Rollers/trainer and downstairs neighbors

[fredd]

As winter approaches, I find myself contemplating my indoor training options.
I much prefer rollers to other kinds of trainers. Problem is, living in an old building with thin floors, they are apparently quite noisy for my downstairs neighbors.

I've experimented with a high pile rug + a yoga mat and that seems to help. I could just stack mats, but before experimenting with it I though I might consult the collective wisdom here. Is there a type of mat that is particularly good at absorbing this type of vibration? Should I look for a specific foam density? Or is as straight forward as the denser the foam the better?

The easiest solution would actually be to set this up in the basement, but the super is resistant.

[Nomadmax]

Horse stall mat from Tractor Supply. You can cut it out to be just the size you need and make it a lot lighter than what the entire 4x8 mat weighs.

[jc031699]

You can find a lot online about anti vibration mats that go under a front loading washing machine. Maybe that would serve you well since the application is very similar.

[C40_guy]

Good subwoofer and some appropriately chosen workout music. They won't notice the trainer.

[Peter P.]

I had the exact same problem, living in an apartment.

The problem is not noise, but vibration. As proof, notice how quiet your rollers are and how easy it is to carry on a conversation with someone in the room. Or if your floor was concrete, the mass would be greater and the vibration would be damped.

You need mass damping, or distance.

A mat alone won't do any good. The only contact points would be the roller feet to the mat and that's only 6 or 8 feet. And there's no mass or distance increase with a mat.

And not only are your downstairs neighbors on the receiving end, so are any neighbors to your left and right. The vibration is coupled to the floor joists, which are rigidly connected to the wall studs.

It would require hundreds of pounds of concrete material like paving stones to keep the floor from transmitting the low frequency vibrations.

The only way the horse stall mat recommended by Nomadmax might work would be if it absorbed the particular frequency of the vibration, and the amplitude generated. You could try placing a sheet of plywood over the horse mat; while the rigid plywood would couple all the energy to the mat, it would then be distributed over the entire surface area of the mat. Then all that matters is the mat absorbs the vibration of the rollers.

If you've ever seen air-handling equipment or motors on the penthouse floors of buildings, you may have noticed cork and rubber pads a few inches square placed under the feet of the vibrating device. These help damp vibration. So do the large springs that are also sometimes used. If I were to try this again I would place a number of those squares under a sheet of plywood and place the rollers on top of the plywood.

In the end, I didn't have satisfactory results, even after experimenting with lead blankets, those cork/rubber pads, and various other items.

I ordered from this very helpful web site. Sadly enough, it appears the web site is no longer working. You could try using the Wayback Machine web site to search the soundproofing.org web site for information.

[fredd]

Thanks all for the responses, and thanks Peter for going so in depth. Will try some of this out and if all else fails, a subwoofer seems the way to go!

[professerr]

Further to what Peter said above, this is a difficult quest.

I had a downstairs neighbor on my bike team in who also lived in the same cheaply build stick framed student apartment building while in grad school. He was a mechanical engineer and he built this crazy base for my rollers to quiet things down. As best I can recall, it was a sandwich of 1/4" or so rubber matt glued to a 1" sheet of plywood, which then rested on large 1/2" thick sorbathane (sp) rubber (super squishy) pads under each contact of the six feet of the rollers. Then under each foot was a very heavy 1 1/2" thick slab of slate or something salvaged from a some landscaping supply place and each slab then rested on a thinner but larger piece of sorbathane. He tinkered with the hardness of the various rubber bits to tune it.

It made a big difference, but still it was an annoying drone...

[Mark McM]

I don't think you need a large mass to dampen the vibration. You just need to have enough vibration absorbing material between the rollers and the floor.

The problem with setting up the rollers on mats is that the rollers only contact the mat at a few high pressure contact points. This means that only area of the mat is providing any damping, and the high pressure compresses the mat, which reduces its damping properties.

I'd try building up some thickness of damping material (maybe several layers of closed cell foam), and then laying a solid surface on top (such as a sheet of plywood) to spread the pressure/vibration across the whole damping volume. The solid surface layer will also help stabilize the rollers, if you've got a really thick and soft volume of damping.

[Hindmost]

I would be surprised if there was a solution that would keep your neighbors happy. In a similar situation I used to carry my rollers down to the carport and ride there. People were still curious what that noise was.

[robt57]

Floor=microphone, ceiling=speaker. You need to 'most' effectively acoustically de-couple the two.

I'd try using 'Resilient Channel for Drywall Sound Control'. Put a few lengths of these between two sheets of OSB/Ply for a trainer platform and also put the bottom of it on a Rug for good measure. This may reduce the acoustic transfer enough for guv work.

If it is very loud in a room with a lot of shiny reflective surfaces, some sort of absorption on every other wall/side/surface could be used as well.

If sound waves bounce off ceiling to a bare wood floor for example, it feeds to microphone and the ceiling/speaker below.

So wall2wall carpet good for bouncy bouncy waves, and/or 2 side wall with cork, hanging rugs, opposite the shiny walls. Every other wall in other words. One better than none, two better if walls are parallel etc.

Or some sort of dividers to reflect wave at angles instead of perpendicular etc etc...

https://www.standsandmounts.com/imag...il/rc8user.jpg

[sheepbleat]

I’ve wrestled with this in Boston and NYC apartments. I never solved it. No amount of vibration dampening that was reasonably affordable would work. If you’re close with your neighbors, run experiments. YMMV, but my results varied from “deafening” to “a reasonable volume that still shook all the paintings off their walls.”

In the short-term I stashed rollers in the basement and I’d carry my bike up-and-down the stairs for workouts. I got tired of this and bought a Kickr Core that I learned to enjoy.

Eventually I found a secure ground-floor apartment, which solved all my worries. I realize that not all are this lucky, in which case I strongly recommend the Kickr Core and a good mat.

[bigbill]

I tried the plywood over rubber mat (1") method and it didn't make a difference. The rubber mat was on carpet as well. I even tried a thin rubber mat over the plywood with the thicker underneath, nope.

My Wahoo KICKR doesn't vibrate much compared to rollers, but now I'm in a one story house with tile.

[Peter P.]

Rollers are not loud. I saw a comparison test once on a new defunct track cycling web site that measured the sound various brands of rollers made at a speed I don't recall. Results were in the 60-70dB range, pretty much average conversation.

This sort of confirms it's a vibration issue and not a noise level issue.

Think of it this way: If you could suspend your rollers in the middle of the room and ride them, the rollers would be cemetery quiet.

[oldturd]

Odd question but could you do it on the balcony? Would that make any difference?

[Peter P.]

My eventual solution was to carry my bike and rollers down 3 flights of stairs and across the street to our apartment complex exercise room. Of course, I was fortunate to have that facility.

I fabricated a cheap shoulder strap with some stout rope, pipe insulation, and duct tape and tied it to the roller frame.