For various reasons my wife is looking to get a turbo trainer that she can use at home with her mountain bike. There seem to be quite a few out there and much to choose from at various price levels. A friend has an Elite trainer that he is pretty chuffed with but he only has a road bike. I suppose I am looking for a couple of things:

1. Experiences of others with turbo trainers and whether you are using a mountain bike with it?
2. Should we be considering getting a new, dedicated rear wheel for use on the TT, just a tyre that can be used on it, or not bother changing anything?

Appreciate comments and observations. I do understand that some may view TTs as the dullest of dull things in a dull universe but for various medical issues my wife struggles, especially in “winter weather” to do serious exercise outside hence looking at a TT as she does enjoy riding her bike. Although it may be a bit dull, she will be able to park it in front of the tv and spin away while watching mindless tat something interesting.

No experiences or comments? Hmmm

The chap I bought mine off used it with a normal knobbly mtb tyre. He said it was quite noisy but okay.

I’ve just bought a slick tyre for my other half to use on her mtb on the turbo, as I’d imagine it to be understanding unpleasantly noisy with a knobbly. (I’m using the road bike anyway and that’s noisy enough!)

A cheapo slick mtb tyre was only 8 quid or so on ebay. It might not be an issue but if you used a spare wheel, then you might get different chain and cassette wear from using one chain across two different cassettes.

This has been discussed a fair bit in the past so do a search.

My tuppence? I have a Tacx Flow 2200 with TTS (software) which means I can create all sorts of resistances, add custom routes (mapped via Google Earth) and track data plus loads more. I opted for this because I use my MTB and wanted to ensure the resistance was high enough. It is 😯 Not so sure about more conventional turbos – I would imagine most run out of puff even in the higher gears?

No need to get a dedicated rear wheel IMO. I started with a spare wheel with a Taxc turbo tyre (Conti and others do them too). But none of my spares were perfectly true so I bought a mint second hand wheel that was – because I wanted to minimise any “kinks” in the pedal action.

Works a treat.

Watching TV (iplayer, 4OD etc) is fine sometimes. Sufferfest vids are great too. Another bonus with the Tacx is all the interactive DVDs of various “stages” that you can “participate” in.

I really wouldn’t use a knobbly – no way of properly getting the power down or getting any real accuracy/feedback.

Neither would I use a slick – it’ll wear out a damn site quicker than a proper turbo tyre.

Re cassette/chain wear, just swap the cassette from your normal wheel onto the turbo wheel. Job done.

Thank you chaps for the feedback. Much appreciated.

I have one that runs off the rim, therefore it doesn’t matter what tyre you have.

I’ve got an Elite Elastogel Fluid trainer. Was £140 from Wiggle…think they have gone up now. Very quiet and doesn’t wear out standard tyres at all. Would never use a knobbly tyre though