Tire wear from trainer.

My old Minoura trainer used to make the rubber fly.  My new Tacx trainer does it a little bit, but I just make sure I change my tires to my "trainer tires" from about now (ack!!) to May.

Jen

Trainer lesson learned the hard (stupid??) way:

First off, my second time on the trainer I rode the bike right off the stand.

Third time, when I moved the trainer I saw what I thought was a grease mark on the carpet and didn't worry about it (I have invested in a great carpet cleaner because ... well I need it!), but it was later discovered it was a black burn mark from my tire .... I'm not very popular in the house right now  

My understanding is that yes,  you will likely want to replace the tire in the spring if you use the trainer alot. Your in Michigan - are you planning to be riding in the snow? I'm not going to,  so I can leave the bike on my trainer come November ... but with proper underlay of course.

I have a Fluid Ops trainer.  I found out, through trial and error, that the wear problem was occuring because I did not clamp the bike (rear wheel) down tight enough.  This allowed the rear wheel to move back and forth, causing excessive wear between the tire and the resistance wheel on the trainer.  I tightened up the clamping mechanism that goes over the rear spindle and it fixed the problem.  There was still some wear, but no more flying bits of rubber.  Also, I've seen tires advertised for trainers that are harder and thicker than normal street tires.

Hope that helps.

By the way, Sann, were you wearing a helmet when you crashed on your trainer?