It was always going to be a team of innovators that took tubeless tire technology and really brought it to the next level. Knight Composites are proud to announce that our new TLA wheels (Tubeless-Aero) have set the benchmark in speed, comfort and ease of use, changing the way people will see and understand tubeless road wheels.
The revolutionary Knight TLA’s (available in 35mm and 50mm depth) have been designed from the ground up, breaking boundaries and changing conceptions of how people have previously seen tubeless wheels/tires. For the first time, the huge benefits of tubeless tires combined with fast, light, carbon wheels are available to riders who previously thought that tubeless technology was too complicated or required special equipment.
Simple By designing a new, unique centre channel and reducing wall height, mounting tubeless tires is now no harder than fitting a standard clincher road tire and removes the need for an air compressor entirely. The innovative ‘hookless’ internal rim profile tapers inward to lock down the tubeless tire bead – with up to twice as much sealing surface as traditional ‘hooked’ rim designs. In tests, 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.
Fast Fact: Knight wheels are fast. We wanted to make sure our TLA wheels remained true to our history of class-leading performance, and we have. Working in a joint venture with German tire legends Schwalbe, our new TLA’s are optimized for 25mm tubeless tires and, combined with the new rim shape, deliver the perfect aero profile – wide at 28mm on the 50mm, but critically not too wide so to avoid any issues with frame clearance. (For a limited time, all Knight TLA wheels are available for purchase with a set of Schwalbe’s super fast Pro One tires and sealant at half off MSRP to get you going).
Light Convenience, comfort and speed doesn’t come at the cost of weight. Hand built with the new ROTOR RVolver hubs and Sapim CX-Ray spokes, the Knight TLA 35’s come in at an impressive 1430g, with the deeper TLA 50’s weighing only 80g more at 1510g.
Safe Working with Schwalbe throughout the development of the TLA wheels, the team could inflate the final Knight/Schwalbe Pro One system in lab tests to well over twice the maximum stated pressure without issue, a significantly better result than all of our competitors.
The new Knight TLA system has evolved from our proven Trailing Edge Aerodynamic Manipulation Technology (TEAM), which sees our engineers looking at the wheel not in isolation, as most manufacturers do, but rather as part of the bicycle system. TEAM focuses on how the air flows from the tire, to the rim, back to the tire, and ultimately to the down tube and the rest of the frame – placing the aerodynamic center closer to the rim bed than ever before – delivering the fastest possible wheels for all our customers in all conditions.
Beverly Lucas, CEO of Knight Composites, says of the new product, “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. Breaking the mold, our new TLA’s are so easy to set up. At the same time, they are super-fast and light. We’ve intentionally taken our time with Knight’s tubeless-ready road wheel, but the end result is so worth it – the TLA’s are absolute game changers.”
Felix Schafermeier from Schwalbe was equally impressed. “The advantages of a tubeless road tire are clearly connected to the interface between the tire and rim, and so it was quite a challenge to create a system that is not only easy to install, but also safe under use of high pressure. In our partnership with Knight, we could focus on the criteria of tire installation, inflation and derailing safety.”