I'm about to buy my first indoor trainer (pretty sure I'm going with the Kurt Kinetic Road Machine) and am wondering about trainer skewers and tires. It seems getting a trainer skewer is pretty mandatory to prevent from damaging the more expensive one on my bike. How mandatory is a trainer tire? Are both a good idea?

Reviews deem the Kenda tire that comes with the Road Machine as pretty horrible...any suggestions for a good entry level skewer and tire? Thanks!

Landon

p.s. - hopefully this was the right topic area for this thread and my apoligies if it isn't

The trainer comes with a skewer, at least mine did. you want to use one of their skewers. Putting your bike on the kinetic trainer with an exterior cam skewer will ruin the skewer.

I haven't used the trainer tire, I just use whatever tire is on my bike, I rode it all winter long and didn't have a problem.

So to answer you question. Don't buy a skewer it comes with the Kurt Kinetic trainer (read the box just to be sure) and don't get any special tires.

Not that I'm that deeply aquainted with trainer skewers, but from what I've seen they're just a bit chunkier at the end caps to allow more engagement for the trainer to clamp against. I left mine on for road use as well. Trainer tire isn't mandatory at all. I've used tires retired from road use on trainer until they've shredded. That works too. I'd only buy a trainer-specific tire if I had to buy a tire in the first place - in which case I might go for dirt-cheap tires from the department store instead...

The skewer is really a requirement. Tacx make one that is cheap to buy online. The more exposed end caps allow for a better engagement in the trainer mounts. Better engagement means bike is in straight and more stable.

The tire is really a depends question. How much time you going to spend in the trainer and what types of efforts are you going to do. If you're just spinning easy rides, then it's not really a requirement. If you are going to do serious efforts you'll shred those nice premium quality road tires to pieces.

I do a lot of work in the trainer, probably 3*1.5hr sessions a week. With a lot of that doing intervals pretty much on my threshold. I'll shred a tire a month or so, so simply had a training wheel and used disposable Vittora Rubino Pro's ($20 a tire). Of course that didn't stop killing the trainer by wearing a nice deep groove in the stainless roller after 3 seasons.

I went to a Lemond Revolution. No more tires shredding, no more needing a second wheel, no more need for a trainer skewer. Problem solved.

Thanks for all of the input everyone. The Road Machine did indeed come with it's own skewer so I didn't need worry about that as you suggested. My tires are the original from when i bought my bike and are the greatest in the world and I've had a few people suggest I upgrade to something a little less prone to all the pointy plant parts in the desert where i live so I think I'm just going to wear my original tire(s) down and then upgrade instead of spending money on a trainer. Thanks again for your help!

I usually ride a tire all year, then make it a trainer tire after the season ends. Then come spring time I just buy some new rubber and am good to go. There are some harder rubber tires that are made specifically for trainers, but unless you have a dedicated trainer wheel, I wouldn't bother (although for what it would cost for a cheap, used 700c wheel it may be worth it...).