
Reply to  JG

You can choose the hubs. I know you can get DT 240 CL for the same price.

Heffe
Heffe
6 years ago

Hi JG, can you explain why center lock hubs are crucial in that situation? I’m thinking about (perhaps dreaming about) bike #2 and don’t grasp what you are getting at.

Steve @ Gears 4 Good
6 years ago
Reply to  Heffe

It’s faster and easier to swap a rotor that has one large ring “bolt” than six little bolts. Also, the little bolts will weaken more over time, and the heads will begin to strip.

Heffe
Heffe
6 years ago

Hmm, it would never have occurred to me to swap rotors… I would just put a dedicated rotor on each wheel.

MaraudingWalrus
MaraudingWalrus
6 years ago
Reply to  Heffe

I move rotors like I move the cassette when I swap the wheels on my Road Disc/Gravel wheels.

The rotors and pads wear together, get equally contaminated (or not), like the chain and cassette.

TheKaiser
TheKaiser
6 years ago
Reply to  Heffe

Yeah, but no one has explained why multiple bikes and wheelsets require all of this rotor swapping. Why not just leave a set of rotors on each wheelset? The added cost is trivial compared to the cost of the rest of the wheel assembly. I suspect the answer is that someone might have bikes with different rotor size requirements, but want their wheelsets to be interchangable, so they need to quickly swap from a 140mm to a 160mm rotor, for example.
.

Dude
Dude
6 years ago

It’s a lot easier to shim CL vs 6B when setting up multiple wheels and bikes to be compatible w/o brake rub. Though an electric screwdriver with the correct bit does speed things up on 6B.

dl
dl
6 years ago

Also, you can get the Freeza or new Dura ace or Ultegra rotors only in centerlock.

Larry Falk
Larry Falk
6 years ago

I wish Knight had a rim profile so we could see the inward rim shoulder. Didn’t see it on their website.

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