Your experience of swapping wheels for use on turbo?

reformedfatty

Hi,
trying to get more use out of proper road bike which has been glued to a turbo for the past year, so I picked up a spare rear wheel (£5 - yay for bristol bike jumble) and have swapped the turbo tyre on to that, returning the original rear wheel to it's road tyre.

My question then... how do people find their drivetrains fare in this situation with the differing wear on the cassettes?

fenix

I never bothered. The wear my turbo gave was about as much as if the wheel had been on the road anyway - so it made no sense to pay money for another wheel/tyre.

964cup

Unless either of the cassettes, or the chain, is *really* worn it makes no difference at all. I swap wheels all the time, including running Sram and Shimano cassettes in Campag drivetrains (11sp). I have never noticed any effect on wear or shift quality from doing this.

I do keep my kit scrupulously clean, though, and change chains at 0.75% wear.

964cup

ps - using a turbo tyre is a good idea. It's not the tyre you're protecting, it's the friction surface on the turbo. Neither road grit, nor road tyre compound, is ideal in that context.

fat daddy

I use a dedicated turbo wheel and have noticed absolutely no issues in wear from the drivetrain when switching back and forward between wheels ... my road cassette is considerably older than the turbo one, but both shift flawlessly

I guess it might become an issue when wear becomes extreme, but I have been running like this for over a year now with no issues whatso ever

PhilipPirrip

I used to have to swap wheels when using race tyres as the elastomer roller on the trainer would destroy soft compounds causing severe graining and rubber marbles all over the place.

As long as you keep the drive train clean and monitor chain wear then swapping between wheels/cassettes shouldn't be a problem as the cassette in a well maintained drivetrain should outlast several chains. The cassette on my turbo wheel is probably six years old and has married happily to half a dozen different chains that will have seen thousands of miles on the road.

dannbodge

I use a direct drive turbo so is pretty much the same thing and haven't noticed any difference in shifting or wear with the swapping of cassettes etc.

If the bike is on the trainer for a long time, I make sure I do a degrease and re-lube before putting it on.

reformedfatty

Cool, sounds good.

Cheers

EBEB

I have a turbo wheel; just bought a cheap second hand one from a LBS. Heavy, number of spokes huge, but who cares indoors. Did have a turbo tyre, but it was not noticeably different than using an old (cleaned) outdoor tyre. If I had treaded tyres/MTB it might be different. Good way to keep your good tyres for outside & what else are you going to do with the old ones…

Matthewfalle

No problems at all.

Re tyres-just use an old road one that never goes outside again. Job jobbed, bucket of chips.