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I am waiting on delivery of a gravel bike and I have also purchased a basic turbo. My intention was to use the turbo as a warm up for garage gym sessions and maybe 30 minutes here and there. I also decided to purchase a rear wheel to swap between turbo and outdoors, however I ended up buying the bargain Prime road wheels from Wiggle. Therefore I have the opportunity to turn my gravel bike into a road bike. However I believe turboing will eat a road tire, so should I just sack off the idea of road cycling and stick a turbo specific tire on the rear? How durable are road tires on turbo trainers?
I've only ever used an old tyre, just to get some of the last life out of it. They eat tyres, you'll see a pile of dust on the floor that was your tyre tread.
I've got 2 in the loft you can have FoC mate. 1 orange, 1 blue... depends if you can be bothered to swap tyres of course
Sorry, re-read and you might not have an old tyre. The correct answer is whatever CRC has cheapest today. Turbo tyres are supposed to be quieter, not shed quite so much, but any cheap slick will do the job. Do you have mates with old road tyres hanging in the garage?
I've got a Vittoria one which is fine. I think they're meant to have a (much) harder compound so they can tolerate heat and friction better.
A turbo trainer tyre is made of much harder rubber (and shouldn't be used on the road subsequently), so that it doesn't heat up and degrade in the way a normal bike tyre would on a turbo trainer. A turbo trainer puts a lot of heat into a bicycle tyre, which can degrade it very quickly.
It's not just a ruse to sell more tyres (yes, I work for a tyre company), honestly... A turbo trainer tyre is a good investment as it will save you from knackering your expensive road bike tyres, and it will last pretty much forever...
I did the cheap option of using an old road tyre when I bought my first wheel-on turbo trainer and after two sessions I went and bought a Turbo Trainer Tyre as the regular tyre left a mess from the rubber flicking off and the room smelt of hot rubber afterwards! The specific tyre is sat in a cupboard still on the spare wheel I put it on and after 50+ hours of use still looks like new whereas the regular tyre looked all chewed up after those first two sessions.
Get the proper tyre, they're only £15 or so.
I've got one you can have for posrtage...
Swapped to a direct drive trainer.