Rollers

[oaklandhillsca]

How many still use rollers? Why? I just started using mine again and cant get enough of them. So nice for quick, concentrated workouts. I am an average rider and do not focus to much on form, power, etc. That said, the rollers definitely improved my pedal stroke.

[merckxman]

I ride them for maintaining fitness over winter. I enjoyed learning how to ride them and there is nothing simpler to use once mastered.

[skijoring]

Great fun...for an hour or so!

[oaklandhillsca]

I have yet to hit an hour. My hands become ornery at the 40 minute mark. I will definitely put them to more use during winter - or maybe more now during the fires. Just ordered the fork stand so maybe 30/40 rollers and some additional time on the stand.

[FlashUNC]

Have a set of Kreitler 4.5" drums. They're pretty great stuff.

[fiamme red]

You can skip rope on rollers. You can't do that on a trainer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aav7J_S9ji0

[john903]

I still use rollers, but wait it is to early to be thinking about rollers it is still summer here. Seriously though, in the winter I like to ride the rollers. As you mentioned they are so easy to just jump on for an hour even if I don't feel like working out a quick spin feels great.

[spank]

I'm trying to get back into cycling and picked up a second hand set of rollers about 2 months ago. Despite living in lovely SoCal, I've been riding them a few times a week for 30-40 minutes. It's the only way I can guarantee myself a flat ride and the opportunity to STOP immediately if my knee/hip/back issues start to flare up. (I was on the road a bit, but suffered a setback and am using the rollers to help me ease back into it)

In fact, last night I was reminded of something that I hadn't remembered from when I used to ride both a "turbo trainer" and rollers during the winter back in Maryland:

With Rollers, I find myself using much more of the kick forward and down, even a little toes down pedaling style. It's like they promote a smoother stroke from like the 11o'clock to 5o'clock position (for me) and it's all front of thigh and knee flexor muscles and I inch forward on the saddle, sorta tucking my pelvis and rounding my lower back.

With a "turbo trainer", I utilize my glutes and hamstrings more than on the rollers and I find myself sitting back on the saddle moreso than on the rollers and also able to flatten out my back.

I've never used rollers with resistance, but these aluminum rollers I'm using now still have me (embarrassingly) in the 39x21, 19, and 17 at 14-18mph and I'm huffing quite a bit, unable to maintain the 39x17 for very long. This is quite a bit different than I remember my abilities on the old plastic drummed performance rollers being...

Must be the tires. Or bad bearings. Or my brakes were dragging. Maybe it's the chain angle? No way it could be the 20 years off the bike...

[mj_michigan]

Rollers are also good for fine tuning the position on the bike because before/after is very repeatable.

[mokofoko]

Have a set of Kreitler 4.5" drums. They're pretty great stuff.

I just picked up a secondhand set of these (with the headwind attachment). Haven't even gotten a chance to try it out, but looking forward to it!

[weisan]

Check out this video by our own Bianchi10 pal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfOt6XKa1Gk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrQOgDK_IOk

I followed his "instructions" and made my rollers "smart". :rolleyes:

:p

[reuben]

Check out this video by our own Bianchi10 pal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfOt6XKa1Gk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrQOgDK_IOk

I followed his "instructions" and made my rollers "smart". :rolleyes:

:p

With all due respect to the creator, I watched the first 3:00 of the first video without hearing anything about trainers. That's almost 1/3 of the total video without any information. Probably more. So I quit watching.

[5oakterrace]

I am on emotion rollers all winter. For me they are truth. Outside my riding depends on weather, wind, humidi
ty. On rollers the numbers are truth. I hit them or I miss. There are no corners, downhills, coasting. Endurance rides are tough - have to get off for a break periodically. Monotonous. Intervals require more focus and time flies by.
I liken rollers and cycling to the ergometer and rowing. I come from a rowing background. On the water you have all those variables, weather, wind, current, boat traffic. On the ergometer all you have is the numbers.
I have only used a trainer a few times eons ago. But what I also like about rollers is that you need a measure of focus to maintain balance. What I do not appreciate is that my rear end gets sore. Rollers ride hard. That is not an issue at all for me outside, just on rollers. I suspect it is because there is no coasting or cornering which gives me a little seating variability.

[oldpotatoe]

PLUS, since ya gotta concentrate, the time goes faster..:banana:

[marciero]

I do. I have Weyless 4.5' alu drums that are pretty nice, if old and really heavy. The heavy is a good thing though. I ride in winter so only need rollers as an occasional change-up, and to do with my girlfriend when she is doing Peloton.

[Chris]

I have yet to hit an hour. My hands become ornery at the 40 minute mark. I will definitely put them to more use during winter - or maybe more now during the fires. Just ordered the fork stand so maybe 30/40 rollers and some additional time on the stand.

Work on learning to sit up with no hands on your rollers or at the bare minimum start changing hand positions regularly.

I used mine year-round. They are great for recovery rides during the season.

[speedevil]

I picked up a set of Insideride E-Motion rollers last fall. I spent a fair amount of time n them over the winter and I think they've helped me to ride better.

I see a lot of riders "weaving" with every pedal stroke, and others that bounce up and down on the saddle at higher cadences. I don't notice myself weaving when riding, nor do I bounce up and down at higher cadences. I going to say that riding on the rollers smoothed out my riding "style" - if you can call it a style.

This has been my best year so far, both for speed on the flats and for climbing. The time I spent on the rollers definitely helped.

[zero85ZEN]

I ride half or more of my annual milage (6-7k per year) on Inside Ride E-Motion rollers with ANT+ wireless resistance unit on Zwift. I often do rides of well over an hour nonstop and occasionally ride centuries taking only about a third or so more breaks than I would on an outside group century ride.
Rollers have smoothed out my pedal stroke, helped me balance strength/power between my legs and makes me BY FAR the smoothest and most steady rider in any group rides I do out on the road.
I HIGHLY recommend them to everyone. Single best thing I ever did to improve as a cyclist.

[redir]

I got a set of Tru-Trainer rollers for last winters riding and there's no going back to regular rollers ever again for me. They have the smart rear roller weighted fly wheel so I can use Zwift or any other such platform. You can ride them no handed, stand up easily and so on. It's the closest you can get to a real road feel.

You can skip rope on rollers. You can't do that on a trainer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aav7J_S9ji0

Hahahahahha! That is just fantastic!!! :banana:

[bob_in_pa]

I still ride my Kreitlers. In my opinion rollers are the best way to improve your riding. On any group ride it's easy to determine who's spent time on rollers.

[phishrabbi]

I still ride my Kreitlers. In my opinion rollers are the best way to improve your riding. On any group ride it's easy to determine who's spent time on rollers.

Can you say more?

[m_sasso]

Two sets of Kreitler's, 4.5 and 3". Almost a necessity for track events, defiantly prefer "on track" warm ups however not always possible. Have a Headwind resistance fan and fork stand also, but never really use them.

[woodworker]

For those riding Kreitler rollers, what drum size did you buy, and did your purchase any options, such as the headwind fan? I was just thinking of using it for spinning when I get a chance and working on cadence and pedal stroke. Thanks.

Edit: I see that I got one response to my question even before I submitted it. Others would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Hindmost]

It's been a number of years since I rode my 3-in Kreitler rollers. I was surprised how much resistance there was in these rollers, smaller than the ones I rode back in the day. With the 3-in rollers I found it hard to relax, spin and recover even after downshifting.

[oaklandhillsca]

MokoFoko - I have the exact set up - you will love them. Make sure you play with the fan adjustment options. The opening and closing on the side makes the change in resistance noticeable

[reuben]

Back in the day I had set of Tacx rollers with fans, so the resistance increased with apparent speed.

I notice that such is not the trend these days, and they just let you spin in whatever gear you like, given their internals such as bearings.

Advantages/disadvantages to linear or nonlinear resistance, or not?

[smokersteve]

I have a set of 4.5 Kreitlers and also InsideRide E-motion rollers.
The Kreitlers never get used because the InsideRide rollers are so nice.
I just broke them out this week to start doing some interval training.
30-45 minutes is all I do on them.

[smokersteve]

I got a set of Tru-Trainer rollers for last winters riding and there's no going back to regular rollers ever again for me. They have the smart rear roller weighted fly wheel so I can use Zwift or any other such platform. You can ride them no handed, stand up easily and so on. It's the closest you can get to a real road feel.

I’m jealous. Love my InsideRide rollers but really want to try the Tru Trainer rollers

[bianchi10]

Check out this video by our own Bianchi10 pal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfOt6XKa1Gk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrQOgDK_IOk

I followed his "instructions" and made my rollers "smart". :rolleyes:

:p

Haha thanks for the shout out


With all due respect to the creator, I watched the first 3:00 of the first video without hearing anything about trainers. That's almost 1/3 of the total video without any information. Probably more. So I quit watching.

Skip ahead to 5:20 to see a comparison between stationary and rollers.

;) I totally get it. Sorry, I've tried to make sure I jump into the actual content a lot faster. Still learning how to create my stories.

But, Yes I MUCH rather ride rollers than anything stationary. Rollers feels more natural, where you can actually move the bike around. Especially once you get comfortable and confident on them. Might feel a bit odd at first as you are learning your balance and how the bike reacts to movement. Throw in Zwift which is interactive and it can be pretty fun. There are a lot of times that I find myself only having an hour or so to ride. We all know that a sub hour ride doesn't get you very far. Jumping on the rollers and doing a full hour session can be much more efficient if you are having to manage a small window of time. Of course, there are those that would rather spend 45 min on the road any day of the week over doing any sort of indoor training. Totally understand that mentality, but I personally enjoy my time on the rollers.

[Clean39T]

I ride half or more of my annual milage (6-7k per year) on Inside Ride E-Motion rollers with ANT+ wireless resistance unit on Zwift. I often do rides of well over an hour nonstop and occasionally ride centuries taking only about a third or so more breaks than I would on an outside group century ride.
Rollers have smoothed out my pedal stroke, helped me balance strength/power between my legs and makes me BY FAR the smoothest and most steady rider in any group rides I do out on the road.
I HIGHLY recommend them to everyone. Single best thing I ever did to improve as a cyclist.

Happy to hear this - I'm in the process of acquiring the same setup, with the floating fork stand for recovery rides and watching TV or listening to meetings.. I've tried "regular" rollers in the past and am really looking forward to the enhanced experience with these.

[bianchi10]

Happy to hear this - I'm in the process of acquiring the same setup, with the floating fork stand for recovery rides and watching TV or listening to meetings.. I've tried "regular" rollers in the past and am really looking forward to the enhanced experience with these.

Dan, you are more than welcome to come over and try them out at my place!

[Clean39T]

Dan, you are more than welcome to come over and try them out at my place!

In classic Clean fashion, I went ahead and bought them before trying - I've heard your reviews though, so I'm pretty confident I'll like them.. Price was right too :)

[Peter P.]

Can you say more?

Rollers will cure sloppy riding habits PERIOD.

Lumpy pedal stroke-check.

Failure to hold a calm, straight line-check.

Bouncing at higher rpms-check.

Upper body motion-check.

I recommend the 3" diameter drums as they provide some resistance. With the larger diameter drums, many cyclists soon find themselves running out of or near top gear.

[pcb]

Dusted off my 20yr+ old 3" Kreitler rollers for backyard rides Mar-Apr, while NJ hospitals were overflowing with covid patients/corpses. Was looking mostly to maintain whatever fitness levels I had by March, and it let me spin outdoors.

Took me a while to get used to them again, and I found the 3" rollers fer sure more of a workout than I remembered the 4.5" rollers being. I could spin without red-lining my heart rate, it just took a lower gear than when I rode the 4.5" ones -ahem- 40yrs ago? They take more effort to spin up to speed, and they coast down to zero pretty quickly.

No fork stand, 'cause I want to spin, and I never had/used the Kreitler fan unit. I did, way back in the day, have a squirrel-cage fan that attached to the seatpost and rode atop the rear wheel, tensioned by a giant rubber band. It was the first iteration of the Turbo Trainer. Found it doing a garage covid cleaning. The rubber band is long gone.

I was checking out the InsideRide E-Motion and Tru-Trainers, 'cause, you know, upgrade fever, then I spied these guys - Crown Roller:
https://www.crownroller.com/

Wonder if anybody here's tried them? I like "different".....

Thread drift: Shop co-worker, with more mechanical skill than common sense, saw my Turbo attachment and remembered the squirrel-cage wheels in his mom's old clothes dryer. "Hey, I can build one of those!" Tore the washer apart, extracted the the _bakelite plastic_ wheels, somehow rigged them onto his bike, and spun away.

Worked really well until he spun 'em up real fast, heard a "BANG!" and watched razor-sharp shards of broken bakelite go ballistic, in all directions. None of them got him, but he said some smaller pieces were embedded in the wall.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49816039126_4e3b02dd99_b.jpg

[fiamme red]

Thread drift: Shop co-worker, with more mechanical skill than common sense, saw my Turbo attachment and remembered the squirrel-cage wheels in his mom's old clothes dryer. "Hey, I can build one of those!" Tore the washer apart, extracted the the _bakelite plastic_ wheels, somehow rigged them onto his bike, and spun away.

Worked really well until he spun 'em up real fast, heard a "BANG!" and watched razor-sharp shards of broken bakelite go ballistic, in all directions. None of them got him, but he said some smaller pieces were embedded in the wall.Great story. :)

[Hindmost]

...Rollers will cure sloppy riding habits PERIOD...

Makes me think of that thread about 'riders that look good on their bikes.' It's not about style. If you can ride rollers, if you can ride track, you're going to look good on your bike.

[m_sasso]

For those riding Kreitler rollers, what drum size did you buy, and did your purchase any options, such as the headwind fan? I was just thinking of using it for spinning when I get a chance and working on cadence and pedal stroke. Thanks.

Edit: I see that I got one response to my question even before I submitted it. Others would be appreciated. Thanks.

4.5" next to zero resistance, increased resistance can be added if wanted with various accessories, mag, fan .... etc. Great for warm ups were you are not looking to get a work out, just to loosen up/raise metabolism before another activity such as a track/road race.

3" like peddling into 5 to 10mph head wind. Con, can not reduce the resistance and pedal without effort, further resistance can be added with accessories. Good for a work out, not great for warm ups. Plus, smaller size and lighter weight for transport.

Both good for pedal work, cadence, balance and smoothness.

[mcteague]

Thread drift: Shop co-worker, with more mechanical skill than common sense, saw my Turbo attachment and remembered the squirrel-cage wheels in his mom's old clothes dryer. "Hey, I can build one of those!" Tore the washer apart, extracted the the _bakelite plastic_ wheels, somehow rigged them onto his bike, and spun away.

Worked really well until he spun 'em up real fast, heard a "BANG!" and watched razor-sharp shards of broken bakelite go ballistic, in all directions. None of them got him, but he said some smaller pieces were embedded in the wall.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49816039126_4e3b02dd99_b.jpg
That is no home-made device, its the old RacerMate trainer. I had one back in the late 70s.

https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2011/03/going-old-school-using-a-bike-trainer-from-1976-3.jpg

Tim

[Peter P.]

Makes me think of that thread about 'riders that look good on their bikes.' It's not about style. If you can ride rollers, if you can ride track, you're going to look good on your bike.

Truer words were never spoken.

4.5" next to zero resistance, increased resistance can be added if wanted with various accessories, mag, fan .... etc. Great for warm ups were you are not looking to get a work out, just to loosen up/raise metabolism before another activity such as a track/road race.

3" like peddling into 5 to 10mph head wind. Con, can not reduce the resistance and pedal without effort, further resistance can be added with accessories. Good for a work out, not great for warm ups. Plus, smaller size and lighter weight for transport.

Both good for pedal work, cadence, balance and smoothness.

You use your gearing to change the resistance. I'm sure it's obvious, but while the gearing may not match what you use on the road, you can easily find a gear for easy days as well as a top end limit with the 3" rollers. 4.5" rollers, not so much.

I too, had one of those first generation Turbo Trainers. All the resistance you could ask for. A little noisy, just like a fan. and those squirrel cages could spin up to 10k rpm. Every once in a while I would reach back to adjust the device against the wheel. Those cages could sure cut a knuckle...

That crown roller sure is a dumb idea. It can't possibly self-center the wheel. In fact, I expect it to do the opposite.

[pcb]

Yeah, my buddy's home-made device shattered into oblivion, no photographic evidence left behind.

That's a photo of my own original RacerMate, discovered in my garage recently. I bought it sometime around '81-'82.

Thanks for correctly identifying it. If I could remember where I put it, I'd likely see that "Racer-Mate" was engraved in the mounting block.

That is no home-made device, its the old RacerMate trainer. I had one back in the late 70s.

https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2011/03/going-old-school-using-a-bike-trainer-from-1976-3.jpg

Tim

[pcb]

I had heaps of respect for those sharp-edged blades, and never even thought about trying to adjust it while spinning. You were a braver lad than me!

I hooked it up to my bike when I wanted a better workout on my 4.5" Kreitler rollers, never used it stationary. I did once try to do an actual road ride with it attached, and it was like pedaling through molasses. Really great if you wanted to be in 42x26 pushing hard as hell to do like 10mph. I could have those number wrong, it was 40yrs ago. But it was miserable, and I took it off pretty quick.

As far as the Crown Roller goes, the fact that my brain screams "that can't work!" while the description and user review say "looks like it can't work, but it works really well" is what makes it interesting to me. I'm not quite ready to drop $500/whatever on scratching that itch, but it is intriguing.

Truer words were never spoken.
[snip]

I too, had one of those first generation Turbo Trainers. All the resistance you could ask for. A little noisy, just like a fan. and those squirrel cages could spin up to 10k rpm. Every once in a while I would reach back to adjust the device against the wheel. Those cages could sure cut a knuckle...

That crown roller sure is a dumb idea. It can't possibly self-center the wheel. In fact, I expect it to do the opposite.

[bob_in_pa]

Can you say more?

Sure. When you ride rollers you're just about forced to ride smoothly and hold a straight line which translates directly to riding on the road. After a while you find yourself able to turn your head, ride no-hands and perform other party tricks.
When you're on a group ride the guys that swerve a little (or a lot) when they do things like look back or put a bottle back in the cage are the ones who don't ride rollers.

Just to be clear I wasn't trying to disparage folks that don't ride rollers. But I do think everyone should.

-Bob

[Seramount]

have owned a basic Tacx roller for about 8 years. their presence in the living room means it's cold AF, windy AF, and/or raining.

don't mind doing short (30 min) sessions during periods of inclement weather, but for me, there's no relationship to actually riding.

they give me an opportunity to get the HR up when I'd otherwise just be cooped up indoors...other benefits include improving the ability to hold a line and impressing non-cyclists that happen to drop by while you're on them.

[redir]

I’m jealous. Love my InsideRide rollers but really want to try the Tru Trainer rollers

I could almost say the same thing. I was on the fence between the Tru-Trainer and the Inside ride. A friend of mine who's a domestic pro racer who spends a lot of time on the rollers in the winter convinced me to get the Tru's but those Inside Ride rollers look good too.