Flat Tires on Trainer?

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Flat Tires on Trainer?
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flag gbeaks33
Posted: Jan 7, 2019 at 11:17 Quote
Hi. I bought a smart trainer (Cycleops Magnus M2) for Christmas and I get a flat tire on every single ride I've tried. I've used it 5 times, and have had 5 flats. I have a trainer tire, brand new tubes, and it is set up correctly (as far as I know). Tires lasts roughly 20-30 minutes before it starts slipping, and I stop to check the pressure and it's completely flat.

My first flat was an explosion, which blew my trainer tire off the rim. The tube was slit along the side roughly 2-3cm in length. I thought my pressure was up too high so I lowered it from 100psi to 80psi. The four other flats are of the pinch flat variety.

It's very frustrating, I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. When I'm riding, the smell of burning rubber is very strong. Is that normal? Am I melting these tubes into oblivion?
flag dragoonxx
Posted: Jan 8, 2019 at 10:27 Quote
only thing i can immediately think of is... too much tension/resistance - i've always been told *unless you're trying to artificially increase resistance a LOT* is to have the trainer just tight enough that you can't slip the wheel out under a hard sprint - i don't use a dedicated trainer type tire myself (i just use cheap regular tires) and when i set mine up i go for just enough contact patch that it slightly deforms the tread
flag gbeaks33
Posted: Jan 8, 2019 at 10:34 Quote
dragoonxx wrote:
only thing i can immediately think of is... too much tension/resistance - i've always been told *unless you're trying to artificially increase resistance a LOT* is to have the trainer just tight enough that you can't slip the wheel out under a hard sprint - i don't use a dedicated trainer type tire myself (i just use cheap regular tires) and when i set mine up i go for just enough contact patch that it slightly deforms the tread

I was thinking that as well, but Cycleops has an automatic tensioner. You just tighten the knob until it clicks, and that's it. You can't make it any tighter once that snaps in. And any looser than that and I'd slip under a medium effort.

I took the trainer tire off again last night and noticed in some spots there's "bubbling" going on.
photo

Not sure if this is from the heat being generated, or if that's normal. It smells like a tire fire when I am using the trainer though.
flag husstler
O+
Posted: Jan 12, 2019 at 22:46 Quote
What kind of shape is your rim strip in?
flag gbeaks33
Posted: Jan 13, 2019 at 10:09 Quote
husstler wrote:
What kind of shape is your rim strip in?

Looks ok to me. It's certainly old, but I never had a flat riding actual roads with this rim. Can I peel that off and replace it with gorilla tape? I have a roll of that I use for taping my mountain bike tires for tubeless. I very carefully installed a more expensive cannodale "race" road tire and made sure that the trainer tire wasn't pinching anywhere. I've left it a few days and its still holding air. Used a different pump this time just to rule out that the PSI was wrong or something. I've come down with a nasty cold so haven't tried the trainer in a few days. I'll give it a go today and see what happens.
flag husstler
O+
Posted: Jan 13, 2019 at 19:13 Quote
Yeah, you could gorilla tape it. I have that on my road bike but it’s tubeless. Works alright in lieu of having actual rim tape handy.

I asked about the rim strip because of the tire is alright, and you’re not pinching tubes when you’re putting it together, then this is the next stop.
flag gbeaks33
Posted: Jan 14, 2019 at 9:46 Quote
I've had two rides on the trainer and no flats, so this is a good sign. I have a Bontrager Flash pump, which is one of the pumps with a built in resevoir to blast tires for tubeless setup. But I find it is very inaccurate for airing up road tires. It wasn't even close to my smaller handpump with gauge. Pretty disappointing for such an expensive floor pump. So i've been using the hand pump and likely a better indicator of what the tire pressure actually is.

The other issue is I didn't realize that Zwift isn't supporting Cycleops trainers to be properly calibrated right now. So I have to calibrate it with Rouvy and then using it for zwift might not be accurate. Super annoying. Rouvy doesn't support mac/ios at all, so I have to download the android app just to calibrate it, then quit the app because it doesn't work with mac anyways, then connect my trainer to my mac to run zwift. It's super annoying that both these paid software training programs don't work properly.
flag husstler
O+
Posted: Jan 14, 2019 at 11:26 Quote
The discrete watts number doesn’t really matter. At least, long as you set a proper FTP. Then the intervals are just percentage of FTP. So if yours is really 180 on a power meter and a more sophisticated test but it thinks it’s 220 as far as the trainer sees it won’t matter. Took me a bit to get that.

At least with no flats you can start training.
flag gbeaks33
Posted: Jan 14, 2019 at 11:47 Quote
husstler wrote:
The discrete watts number doesn’t really matter. At least, long as you set a proper FTP. Then the intervals are just percentage of FTP. So if yours is really 180 on a power meter and a more sophisticated test but it thinks it’s 220 as far as the trainer sees it won’t matter. Took me a bit to get that.

At least with no flats you can start training.

Yeah I still am able to pedal and it's still hard, so I don't really care. There's a built in power meter in the trainer, but unsure how accurate it is compared to one of those expensive crank meters. I have never done an FTP test, though, and was going to do one on my trainer with Zwift but if it's not accurate right from the get-go unsure how useful it'd be. I guess it still could provide me a range and I can see if i'm improving on that number over time even if its not accurate.
flag husstler
O+
Posted: Jan 14, 2019 at 13:55 Quote
gbeaks33 wrote:
husstler wrote:
The discrete watts number doesn’t really matter. At least, long as you set a proper FTP. Then the intervals are just percentage of FTP. So if yours is really 180 on a power meter and a more sophisticated test but it thinks it’s 220 as far as the trainer sees it won’t matter. Took me a bit to get that.

At least with no flats you can start training.

Yeah I still am able to pedal and it's still hard, so I don't really care. There's a built in power meter in the trainer, but unsure how accurate it is compared to one of those expensive crank meters. I have never done an FTP test, though, and was going to do one on my trainer with Zwift but if it's not accurate right from the get-go unsure how useful it'd be. I guess it still could provide me a range and I can see if i'm improving on that number over time even if its not accurate.

Yeah, I fond one every 6 weeks or 2 months is a good thing, to see if you're improving at all.
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