I was thinking about training for my next IM with a pair of Gatorskins on my aluminum stock wheels, then swapping them out with a HED 60/disc setup with a Grand Prix 5000 S TR rear tire and Aero 111 on the front. I have traditionally trained and raced on a pair of GP 5000’s all year long.
I haven’t seen or heard of too many people doing something like this so I figured I’d get some input regarding pros/cons. The only downside I can think of is maybe increased struggles with trying to keep up in a group ride and unimpressive Strava times.
I’ve done this for awhile. I now ride enough indoors that I just leave faster Conti 5000s on, but I def have found slightly (not massively though) improved puncture resistance from Gatorskins.
You will note they will feel slower and slightly clunkier. I didn’t think I’d notice, but I absolutely noticed, even if it’s overall only quite a small effect. It’s nice come race day, to swap them back. I wouldn’t say you’ll notice the speed gain per se (which is small) but the Gators are just stiffer and a thus bit more chattery compared to a GP5000.
I don’t see any problem with continuing with GP5000s though if you’re not having any excess flat problems. THe worst part of Gators are that they can be really annoying to seat if you have a flat, but to be dead honest, once I upgraded to HED Vanquish, any tire including GP5000s are like 2x harder to mount compared to my Gatorskins on Shimano entry-level road wheels, might have to do with the width of the wheel.
Life is too short to ride Gatorskins. They’re a commuter tire for when you can’t be late to the office because of a puncture. Also, if you live in a rainy climate they have TERRIBLE grip in wet conditions.
My gravel bike with 40C knobbed tires have less rolling resistance and better puncture protection than Gatorskins.
Personally, I train on 5000s because they are more responsive and generally more fun to ride.
Back in the day, race wheels were fragile builds not suited for everyday use. With modern deep carbon rims, that is no longer the case. There isn’t really a case for heavy, dedicated, aluminum box rim, training wheels.
The only advantage I see is that you are saving the race rubber for race day, without the hassle/risk of swapping tires pre-race.
In the past tyres were $30… Now, I’m struggling to get them for under $150nz each (GP5000s) which is not far off what I pay for the continental tyres on my car. And I have lost virtually brand new tyres from bad slashes. That said, before tubeless it was also easier to swap tyres for races, or even long rides you wanted to ‘enjoy’ on better rubber.
The other big change is the amount of trainer riding I do now. In the past then I’d be outside all year round including crap weather where you’d get all the glass and it would be puncture rest on the group rides. So I used to favour not Gatorskins, but the Specialized Rubaix as a sweetspot of puncture resistance and ‘didn’t feel shit’. I’m a Vittoria fanboy for race tyres, but I found the Rubino was both puncture prone and felt slow/heavy.
That said, if you are running tubeless the evidence really suggests that there’s no real benefits to using anything other than GP5000S TR - if you’re regularly getting punctures on your tri bike or road bike on those then you are on the wrong roads or doing something else badly wrong.
One thing I would say is that I do notice the handling change between tyres. Not just comfort but the profile of the tyres changes that means the way the bike corners does change. And so whilst less critical for most triathlons, then on the road bike or technical courses you may need a little time to actually recalibrate.
I recommend airless tires by tannus, as gators still can flat. Similar rolling resistance, but by now all smart training is done with power. Changing a tire = 0 watts.
It’s a decent idea because riding on slow wheels+tires, effectively makes each climb longer, and each downhill shorter because of the aggregate retarding force, resulting in a higher quality ride for the same topography. If you train on a fast setup, sure you can ride at higher watts to make up for the fast setup, but every hill is shorter in time and every downhill results in a higher top end speed meaning you have more momentum into the next uphill or flat making the next “effort segment” shorter in duration.
In an extreme a fat bike on a hilly or rolling loop is better training load than tricked out TT bike riding in the exact same position. You’re going to do more kilojoules of work for the same course…or you ride the fast set up and go longer in distance at the same average power as you’d do on the gatorskin set up or in the extreme the fatbike to get the same overall workout.
I actually use gatorskins on a bike that I use exclusively on the rollers. Its for my aluminium drum rollers which literally have no resistance and if I use Vittoria Corsa’s or GP5000s on the rollers, it’s barely a warmup workout at 35kph (wheel speed). So I have an old bike that is worthless equipped with Gatorskins that I use for recovery rides, or warming up before I hit the treadmill or another bike permanently bolted to the Kickr for intervals. I tend to agree that its not enjoyable riding outdoors with gatorskins, but it’s still a good 20 extra watts of CRR retarding force so it’s still a better workout over the same distance ride !
Coming back to the rollers, I got another set that have magnetic resistance so I can ride my other bikes on those rollers with good rubber if I choose to.
The “go to” back in the day was heavy, shit wheels with fat,cheap, slow tyres for training and race wheels for racing.Then training became more important than racing and folks just kept race wheels on all the time.
I remember Joe Skipper mentioning how frustrated he was with his apparent lack of power while training during the winter on his gravel bike. He then got on his TT bike and and was happy again. I can totally relate.
( do I need a citation for the Skipper anecdote?I’m confused these days)
In that bygone era, we had a tagline…“posers with race wheels”. No one trained on race wheels because the rubber was all expensive latex tubulars!!!. Any poser who showed up to training in fast gear (typically race wheels or an aero helmet and god forbid a tight fitting skin suit), would be banished way over ------------------------------------> there and told to get to the front of the group and pull everyone all day as penance for showing up in race gear!!!
It was also the wheels. Race wheels were 28 spoke and laced radially in front and 1-cross in the rear to save weight. They would taco if you even looked at a pothole wrong. Training wheels had 32 or 36 heavier gage spokes laced 3-cross; Mavic MA40 rims were the go-to.
Very true…I had a set of MA40’s that were bomb proof and i had a set of super lighweight Mavic GP4 tubular rims, with campy record wide flange hubs radially laced with bladed spokes. Still probably were some of my smoothest riding wheels !!! I think I only sold them a year ago (for almost nothing to a guy building up an old Bianchi)
