Roller trainer blowout - is this normal???

No way! I thought I was the only one ever to get a flat on rollers! Yeah it was a bit of a surprise as I had used the same wheel and tyre exclusively for rollers all winter.

The real bugger was that it was a slow leak and I was doing intervals. I didn't want to stick on my road wheel and winter tyre so I had to jump off after every effort and re-inflate the tyre to 100psi, then jump back on just in time for my next 4 minutes by end of which tyre was back to 40psi.

Never had a flat on my rollers (also antares) wher I usually sit at around 30mph, just lots of static build up. On the other trainer though (Tacx Fortius, and no, I am not endorsing Tacx in any way by owning two of their products) I get them all the time, on a trainer tyre as well

Did you tape the brakes? That could cause massive stress on the tyre, couldn't it?

Not normal but not that uncommon either.

Depends on several things:

• Was the tyre properly seated on the rim?
• How tight was the fit of the tyre to the rim?
• How great was the pressure between tyre and roller?
• What pressure was in the tyre to start with?
• Did you pump your tyres up outside in a garage at -5 then bring them indoors to +15 or 20 (increases pressure a bit)

Heating of the tyre on the roller can then increase pressure further -> if the tyre is arelatively loose fit on the rim, or badly seated, or you have a pinch in the tube somewhere, it's not unknown for the tyre to blow off the rim with an almighty great "BANG" ....

Be very wary of using trainer tyres on rollers - they're designed for turbos because of the extra wear the resistance causes, you don't get that wear with rollers and shouldn't need anything other than regular good quality tyres. A good number of the riders I coach will regularly be spinning at up to a registered 55mph on rollers (no wind resistance so it's fairly easy) - I've never known a tyre blow.

turbo trainers and rollers do wear tyres down but i'd be surprised if they caused a blowout. what does the tyre look like where it's blown? more likely it's a gash in the carcass from road debris that's decided to go pop on the rollers and not really related to the roller time

Normal tyres will last a certain time, depending on many things, rider weight, speed, power....etc

But you are better off using a trainer tyre on the rear as thats what they are designed for

The only hassle is they are useless for using on the road

So if you only have the one bike, like i used to, i had 3 wheels, 1 front with a road tyre, 2 identical rears, one with a trainer tyre and one with a road tyre, same cassette and would just switch them over

Dunno. I've ridden the same rollers for two years and no problems.
Use vittoria rubino pro, 40mph sprint intervals and 30 mph ave over 50
mins is usual session. Tyre should eat 24mph.
Rollers don't kill tyres like turbos.

I take it you were using a normal tyre on the rear rather than a roller/turbo tyre?

Special trainer tyres have a special compound which has a much lower internal resistance