I recently purchased a cycleops fluid 2 trainer and plan to do one trainer ride/week for about an hour. I typically ride with 808s with a standard tire. Will doing a trainer session/week for an hour cause significant wear on the tire? I do have an older wheel/tire, but just seems like a pain to switch the tire each week.
I trained hard on the trainer for the first time this past winter. It killed my tire and my g/f’s. It just made the profile have a large flat spot across the top. When I would take my bike off of the trainer I would see a little pile of black tire dust. I was surprised of the wear it acutally had. I will only use an old tire for riding on the trainer going forward
I would say yes, it gets hot pretty fast and will chew up the tire or flatten the tire out. Conti makes an indoor trainer tire that’s pretty good.
Just get a dedicated rear wheel with a trainer tire. Or, don’t worry about it.
I’ll second that.
Buy cheap wheel with cheap compatible cassette. Install trainer tire (cheap! $20-30). Use trainer as needed.
Total cost ~$100. Not buying multiple $60 tires, heck of a deal.
I bought the cycleops trainer tire at LBS. I want to say I paid 35 or so. It has seen 50 trainer sessions since install, and it looks like the day I put it on. I was using a road tire prior and it began to flatten the profile significantly within 10 rides.
Depends on the tire. I have had some tires start to separate and or develop bubbles in the rubber. Others seem to show little or wear after miles and miles on the trainer.
Thanks for all the replies. I will just switch the 808 wheel to an old wheel with tire on the trainer rides. Did not realize it can really put wear on it. Thanks!
I’ll second that.
Buy cheap wheel with cheap compatible cassette. Install trainer tire (cheap! $20-30). Use trainer as needed.
Total cost ~$100. Not buying multiple $60 tires, heck of a deal.
To further this, I was chatting up the owner of my LBS and asked if he had a wheel that wasn’t road-worthy but would work on a trainer. He had a few and gave me one with a cassette for free. I picked the best of the litter but some had a missing spoke or whatnot… Your shop may have the same if they know you… I also use a Conti 4000 that’s no good for the road because of a gash, but works flawlessly on the trainer. Might be worth checking your shop to see if they have any junker-wheels to give away!
I recently purchased a cycleops fluid 2 trainer and plan to do one trainer ride/week for about an hour. I typically ride with 808s with a standard tire. Will doing a trainer session/week for an hour cause significant wear on the tire? I do have an older wheel/tire, but just seems like a pain to switch the tire each week.
Regular tires, yes, they typically will get accelerated wear on the trainer, although honestly, 1hr/week isn’t that much and it’ll probably take a whole year of riding or more to do significant damage to your tire just from the trainer.
You can have the best of both worlds by using a Conti Gatorskin. It’s tough enough to hold up extremely well on the Fluid2 trainer, and also be doubled for on-road duty so you don’t have to futz with changing tires or wheels.
I trained last season for 20 weeks averaging the equivalent of 120 road miles per week, over half of which was Trainerroad intervals done at pretty firm efforts, and even after all that mixed indoor-outdoor riding, the Gatorskin was still totally intact. In fact, I’m STILL riding that same tire a year later, although I’ve biked a lot less in the past few months due to swimming more. Bottom line, the Gatorskin will work great both indoors/outdoors, and is a great choice if you want to avoid the hassle of swapping tires or wheels when you ride indoors vs out.