Who's using normal road tyres on their turbo trainers?

p1tse

I see you can get specific training tyre as the recommended option, and the ideal would be to have one on a spare wheel, but as budget dictates and the hassle factor of swapping over tyres, does anyone run normal road tyres on their turbo trainers and on the road?

twotyred

Me. I put my summer bike on the turbo during the winter with a reasonably well used tyres on it. It occasionally gets used on the road when the weather is good especially early spring. In late March I put newer tyres back on it and the turbo gets put away. Never had any problems with excessive tyre wear.

p1tse

What tyres have you been using?

mike101

I just use old Road tyres - they are fine. I do about 4/5 hours a week on the Turbo and change the tyre every 5 - 6 months.

bigpikle

Vittoria Zaffiro red indoor trainer tyre - MUCH MUCH quieter, zero slippage when you give it some welly on the turbo, no squealing and after several winters there is zero wear on it. I cant see me ever needing to change it at this rate!

Use it on the rollers and on my KK Road Machine and frankly wouldnt go back to a road tyre. It makes less difference on the rollers than the turbo except that alu rollers deposit a fine silver coating to the tyre surface that is horribly slippery on the roads until it wears off after a few miles. I really dont want to go out on the greasy wet winter roads with slippery tyres, even if its only for a short distance!

twotyred

What tyres have you been using?

Whatever happens to be around. Just now its got a Continental Ultrasport on.

Personally I've never found the aluminium particles on the tyre to be a problem on the road and all my rides from home start with fast downhill bends

Simmotino

Bigpikle wrote:

Vittoria Zaffiro red indoor trainer tyre - MUCH MUCH quieter, zero slippage when you give it some welly on the turbo, no squealing and after several winters there is zero wear on it. I cant see me ever needing to change it at this rate!

Use it on the rollers and on my KK Road Machine and frankly wouldnt go back to a road tyre. It makes less difference on the rollers than the turbo except that alu rollers deposit a fine silver coating to the tyre surface that is horribly slippery on the roads until it wears off after a few miles. I really dont want to go out on the greasy wet winter roads with slippery tyres, even if its only for a short distance!

+1 for this, use one on my CycleOps.

Mine has a nice black stripe right round the middle of the tyre though courtesy of the removed road tyre falling on to the back wheel during a turbo session. Made a ruddy great hole in the road tyre but the Zaffiro didn't bat an eyelid!

Zingzang

I've had the same non-folding Vittoria Rubino on my turbo bike for over two years. It wasn't a new tyre when it went on and I've probably done 300 turbo hours on it. Never had a puncture (which I did experience with a dedicated trainer tyre, though on a different turbo), and the Rubino always remains fairly cool even after a long session. The turbo is a Kurt Kinetic Pro.

robbo2011

I use my CX bike for turbo sessions that have Schwalbe Duranos fitted. I have done 3500 road miles on them and countless turbo sessions and they are still going strong.

grazza_e

I used to, but the girlfriend complained one time too many about the trail of rubber on the floor (and sometimes on the wall) behind my turbo so I bit the bullet and went for a cheap second wheel and a turbo-specific tyre. In hindsight the turbo was not probably doing great things for my tyre either.

I couldn't deal with the hassle of changing the tyre all the time, so I went for a cheap wheel. Beyond the gf complaints, I came at it from an expense perspective is I was doing 150km a week on a turbo, which is significantly reducing the life of a decent road tyre, which at £30 a pop adds up quickly.

Jaguar.

I use an old wheel and one of those Continental turbo tyres. I used to use whatever was on the bike but used to find the tyres blistered occasionally so it kind of got expensive. It is less hassle to change the wheel than it used to be to change the skewer all the time. The turbo tyre is now many years old, still good as the day I bought it, so a good investment.

xscreamsuk

Regular road tyre here, 1500 miles on Turbo with it, zero problems, make sure you get the tension correct, no signs of rubber or slippage at all for me on a Tacx Flow. Been using it a lot recently, 10 hrs plus a week,

Herbsman

Have used well-used road tyres since 2009 but after the second or third turbo puncture thought I might as well try a turbo specific (Continental) one. Would rather pay the extra money than fix another puncture.

alihisgreat

Me.. I use the heavy duty Giant PR2 tyres than came with the bike -> I normally have GP4000s on the bike, but swapped the rear out for winter/turbo use.

springtide9

Just using an old Conti GP tyre on the turbo currently on a spare wheel; I don't get any slippage, but the turbo does seem to shred the tyre a little on every session (and is now pretty squared off on the top)

But it does seems to shred less on the Rock and Roll compared to my Satori mainly due to I guess the increased contact point diameter (and hence less heat).

I guess it depends on how hard/soft the tyre is as well as the diameter of the contact roller on the turbo.