AJW2W11E

Last winter I ride every day and the rain wasn’t that bad. I even wore shorts all through the winter. This year has been tough in the Northwest. I finally went and got a Kurt Kinetic Trainer.
I was told that Bike Trainers ruin tires. Is that true? Doesn’t make sense. I’ m using a gravel tire. The wheel hits a smooth steel roller, not asphalt or gravel. If that were true, don’t you think someone would’ve been smart enough to put a rubber coating on it? Or couldn’t you get an old bike tire and and cut it up and tie wrap it to the steel roller?

Rolla

... or just put the old tire on your bike?

https://indoorcyclingtips.com/how-to...-bike-trainer/

jaxgtr

Assuming you have a road bike, I have a Vittoria trainer tire and a Wheel I no longer use. If you want it, you can have it, just cover the shipping. The wheel is a Mavic Open Pro 32 spoke wheel with an Ultegra hub. It was my dedicated trainer wheel. Just private message me your address and I will send it out.

You would just need to put a cassette on it.

Brian

AJW2W11E

Thanks Brian. I thought it over, now I have an excuse to buy another bike ! (Ps I buy them used and fix them up.)

jaxgtr

Any reason is a good reason. If you still want the tire let me know and I can put it in the mail.

tempocyclist

A hardy gravel tyre might be alright on the turbo. Does it vibrate much with the added tread pattern? Smoother tyres tend to be quieter.

I found when I was using a "fast" road tyre on the turbo it wore away and flattened the middle. I ended up just using old tyres that were too worn for the road, mounted on an old spare wheel.

Specific "turbo tyres" aren't necessary. They claim to be longer lasting and quieter.

jpescatore

In my experience, "miles" on wheel on trainers do wear down tires faster than the same amount of miles on the road. At first I used old road tires on the old bike dedicated to my Wahoo Kicker SNAP trainer but got tired of cleaning up the rubber dust and replacing the tire each season. Bought a Continental Trainer tire, it has now lasted 3 years (between 4-5K Zwift "miles") - showing wear at the contact point, I keep waiting for it to wear through but not yet. And no cleanup required.

mstateglfr 

Trainer tires are sold for a reason. And those tires are terrible on outside roads for a reason.
Different compounds for different riding.

Use an old slick tire and vacuum up all the bits of rubber that rub off. Or use a trainer tire. Either is better than a gravel tire.

Herzlos

I think the issue is more that a trainer will wear a tire in a very flat way because the tire is always perpendicular to the roller. So if you do enough miles on the trainer you'll have a tire that's really rough when you go back on the road.

If you're using it over the winter, then just buy a cheap slick tire to use until you're wanting to back outside.

caloso

This is exactly what I do. Wear them down to the cords.

blacknbluebikes 

Don't make it a problem until it's a problem. I did hundreds of hours on a dumb trainer with GP4000's and saw no significant wear - not enough to care about.

msu2001la

My experience seems to be the opposite of most on this topic. I've got 2500-3000 wheel-on (Wahoo Kickr Snap) trainer miles on a previously used 28mm Continental GP 5000 since last fall and it still looks perfectly fine, showing zero signs of accelerated wear. If anything, it's showing significantly less wear than I would expect to see. I've also never seen bits of rubber on the floor near the roller, which I often see others mention. I run my tire at 80psi and about 2.5 turns on the dial (after the roller makes contact with the tire), which seems to be just enough pressure to prevent slipping. I also always release the roller when I'm done riding.

When I first got my Kickr Snap in Sept-Oct 2020, I had intended to buy a dedicated trainer tire for it, but never got around to it. I just rode this 28mm GP 5000 all winter on it and it was fine. I have another bike I primarily ride outside, so this tire only saw a few outdoor rides over the summer, less than 200 miles, but it's back indoors on the trainer again and so far looks the same. At some point I'll swap the front and rear, but now the idea of buying a dedicated trainer tire to save wear seems crazy to me.

I took this photo of the tire back in September when having this discussion in another thread. It's probably around 2000 trainer miles in at this point, plus maybe 1000 outdoor miles prior to that. Since this photo I've added another 300-400 trainer miles. It looks the same and I'll be surprised if I don't get at least another 1000 out of it:

msu2001la

I've also been using a carbon wheel on my Kickr Snap. It's totally fine. It's a relatively cheap/generic Chinese carbon wheel, but that said I don't really understand why people buy a dedicated trainer wheel.

caloso

I wouldn't buy a new wheel (or tire for that matter) just for the trainer, but if you've begun to accumulate wheels and old tires, it's a no-brainer to have a road wheel and a trainer wheel. Makes swapping out super quick and easy. I realize this probably isn't an option if you're just starting out.

AJW2W11E

Thanks . Still haven't gotten around to configuring this thing, keep on putting it off. Sometimes I think I'll still sneak through the winter without needing it, but snow and ice will win. Probably easier to buy a used dedicated bike and permanently hitch it. The thought of putting my Giant Tough Road on a bike trainer is sobering.

RChung

I think it depends on how you're using the trainer, and how much pressure you're putting on the tire. Over the years, I've moved a fair amount and trainers are heavy so I usually sell when we move and buy used when we arrive. That means that I've had a lot of different types of trainers: wind trainers, magnetic, fluid, rollers, and electronic ergometers. I've noticed that some trainers wear out tires quite a bit faster than others. Rollers had the least wear; trainers where I had to increase the roller pressure seemed to have the most. I had to increase the roller pressure to prevent slippage when I would do indoor sprints, and I could ruin a nice tire in 2 months, so I switched to using a trainer-specific tire. This winter I'm using a cheap almost 20-year-old magnetic trainer that isn't rated for anything sprint-like, so I've just been doing recovery and tempo with the occasional VO2Max interval. I've noticed that there doesn't seem to be much wear on the regular rear road tire. My current hypothesis is that if I'm riding at relatively "easy" levels, I don't have to tighten up the roller insanely, and the tire will stay relatively whole.