Originally Posted by msu2001la

Agree. If someone is exclusively using a bike on a trainer and is prepared to buy a new tire, then a trainer tire makes sense.

The topic of this thread is "is it OK to use a regular road tire on a trainer" and in my experience it's totally fine to do this. The stories of road tires disintegrating after just a few hundred miles are the opposite of my reality. My road tires have been just fine on my trainer, have not shown any signs of accelerated wear and even though I rarely ride that bike outside, I see no reason why I'd buy a trainer tire until I've at least completely worn out all of the old road tires I have laying around. At my current pace, that'll take at least a few more years.

Also my trainer bike has carbon wheels on it. It has been fine. Of course it doesn't make sense to buy carbon wheels for a trainer bike, but I already had the wheels and they're currently the only set I own that fits that particular bike. I know I could buy a cheap "trainer wheel" which many seem to think is also necessary, but I've not noticed any problems so far.