Hi there

Thinking of getting a set of rollers to ride when I can’t leave the house. The thing is, my only road bike is a singlespeed (48×18). Would there be enough resistance to make it worthwhile, or do I need to get rollers with adjustable resistance?

Any recommendations for rollers gratefully received.

I found rollers without resistance are harder than they sound.

It’ll depend on your weight/fitness as to whether they’ll be enough resistance. I’ve got a turbo which I always thought was boring and not enough resistance untill i subscribed to trainerroad, maintaining an even power output for 20 minutes is wayyyyy harder than maintaining RPE or heart rate. And with the graphs on the screen and instant feedback it’s not boring, I can happily* sit on it for 90 minutes without getting bored. I don’t think rollers work so well with trainerroad though as the proportionality between speed and power on rollers is much more dependent on tyre choice and your weight (there’s 3x the contact patches, and it supports your weight, a turbo takes the weight through the frame and only has one contact patch) than it is with a turbo.

Single speed and rollers might be good for pedaling technique or very steady state workouts, but I think you’d miss the ability to do intervals unless you can pedal at 200rpm! Basically I’m saying I think you need road gears (i.e. a minimum of a 50t big ring and plenty of lower gears for recovery intervals, i use the whole range of my compact 50-34 and 12-27 cassette) and a turbo. And it’s an excuse for N+1! My Turbo’s got adjustable resistance, it might be usefull but it’s a bit coarse, and I much prefer sticking it in the middle and using the gears, feels more like riding on the flat and speeding up against wind resistance, whereas altering the turbo feels like climbing, but the small flywheeel and slightly lumpy nature of electromagnetic resistance make it far less smooth than using a lower setting and a fast gear. Over time as I get fitter I’ll up the resistance to keep the top end of my gears in line with a 1 min interval (I think level 7 (high) is 550W at 50km/h).

*this is relative, even doing the ‘intermediate base 2’ as a starting point, I’ve not done a session yet that didn’t leave me a sweaty gibbering mess afterwards. Although it’s dependent on you doing an accurate FTP test on day one. So happy might be the wrong word!

I tried it, It was ok, but a turbo where you can alter resistance is much better in my opinion.

I use mine a bit on the turbo and can happily sit and watch a dvd, couldn’t on the rollers.

You can get some rollers with resistance? Anyone know how these stack up – I’ve been thinking about a set myself.

Rollers with resistance are usually not quite as resistive as the equivalent turbo for two reasons, one, if you go bat-shit-crazy for a three minute interval on the turbo and pass out you’re fine. You can’t do that on rollers. Secondly as you’re not bolted to the rollers you can bounce off them with the effort. Even the top ones only go upto about 600W, whereas the equivalent turbo’s might to 1200W, enough for anyone short of a world class sprinter.

I’ve not ridden rollers, but from what I’ve read, turbo’s are better for training. And I’m a convert to trainerroad too, I can’t vouch for it’s effectiveness as i’ve not used it for long enough, but it’s certainly infinatley more motivating having numbers to aim for and a computer telling you what intervals to do, than trying to do steady state work without those numbers giving you feedback or finding the motivation to do a fourth 8min FTP interval at the end of a very sweaty hour.

There’s not so much a social aspect as Strava, but your last workout does get posted to the homepage, so the whole world (who dont know you) can see you wussed out 4 minutes into it! At least untill a few more people finish their workouts and bump you off the homepage.

The fittest I’ve been in years was spending a year training on rollers, on foxed, three times a week. The training package was provided to me by a BC coach and worked wonders, just 30 mins a time. However, I was using a 50×14 ratio.
You could try using a slightly lower tyre pressure to add a bit of resistance but be careful you don’t go too low and hit the rims on the rollers!
🙂

I struggle to get out of zone 2 on tacx rollers, 53-11. I am not very powerful either!

I struggle to get out of zone 2 on tacx rollers, 53-11. I am not very powerful either!

I thought that about my turbo. But looking at the trainerroad (I’m sounding like broken record) results my HR lags a long way behind my power, in an 8 min FTP interval it was 4 min in before my HR reached a steady state, so what I thought was zone 2 by HR was probably a flat out sprint to get my HR up then dropping down well below where I should have been to recover.

Thanks guys. Useful advice. Does anyone know a turbo that works with a singlespeed then (I.e. with track nuts)?

Thanks guys. Useful advice. Does anyone know a turbo that works with a singlespeed then (I.e. with track nuts)?

No and the whole point of a turbo is that gears are used to help provide part of the power – you need to use the gears in conjuction with the resistance of the unit.

If you’ve only got a SS, get rollers. Even just the basic Tacx ones are great, you can still do cadence work and they’re good for core strength too cos you’re constantly working to balance. Once you get good on them you can do sprints, one-legged pedalling, all the usual stuff.

Tacx sell some special chamfered nuts to allow use with turbo trainers. I reckon you’d get some benefit with a turbo that had a remote resistance lever.

The Tacx turbo’s themselves are meant to be pretty high resistance comparatively speaking.

You may well want a bit bigger gear – I use my track bike a bit on the rollers for technique and leg speed work and 50-15 is a nice gear. Do not underestimate the effect of tyres to make a massive difference on rolling resistance. If you need more just put on some wider, thicker, heavier tyres. Good idea to use cheap tyres on trainers anyway as you’ll just wear out nice ones.

Even the top ones only go upto about 600W, whereas the equivalent turbo’s might to 1200W

Roller resistance is related to roller diameter. The Kreitler rollers can give up to 2.3KW if you add the flywheel and headwind fan. That said, I have the 3.5 inch and pootle along at about 200 Watts on a fixed. I also have a Tacx Satori for the geared bike.