Rollers 101

[scrooge]

Since it's about that time of year when the snow starts to fall and the roads become full of salt, I suppose it's time to start thinking about riding inside again :crap: :crap:
The last few years, I've been trying to do some riding on my resistance trainer (a cheap Minoura I got at Performance). However, since people here seem to swear by rollers, I'm hoping you experts could fill me in.
What benefits do rollers offer over a resistance trainer? What do they "feel" like? Do they offer a good work out (assuming you use them)? Anyone have suggestions for rollers on a budget?
Thanks

[Too Tall]

Scrooge, in the world of rollers you get what you pay for. In my um-ble opinion there are no worthy and inexpensive new rollers made. With luck you may find some very good used rollers. Look for 4 1/2" drums. Krietler and Minoura are great and if you are very lucky you'll find some old Cortina's. Krietler used to make a poly (plastic) 4 1/2" drum that was a budget model, they are great too.

[dirtdigger88]

if you are very lucky you'll find some old Cortina's.

Right place right time- a buddy of mine was moving- I was helping him out- His wife looks at the Cortina rollers in the garage and says "You are NOT taking those to the new house!" I took them home with me!!


Roller rock- first they are not static and boring- I cant do more than a half hour on my trainer- I mean come on - you sit there and pedal- you dont balance- you dont use any core muscles to keep yourself upright- There is no element of danger-

Rollers dont feel like the road- nothing but the road feels like the road- but they feel better than the trainer- You will quickly learn proper pedaling tech. and they are fun-

Did I mention I love my rollers?

Jason

[Fixed]

bro at first your hands get sore but as you get use to them you can move around without the deathgrip I think rollers make ridin a stright line easy on the road.i.m.h.o. get next to a wall to help you get stated and remenber even if you fall off your not goin to rocket through the house you just fall over.cheers :beer:

[marle]

I used rollers for the first time last winter and I'm hooked. I set up my rollers in the gararge. They are Kreitler Challengers. I placed them 3 inches from a wall --so I can brace my left elbow against the wall. The placement eliminates one side from a crash and allows for mounting. On my right I placed a nice 4x8 gymnastic mat. In the beginning you'll find it difficult to pedal and get 'off' the wall. But after a few attempts you'll be off.

[spiderman]

my eight dollar, big yankee mahogony rollers
actually feel better than the road
...the perfect balance of resistance,
form and function.
...you're welcome to bring your bike over
and ride them any time!

[Dekonick]

Advice to keep your wife from killing you:

Put a towel under the rollers and make sure there is overlap on both sides - that way if you do go off the rollers you don't burn a skid mark in the carpet. I have some pics I would post if I could...from when I was learning... :crap:

Didn't take long to get it... :banana:

[Too Tall]

Spidey, you said that just to tease me. Arrrrg.

[keno]

if you ride a Serotta, your budget is $289, which will get you a set of Kreitler Challenger rollers shipped to your doorstep. Many online sites will give you this price. They all, I believe, have them drop-shipped from Kreitler in Colorado Springs. Saving a hundred or so bucks on cheap rollers will not be rewarded in the long, and perhaps short, run.

At first, rollers feel like someone put a nice coating of oil on the road. Over time, the impending sense of doom first experienced goes away, for the most part, as your reaction time, stroke, and upper body relaxation develop. Rollers are very sensitive and give you immediate feedback to any lapses in stroke and balance, both side to side and front to back.

I have found that learning to ride the bike forward at all times is a key to riding the rollers well. In order to do that I find that I must keep my stroke consistent and developing smooth power that I experience as riding the bike forward. In order to do that, weak parts of the pedal stroke, or gaps in the stroke, need to be dealt with. It is that, to me, that has improved my stroke, and power on the road, as well, through the use of rollers.

It is very easy to get a very strong workout with them by increasing cadence and sticking in the toughest gears. I find that I sweat much more on the rollers than on the trainer. Stronger riders than I am can use various tricks, depending upon which rollers they have, to increase resistance (Killer Headwind fan for Kreitlers, towel against roller, card in spokes).

Riding the rollers is much more intense than a trainer in that concentration is key. They quickly inform you when your mind wanders. While you can't fool either rollers or a trainer, rollers will register to you that you have insulted them.

It is the risks associated with riding rollers that make them the powerful tool that they can be. They are strict graders.

keno

[born2ride]

Rollers are great for spinning but don't have the same resistance options as trainers unless you get that option. Still you can't get out of the saddle on rollers to really simulate outdoor riding.

Check out kurtkinetic.com and click on their "new products from Kinetic" link. They have a new trainer called the "rock and roll" which some friends of mine who went to Interbike this year say feels like riding rollers but you can get out of the saddle and "climb" rocking back and forth. They said it was awesome and it makes all other trainers obsolete (and boring). Options!

[spiderman]

Rollers are great for spinning but don't have the same resistance options as trainers unless you get that option. Still you can't get out of the saddle on rollers to really simulate outdoor riding.

Check out kurtkinetic.com and click on their "new products from Kinetic" link. They have a new trainer called the "rock and roll" which some friends of mine who went to Interbike this year say feels like riding rollers but you can get out of the saddle and "climb" rocking back and forth. They said it was awesome and it makes all other trainers obsolete (and boring). Options!

but you can, without being too dangerous...
...although i put a tire mark on a lounge chair in the basement
when i first tried that maneuver...
...and too tall,
yes, i thought you'd like a tease...
...since i'm getting set up with an outdoor ride,
maybe i won't need the big yankees anymore...
...if that's the case
you're first on the list!
we'll see how the winter training goes.

[zap]

I used an inexpensive Nashbar roller built in The Netherlands some 15 years ago. Used it for several winters. I attached a magnetic resistance device so I could get a better workout.

If your spin is square, rollers will help. I didn't and decided that rollers were too boring and ineffective as a training tool.

So we sprung for a Computrainer system. Still use it to this day.

[Too Tall]

Spidey, whatchatalking about? Outdoor ride? You didn't mean "inside ride" ( http://www.insideride.com/rollers.htm ) did you? It could be confusing because the "inside ride" make it seem like an outside ride and maybe you were hoping for the outside ride experience while ridinging inside...whack whack whack. I'm done.

[JStonebarger]

I have both, but I prefer the trainer.

Once you learn to ride rollers -- quit rolling off, manage to stand up for a minute or two, ride with no hands -- they're just as boring as a trainer.

If you want to stay fit, anything will work: run, ski, ride a trainer for even 20 minutes at a time, whatever. If you want to become a stronger rider, get on a trainer and ride hard: Intervals. Spin-ups. Raise the front wheel 6" and climb out of the saddle for 20 minutes. If you're working hard enough you won't have time to be bored.

[djg]

Although I much (MUCH) prefer riding out on the road, I prefer rollers to the trainer--they've a particular feel to them but it seems to me that riding rollers is a form of riding whereas using a trainer is not. Also, I tend to get a better work out on the rollers.

A lot of the benefit of rollers has to do with the fact that they are just precarious enough to reinforce a bunch of useful things on the bike--a smooth stroke, holding a line, relatively quiet upper body, high rpms. By "precarious," I don't mean that they're hard to ride, because they are not. It's rather that the whole system works as a weird kind of bio-feedback mechanism--start to do something wrong and you start to feel a loss of equilibrium and so you adjust. This happens, for the most part, nearly instantly and without reflection--you train yourself to do the right thing by sitting there and turning the pedals.

They may seem tricky at first, or even downright impossible. Or not. In any case, most folks have a very steep learning curve on them, so if you stick with it you should do just fine. Do a search on learning to ride rollers and you'll find all sorts of useful tips. One thing I think useful the first few times is a doorpost, or some setting where you have a way to steady yourself without bailing. If you can steady yourself by flaring out an elbow, you can keep pedaling and learning. If you have to bail and start again, the learning is likely to be less efficient.

Years ago I had some inexpensive PVC rollers and they were fine. For the past few years I've had a set of Kreitlers and they're excellent. The models with the pvc end-caps have the same drums, bearings, rails, and belts as the more expensive models. I think that the "challenger" are the largest diameter drums, poly-lyte (which I have) smaller, and poly-myte the smallest. Smaller drums means a bigger work load. All of them will accept a fan drive (the "headwind") unit, if you want to increase the load even more, but I've been satisfied with mine as is. They're all somewhere in the neighborhood of 275 new, and you may be able to find them for quite a bit less if you can find a used set. Sales tend to be unspectacular, although sometimes texas cyclesport throws in a set of tires or something. If you want to spend less, Cycle-ops, Tacx and others make pvc drummed rollers that run a bit over a hundred bucks, and Nashbar and Performance have their house-brand rollers. You could try RBR or another board, maybe, for comments on them. With performance, at least you have the option of returning them if you don't like them.

Good luck.

[jdoiv]

I started riding rollers back in the 89 or 90. I lived on a very small island up off the cape (Cuttyhunk) for a summer. There was maybe a mile worth of paved road on this little rock of an island. The only way to get a decent ride in was to get a trainer. I decided on a set of Magura rollers with a magnetic resistance unit. They had large pvc drums so the resistance unit came in handy for simulating riding into the wind. I would ride for 30-40 minutes at a time on the rollers then jump off and do a couple of quick loops around the island to stretch my legs. Hop back on and repeat. I could get 40 to 50 miles in this way on a good day but mostly would put in 20-30 mile rides. By the end of the summer, I could ride hands free, could stand for a brief moment and could ride off the rollers and away without unclipping or dismounting (tricky and I fell a few times). When I did get to go to either the Vineyard or the mainland to ride, I found I could easily do twice the distance I did on the rollers with the same effort. Being able to coast on the road made things much easier. My pedal stroke was very smooth and power output was very consistent. I found that steady grades were very easy to climb. I think it was the resistance unit. That constant weight dragging on the wheels from the rollers made riding on the road feel like I was flying. Anyway, I highly recommend riding rollers for improving your spin, holding a line, building good core strength and making you a very safe rider when riding with others.
Buy the rollers and ride them alot (the only way to get all these benefits is time in the saddle)...
Just my two cents....

[Ray]

Until you're fairly experienced, don't watch cycling videos while on rollers. At least nothing with mountain descents. The riders in the video lean into a turn, you go down. Has happened to me. Also, get really really really extremely comfortable before you try riding no hands or getting out of the saddle. It's amazing how fast you can hit the ground from a set of rollers and these are good ways to find out just how fast.

-Ray

[JStonebarger]

For me, learning to ride rollers meant relearning a lesson from when I first rode a bicycle at four years old:
You're more stable at speed. Get going fast enough and standing or riding with no hands is a lot easier.

Recently, at 40 years old, I had to relearn that lesson again as I took up riding a unicycle.
I wonder how many times I'll have to relearn that one.

[Dekonick]

I have the Performance rollers; I didn't want to spring alot of $$ when I was not sure I was going to like them. I have not tried the 'better' rollers (K's...) but I like what I have. I doubt I could ride longer than 1 hour - but to go longer than that asphault is the way to go.

The learning curve was steep - you fall a few times, then it is like a lightbulb - you get it.

You bounce until your pedal stroke is smooth, talk about instant feedback!

still working on a way to hook the rollers to the computrainer (that doesn't get used much anymore...because I need to get a new computer for it)

We shall see.... :bike: :crap: