Tire wear: Trainers v. Rollers

I mostly use rollers now, and I just use the last set of tires I was using at the end of the riding season and continue to use them until spring and if I can, I use them the first few weeks in the spring.  Then I buy new tires for my spring and summer riding, and usually a new set near the end of the summer and fall and use those for the next roller season.  I think last year I went through three rear tires, but it may have been four.  I can't remember. 

There is actually a lot of pressure on the tire with rollers, in some cases much more than with a trainer. With rollers, the full bike and body weight is on a smaller contact area than if you were on flat ground (since the rollers are curved, there is less contact than if you were on the ground. The smaller the diameter of the rollers the higher the pressure. In addition there is resistnace created by the bearings of the rollers themselves that is not present when riding on flat ground.

I have a friend who rides on 2" Kreitler rollers, wieghs 200 lbs, and his tires smoke when he's on his rollers!

With a triainer, your bike & body wieght is on the skewer/axle, rather than on the tire, and the only pressure is how hard you tighten up the drum to the tire. I doubt most people are tightening the drum down to result in 200+ lbs worth of pressure on the tire.

The answer is therefore, "it depends".

Visit the Krietler website, they have a great description of the physics.

I'll second what the Doc said and add another thing. On a trainer you're always on the tallest part of the tire where the rubber's the hardest. On rollers you can rock the bike back and forth and can hit the softer rubber on the sides which then comes off easier. For me this means that I can turn the rollers almost black in one 3 hour session. I cannot see where that's anything but tire rubber.

For my next trick I'm going to try a pair of trainer tires and see if the rollers don't stay clean longer. I'll probably start a thread after a few weeks of that when I figure out whether it worked or not.

What pressure are you guys running, or maybe you are running a very soft compound tire.  I am a 260 pound clydesdale running 110 pounds on 23c tires and leave very little if anything on the rollers from the tires.  I have done century rides on the rollers and still don't have any problems, but I also have the larger diameter rollers, which may make a difference in heat build up and they are aluminum.

I'm 215, running 700X23c at 120 Lbs pressure on 3" allow Kreitler rollers. These are Vittoria slicks that come on low end Felt bikes. I've got some brand new Vittoria Pro Slicks that I'm going to put on at some point when I start riding outside. Those might help or they might be worse. Dunno

I do think I'm going to try trainer tires on both wheels for a bit and see if they do the same thing.

My rollers tear up my tires about as much as my trainer does.  The rollers don't turn black, but the tires go get worn very quickly.

Wait!  What?  You have done a century on your rollers?  Like, all in one day?  That's insane man.  Impressive that you can mentally pull that off. 

Hey

I have a quick question. I have a set of rollers and lately my front inner tube keeps getting a hole in it some how. I have gone through 3 so far this year. Has anyone had this issue? I do keep the tires around 110 PSI (correct for tire). But the odd part is that my rear tire has no issues (knock on wood)

thanks

Either:
Your tire has something sticking through it (wire, piece of glass, etc) and you'll find it by running a cotton ball all the way around the inside of your tire both ways
or
Your rim tape is cracked, broken, twisted, or otherwise letting a spoke poke through or the inner tube be able to bubble out into a crack in the rim
or
you run off the side of the rollers regularly and catch the wheel in the frame of the rollers

Those would be my first guesses, in order of probability.

Well, after you've done all the other things mentioned in testing that would be the logical conclusion for just about anyone, with or without the sarcastic font.

(edited to add) Plus when you brought them back to the bike store and the first thing out of the manager's mouth is, "Lemme guess, you kept getting flats..." before saying anything. Turns out quite a few of his customers had the same thing.

Edited by DanielG 2010-02-05 10:11 AM

Bad batch, maybe. But don't condemn the whole brand/model every chance you get just based on your one-tire limited experience, when hundreds of others are haveing favorable experiences.

This after you've said yourself that there are enough people complaining about the pro3 race tires that there has to be something to it. Get off it. I've got my opinion, you have your pro2 race opinion. They differ.

I say what happened to me, with my set up and the tires. That's all. I don't condemn or condone any of them, just report what happened when I tried them. People ask for an opinion. I give them my experience with those tires.



Edited by DanielG 2010-02-05 10:22 AM

Those complaints were about blown sidewalls, not "flatting everytime out," which I still maintain is operator error.

Yep. Have my opinion, and the right to express it, and will do so every time you express yours on this topic.

My experience is on both the Pro2s and the Pro3s, four sets in total, and nearly 15,000 miles now. Not one month bad experience with one tire.

thanks I will look at the rim tape,
I was not sure if my rollers were pinching the tire somehow but thanks both of you for the comments and suggestions

Thanks for the repies, guess if I do pick up a roller or trainer it would be more for preference and not much in terms of performance.

I';m a big boy clyde and the trainer caused my tires to wear more than the rollers are this year.

I think it would depend on the tires/ type of rollers/ type of trainer/ margin of victory for the saints in the super bowl/ and some other stuff

My cycleops fluid 2 AND my Kreitler 2"'ers are easy on the tires, I haven't had to change tires in a given season...ever...due to wear, and that using last year's outside tires (used).  I've got vittoria rubino pro's and continential 3000GP's on the bikes.

Now...For whateva reason, the computrainer SMOKES my rear tire, both kinds. I just started riding it, and if I get 15 rides out of it, I'll feel like I got away with something. 
 
And I'm 190#.