I’m after some knowledge and direction. I’m a pretty casual sort of rider, not much more than a couple of rides a week generally, but I’m looking to step up my fitness and training, maybe do a few more races this year and I’ve been thinking about getting a turbo trainer.

Am I being a bit thick? (more than likely) But it looks like a bit of a faff. Both my bikes are nobbly tyred 29ers. It seems I need to have a special tyre to run on the trainer, or at the least a slick tyre. I’m a lazy git and changing tyres all the time just isn’t going to happen.

Is something like a cheap decathlon road bike c250 quid specifically for the trainer a good idea? Or am I over thinking it all. Get trainer – attach to bike – pedal.

Any help appreciated.

You can get turbo trainers that apply the resistance to the rim of the wheel rather than the tyre but I’ve not used one and haven’t seen one for sale for a while now.

I have a turbo wheel & tyre for my road bike, I use my CX/commuter bike on the road during winter when I’m going to be using the turbo so it’s a change once, use the turbo for winter then change back when I’m going to be using the road bike outside.

In your case I’d get a cheap road bike and fix a turbo tyre to it.

Minoura rim drive, RDA 80 I think the current model is. I’m actually selling my old one on Gumtree, if you are near Edinburgh and want something really cheap and cheerful? https://www.gumtree.com/p/bicycle-accessories/minoura-rda-850-turbo-trainer/1156330462

Get a wheel off Turbo like an Elite Turbo Muin or similar. There was one for sale in the classifieds. I have one and they’re fantastic

My neighbour gave me his old Apollo rigid bike so I put a road tyre on and sits on turbo permamtly! Much like yourself I couldn’t be doing with changing tyres all the time!

Thanks for the input everyone. Not seen the rim type ones or looked much at the direct drive types. I’ll investigate further.

Doug thanks for the offer, but I’m a bit too far away.

If you can’t leave it set up permanently I wouldnt bother you wont use it. However spend a few hundred on a zwift set up and you be on it several times a week.

i managed to pinch the GFs old bike and it’s permanently on the trainer. this means turbo session is +15 minutes of the session time. my old set up was about an hour!

makes life much simpler.