Any issues with 2 bikes sharing a wheel off trainer

notleyboy

Hi,

I am considering buying a wheel off trainer for my wife and I to share this winter. I have an older Trek with Tiagra and my wife has a Specialized with Tiagra that we would use as dedicated trainer bikes.

However I believe Specialized have a different rear hub width so I wondering how this will affect the setup? Will this mean we can't simply swap bikes on the turbo?

Any suggestions on how we could make this work simply?

Thanks

Chris

slowbike

So long as they're the same speed and type - eg 10 speed shimano then you can swap wheels no problem.
Issues you'll get are
1) indexing - the cassette may or may not sit in the same place horizontally - if it does, no problem, if it doesn't then you may have to reindex when swapping the wheel between the turbo and road wheel - but you'd get that no matter if you shared a wheel or not as it's the mech that needs the indexing, not the cassette
2) wear - the cassette/chain will bed in - providing they're not too worn then you can swap cassette without issue - so it may be best to replace chains & cassettes on the bikes so they're all new and will wear at roughly the same rate.

964cup

I think the OP is intending to buy a Wahoo Kickr-style trainer. Provided both bikes are 10-speed Tiagra, there should be no problems, although if one is disc- and one rim-braked, you may have some fiddling to do with skewers and adapters to make the switch. If they're both rim-braked, there will be no issue; if both disc then it's pot-luck as there are so many competing "standards" for disc wheels at the moment. Change quality may not be absolutely perfect given variances in hanger position and dropout width, but I doubt it will matter for use on a turbo.

milemuncher1

You may have issues with the different chains from the two failing to both mesh with the same cassette on the trainer. You may get some chain slip, unless you have a dedicated cassette for the trainer for each bike.

axisofweasel

There are some specialized bikes rocking a different hub spacing but it's for a couple of years of bolt through disc brake frames and cyclo-cross. If your using a standard quick release then it should* will be absolutely fine.

*nothing ever "just"works!

Mikey23

Indexing was required on my spesh roubaix 10 speed when i hooked it up to the new tacx flux. And will be required again if i take the bike out on road again. Fortunately, i purchased the flux from my LBS rather than online so they were more than happy to do it in the shop for me and patiently show me how to do it for myself in the future! Flux is a cracking bit of kit btw!