Spare wheel & cassette for Turbo

I have an Allez 2008 Elite and I think it is a lovely bike, not sure which model you have though. Anyway, changing wheels and cassettes is a doddle although you will need the right tools.

If you are going to upgrade the wheels you need to splash a decent amount of cash to make a difference but the right purchase will make the bike feel nice and nimble. My nice wheels are some RS80s and that is the kind of price point you should (IMO) be looking at, e.g. Krysium Elites, Racing 3, RS80. If not, the very least would be some Aksiums (I am lucky to have these for my winter wheels as they came with the bike and I had the RS80s already) as they are reasonably light, roll well and they do take a good kicking. Some decent handbuilts will also be great but the pricepoints would be similar.

However, I cannot help thinking that this really is not a good time to be buying some lovely wheels but changing tyres every time you want to use the turbo will be a real pain. Sooo, why not see if you can buy a cheap (ideally second hand) rear wheel for now and just use that for the turbo? Something like an R500? You will need to check compatibility so just count your cogs and if you have 8 (?) then the R500 will be fine as it is 8/9/10 speed compatible (I have 9 speed Tiagra). Then, when the sun comes out again in April you could buy something good and say "hello" to buttery smoothness . Having a cheap emergency wheel will always come in handy or just flog it again on ebay and get your money back without losing much.

So, changing cassette just takes a chain whip and a locking tool (as in a small interconnecting nut that goes onto the cassette middle). Have a look online at some video guides but I would recommend wearig some decent leather glothes when doing this task as it is easy to slip and catch some skin. The torque levels are surprising high (40nm, etc., if I recall correctly) so you do need to be quite burly when tightening the cassette (but don't go mad as you are the one who is going to have to undo the thing again at some point). Any old tyre will do for turbo use but don't be tempted to use it again for the road.