Originally Posted by
79pmooney
That appears to be a link I have to sign up for. I won't. Could you summarize the article?
Spec made a tubeless wheel that was too light. Sagan clipped a curb while bunny hopping and it cracked the rim and blew the tire off.
Specialized found that a tube was enough to keep the rim from failing in this manner, which is why they hadn't seen the problem previously (for the sake of convenience, impact testing tubeless wheels with tubes is common industry practice).
Rather than go back to the drawing board, they brought the wheels to market anyway, and had their marketing department spin BS about why the wheels were not tubeless compatible.