What's the current Best Practice on training wheels and tires?

Dave Tallo

I am no fewer than 82 posts into a slowtwitch thread, and i surrender.  

I need to to replace my front wheel that I use for training.   

Is it 23w rim, 23w tire?   23 rim, 25 tire?  25 rim, 25 tire?  Durability is priority 1. I don't need light, carbon, aero, or flash.   I just want to ride my bike.   I've used a mavic 19 with 23 tires for the last decade.  

I don't see myself running disk brakes until the mid 2020's. Late adopter.  

scott dinhofer

is this a road tire? or a trainer tire?

if road, is rolling resistance an issue, or prefer good tire with some durability?
I'd go with the conti gatorskins and call it a day.. 

Dave Tallo

On which rims?  Do I need 25s these days?

Paul Hough

I'm not sold on 25 tires.  I stay with 23mm, buy new ones for A races, and when they have about 300 miles or so on them, they become training tires.  Why make it more complicated by having multiple tire types and widths?   

DAVID RICHMOND

I'd would say get the same width as your racing wheels, and same material if u can so no need to swap pads... I love the Flo 30s as my training wheels (bomb proof so far)

scott dinhofer

on the wheels, I ride my ZIpps all the time. Changing pads on the P5 is a PITA and the rims are supposed to be bulletproof. "train as you race, race as you train." Seem to recall getting this advice some years ago here in the EN forums!

Scott Alexander

Training wheels: 700x25 conti gatorskins.
Race wheels: 700x25 conti gp4000s

Mark Maurer

I use my Flo 60 for my training and race wheel. Conti gatorskins for training and gp4000 TT for racing. 

Jorge Duque

I like to use Mavic Cosmic Elite for training. They are cheap, bullet proof, only 30mm deep but still aero, and on the heavy side so when you swap to race wheels you feel like flying. They come with all weather tires (yksion) which will last for a long time.

For race day I still use an old set of SRAM's S80 with Schwalbe Durano S tires.