Riding Rollers

[fourflys]

So I did the search for "how to ride rollers" and got nothing...

Just picked up my first set of rollers for the impending move to Alaska and was wondering who had to tips for first-time roller riders?

Thanks,
Chris

[Ti Designs]

Lots of people will tell you that riding rollers will make you smoother. They're wrong. Step 1 is to get smoother, then riding rollers is easy. There are two steps when I teach someone how to ride rollers. Step 1: pedal stroke work. There's a thread somewhere down there about making a better rider, within that there's something about doing one leg pedal stroke drills. If you get to the point where you can turn a pedal at 40 - 50 RPMs, almost no resistance (on a trainer), without speeding up or slowing down at all (there should be a steady hum, not whir, whir, whir), and with both feet clipped in you can smoothly turn 140 RPMs, you're ready to get on the rollers. Once you have the pedal stroke work done, put an object 20 feet directly in front of the rollers, set up a chair next to the rollers to help you get started, and forget you're on them and ride at the object. In no time you'll be up and riding them.

[djg]

No coaching tips on developing a better pedal stroke here. As for staying upright: the suggestion about a point of focus that's front & center (and far enough in front that your head sorta needs to be pointed the right way if you're to focus on it) makes good sense.

Beyond that, lotsa folks have good luck setting them up in a doorway initially. The basic idea is that, while learning, you'll be able to steady yourself by flaring out an elbow -- hence, enough support to keep you up and riding (and keep training your body to stay steady and centered), without having to bail or lunge for a chair. Fail a little, correct, and keep going, instead of bailing and starting again.

It's not rocket surgery (or ballet or tight rope walking). I think that a person of typical coordination and balance can learn to do it in a relatively short period of time, without any serious incidents along the way. And once you are used to riding rollers, it's not hard -- or not harder than you make it on yourself by working harder. It's just that it can feel pretty funny, or even disconcerting, at first.

[thwart]

... this is usually a November thread...

Good advice above. I found it helpful to watch a few YouTube videos about roller riding before I started.

Always fun to work on a new skill!

[MattTuck]

Do THIS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BcHekNAfOo)




NOT THIS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN1cuVRRRzM)


Any questions?

[AgilisMerlin]

set rollers up in doorway. have at it.

welcome to heaven indoors :D

[Fixed]

it is not that hard to get the concentration takes practice
i learned next to a window and i did not fall out
cheers :beer:

[stephenmarklay]

Lots of people will tell you that riding rollers will make you smoother. They're wrong. Step 1 is to get smoother, then riding rollers is easy. There are two steps when I teach someone how to ride rollers. Step 1: pedal stroke work. There's a thread somewhere down there about making a better rider, within that there's something about doing one leg pedal stroke drills. If you get to the point where you can turn a pedal at 40 - 50 RPMs, almost no resistance (on a trainer), without speeding up or slowing down at all (there should be a steady hum, not whir, whir, whir), and with both feet clipped in you can smoothly turn 140 RPMs, you're ready to get on the rollers. Once you have the pedal stroke work done, put an object 20 feet directly in front of the rollers, set up a chair next to the rollers to help you get started, and forget you're on them and ride at the object. In no time you'll be up and riding them.

Wow that is a pretty stringent list. Me? I just jumped on and started pedaling :o

Although I bought some uber slick and uber $ inside ride rollers and its just like riding a bike!

[AngryScientist]

set rollers up in doorway. have at it.

welcome to heaven indoors :D

yea, thats pretty much it. dont be afraid to rely on the doorway for the first little bit. it'll come naturally in a few sessions, but it might take a little time. dont sweat it.

Ed is right, a smooth pedal stroke is key to the balance, faster is better too.

have fun!

[ultraman6970]

I always hated to ride roller with the road bike, is really ackward because the pedaling is different than using your track bike. Maybe that's why Ti designs says that the rollers don't make you smoother neither contribute to pedaling stroke.

IMO fix gear helps way more to pedaling technique and stroke than anything else. In a matter of fact If you ride in rollers with a light gear like 50x20 (to start) with clip pedals, clip pedals cleats, the clips and no straps at all the pedaling gets even better because u really need to concentrate in the pedaling due to the fact that the feet are floating over the pedals. This is one of the oldest tricks to help pedaling, kids dont do this no more.

Good luck with the rollers.

[fourflys]

... this is usually a November thread...

Good advice above. I found it helpful to watch a few YouTube videos about roller riding before I started.

Always fun to work on a new skill!

trying to get everything set before the move to the island that only has 7k people and costs a TON to ship to... and the roller season tends to start a bit earlier in Alaska... ;)

[Jaq]

fwiw

Get yourself a good fan. Not a piece of crap, but something that moves air, and a lot of it.

Get yourself a dish towel, hand towel, workout towel and wrap it around your top tube. Have another nearby for you. You will perspire. Excessively. Even with a fan

If you feel like you're about to crash/lose it, pedal faster, not slower. The gyroscopic effect of the spinning wheels is what helps keep you up and steady; the faster your wheels turn, the greater their rotational inertia, and the greater your resultant stability.

You might find that you build up an excessive static charge (caused by the rubber tires rolling over the plastic/aluminum rollers), especially in the extremely dry, cold air of Alaska. If this is the case, you can usually ground the rollers by simply tying a thin copper wire over the roller's frame (any metal part will do) and then taping it to the floor.

Relax. We've all fallen off rollers and had not a shred of dignity left over.

[onekgguy]

fwiw

Get yourself a good fan. Not a piece of crap, but something that moves air, and a lot of it.

Get yourself a dish towel, hand towel, workout towel and wrap it around your top tube. Have another nearby for you. You will perspire. Excessively. Even with a fan

If you feel like you're about to crash/lose it, pedal faster, not slower. The gyroscopic effect of the spinning wheels is what helps keep you up and steady; the faster your wheels turn, the greater their rotational inertia, and the greater your resultant stability.

You might find that you build up an excessive static charge (caused by the rubber tires rolling over the plastic/aluminum rollers), especially in the extremely dry, cold air of Alaska. If this is the case, you can usually ground the rollers by simply tying a thin copper wire over the roller's frame (any metal part will do) and then taping it to the floor.

Relax. We've all fallen off rollers and had not a shred of dignity left over.

Pretty much all that Jaq wrote here. The only thing I would add would be to put a piece of 4" handlebar tape on each side of the front roller approximately 3-4" in from the outside. It makes for an excellent rumble strip to alert you when you're straying too far toward the edge.

There's really nothing difficult about them. Expect maybe one or two hiccups on your way to feeling comfortable using them.

Kevin g

[fourflys]

Lots of people will tell you that riding rollers will make you smoother. They're wrong. Step 1 is to get smoother, then riding rollers is easy. There are two steps when I teach someone how to ride rollers. Step 1: pedal stroke work. There's a thread somewhere down there about making a better rider, within that there's something about doing one leg pedal stroke drills. If you get to the point where you can turn a pedal at 40 - 50 RPMs, almost no resistance (on a trainer), without speeding up or slowing down at all (there should be a steady hum, not whir, whir, whir), and with both feet clipped in you can smoothly turn 140 RPMs, you're ready to get on the rollers. Once you have the pedal stroke work done, put an object 20 feet directly in front of the rollers, set up a chair next to the rollers to help you get started, and forget you're on them and ride at the object. In no time you'll be up and riding them.

Ti,
I hear what you're saying but I needed to make a decision between a trainer or rollers and having talked to some people it sounded like eventually the rollers would be better than the trainer...

[benitosan1972]

If you have a smooth pedal stroke like I do, riding rollers for the first time is easy. You can't sway your hips, your core has to be over the bb, and you can't be too tense in the neck/shoulders... basically, relax when you pedal.

If you can't do these things, you'll fall or roll off, so practice

[foo_fighter]

You can add free motion, resistance and bumpers for < $50 in materials. The free motion makes it a lot easier to sprint and keeps you from bouncing off. It's like training wheels for rollers.

[Ti Designs]

http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/03/video/the-revised-inside-ride-e-motion-rollers_208643

This is a marketing thing - make BS claims because so few people are going to know the difference. The rollers allow you to get out of the saddle, even push a big gear if you are centered over the bike. Sprinting? No. There's nothing good about doing speed work on those. Look at what really happens in a sprint, the changing conditions and the shift in position, then watch the video again. Not even close.

[thwart]

Well, say what you will about the E-Motions...

They:
1) make riding rollers much more entertaining

2) have made me a much better rider, and most importantly...

3) get a lot of use (and have stood up very well to it, now 3 winters of almost daily riding)

[William]

Will they make you Smoother? Some will say yes, others no.

Give you a good work out? Sure.

Force you to learn how to hold a straight line?.....Priceless.






William

[stephenmarklay]

http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/03/video/the-revised-inside-ride-e-motion-rollers_208643

This is a marketing thing - make BS claims because so few people are going to know the difference. The rollers allow you to get out of the saddle, even push a big gear if you are centered over the bike. Sprinting? No. There's nothing good about doing speed work on those. Look at what really happens in a sprint, the changing conditions and the shift in position, then watch the video again. Not even close.


They are the closest thing to the real thing you will get. They make regular rollers look like rubbing twigs together to make dinner.

With your logic, riding normal rollers period is worthless. They are simply nothing like riding on the road.

Riding emotion rollers are a different game.

Here is my endorsement that is not anything remarkable BUT,

I trained like a mad man all winter on my emotion rollers after being off a a bike for years. I did lots of endurance riding and then as I got closer to race season I ramped up the resistance and did intervals, all kinds. I did sprints too.

Guess what. On my first race of the season a 2 day 3 event race came in 2nd for the weekend. I won the second day short rode race- in a pack sprint. Let me remind you I had never sprinted anywhere but on the rollers before this. I came in about 5th in the time trial (out of about 40-50 racers).

Sure this was a cat 4-5 race. No I am was and am not a great cyclist. However, I trained on the rollers almost exclusively. This was due to winter weather and work schedules.

I was also able to ride an opening fast century at an average speed of about 22mph and it is not a flat course. I rode with the cat 1-2 guys and I would not have it any other way but to ride in first. That was hundreds of people.

The moral of the story here is not that I am a good or bad cyclist - it is that emotion rollers absolutely made me a drastically better cyclist.

End of commercial.

[fourflys]

.
Give you a good work out? Sure.


and this is all I'm asking of them... ride better in a straight line? work out the core more than a trainer? just gravy for me...

[Hindmost]

At one point I set up one of those tall thin mirrors (used for dressing) several feet in front of my rollers. Allowed me to look forward and see that I was "centered" in the frame without staring at my wheels.
Rollers great for showing you how little space you need (think riding in a bunch). And they make jumping on the road on Saturday morning after a week of non-road riding feel natural from the get-go.

[dustyrider]

Not sure which rollers you went with, but I was lucky enough to live with a set of kreilters with the killer kool headwind fan and flywheel.
In the end, looking ahead, and keeping a constant cadence until you get everything sorted, is the best advice. I like the towel on the top tube idea you do sweat a lot.

We had the rollers setup in front of a TV and on a carpet with a grid pattern, the pattern was just happen chance. But, I used the lines in the carpet at first to help keep the tire in the center of the roller, and gradually moved on to seasons of my favorite shows.

The accessories were all on one side, and in the beginning when I got distracted I'd just lean the other way, and roll right off. It was just like "dropping" down a small curb, I only knocked the belt off a few times doing this.
There wasn't ever any actual falling, and in time I could just hop right off and ride away. A doorway or a chair back may help for the first few cranks but really it's just like riding a bike if you don't pedal you can't stay upright. At least if you're like me, a normal human, and not a gyroscopic human like bike-polo players appear to be.
Have fun in Alaska!

[dekindy]

I have seen a recommendation to put the rollers in the yard so that you fall in soft grass instead of a concrete basement floor or in close quarters in a doorway. I rode them once and it seemed like riding on ice. High cadence is better but I had to almost sprint to stay balanced. Since it was Winter in a concrete basement I put the optional fork stand in and never tried riding the rollers again. I am considering them again but have not got around to it.

[fourflys]

thanks all... for who asked, I picked up a set of the performance aluminum rollers... I work at a performance so they were hard to pass up... I almost went with the cycleops but couldn't really tell a difference...

[thwart]

... like riding on ice

... have to relax your arms and shoulders

Yep. Brings back the memories.

Started with Nashbar rollers (prob very similar to Performance ones), graduated to Kreitlers, then to the E-Motions.

Had a great time on all of 'em. Makes winter bearable.

[stephenmarklay]

I had nashbar rollers too!

[bikinchris]

Get a remnant of a carpet runner. The pieces they use in new houses to keep shoes from tracking on the brand new carpet. A piece about 7 1/2 feet long will do. It will keep the rubber coming off your tires from collecting on the floor.

[ahsere]

I ride rollers almost exclusively on my single speed bike, I find it more enjoyable that way, and with platform pedals, so even though I had a few close calls when I started out, I never really fell. Other than that, is not rocket science, put them on the doorway first, and that´s that.

[FootWorksCycles]

Rollers will make you a great rider.

Emotion rollers will make you a kick ass great rider.

Yes, I am biased. I love my Emotion rollers.

[stephenmarklay]

Rollers will make you a great rider.

Emotion rollers will make you a kick ass great rider.

Yes, I am biased. I love my Emotion rollers.

The "magic" in training with Emotion Rollers is not that they do or don't help your pedal stroke or help you balance better or fill in the blank.

They are just a lot more satisfying than either a trainer or standard rollers and it is a lot easier to do more training.