Turbo Trainer - special tyre required?

lex

Hi

I'm considering getting a turbo trainer with the aim of doing a couple of interval sessions a week.

Having looked on wiggle and the like I see that there are special tyres designed for turbo trainers - are these really necessary? and how much do turbo's wear normal 700x23 slicks?

Ideally I'd like to use my comuter/training bike, so the idea of changing rear tyre for each session is out of the question. Guess my other option is using an old hack bike as a dedicated turbo machine.

Thanks for any advice!

Lex

schlepcycling

As far as I know the problem is the heat that's generated in the tyre and the added resistance on the tyre from the turbo's roller supposedly causes extra wear, which is why conti brought out a turbo specific tyre that's supposed to better cope with the heat (special compound etc). One solution is to have a seperate wheel that you just use on the turbo and you can use your old tyres on it once they are too worn to use on your normal bike, I use a turbo for warming up at events and to save my nice disc wheel I use and old spoked wheel when on the turbo and it works fine.

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seconded and spot on.

Echappee

I've got one of those yellow Continental turbo-specific tyres and am very happy with it. The compound feels harder than normal tyres.

I made the change after puncturing (well the tube / tyre exploded) on the turbo! There was nothing in tyre itself so I put it down to heat build up and perhaps a weak tube?

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http://www.tritalk.co.uk/forums/viewtop ... bo+trainer

lex

thanks for the tips.

sounds like I'll probably get away with using the normal tyre from my commuting/training bike - but getting a spare wheel for the turbo would be a good plan!

cheers

lex