What do you lot like to do with them?

I’m thinking I’ll benefit from sneakily re-using the powertap I was meant to sell to pay for the replacement wheels about 6 months ago.. would be more useful there than out on the road I think.

Rollers are good for cadence work, probably not so good for power, but I only used mine with a fixed gear of 50×14.

Cooking…

[video]http://youtu.be/ybFvomdhW2Y[/video]

I use rollers instead of a turbo, as you can’t just switch off on them, like you can with a turbo, as you’ll probably fall off if you do! Great for cadence and Z2 long distance stuff, and OK for big gear sprints, not so great if you want to give it full beans standing up (Although better “rollers” than me can use them like that!)

Have something that you can grab fast when you start to use them, like a door frame, or a chair, as they can be like riding on ice for a bit. I found looking straight ahead, rather than down helped…

Edit: That vid!! eeek, I can about grab a water bottle from the frame, and put it back without ending up spread all over the floor and I’ve been using rollers for a couple of years!

Brilliant skills on the rollers there, the rider has a rather “interesting” name, Siri Minge. I’ll say no more.

I wonder if she knows Fanny Chmelar?

I’m ok on them, I have borrowed a set previously.

I found that there wasn’t enough resistance to do flat out sprints on them, but now I’ve got in mind some longer sub-max intervals which seem to be extremely effective out on the trail. Basically I’d been doing them not long enough and pacing myself to not be dead at the end of the set. I think it’s better to do fewer and go 50% further than the point where you want to stop.

don’t come in from a wet ride and do a cool down on them with wet tyres, it gets a bit difficult to stay on them and the fall is a long way when fully clipped in giving it some.

Obvious but not at the time, don’t know why.

Cooling down on rollers after a ride? What a bizarre idea…!

all uphill back to the house so no chance of a break, so often end up doing a cooldown in the garage.

Cyclists have lots of bizarre ideas……..

Cadence drills
Trackstands
Wheelies

TV helps a lot but headcam footage messes with your balance

I do all my sessions on rollers, fine for up to 700 watts then things get interesting

See I don’t know why people say rollers are no good for resistance. Ok so they don’t paint a realistic picture that you can cruise on the road at 35 mph at 85% hrm, but as long as you focus on the power and heart rate they are just fine IMHO. I downloaded the Motion Trax app the other day and the workouts on their are certainly lung busters!!!

Not very structured but neither is my riding, my rollers are great to gives me a workout when my Mrs is out and I have to stay in with the boy.

Baby monitor on, headphones on, I watch the SuperX (indoor motocross) on YouTube. When there’s a pass I have to sprint. A close race leaves me in pieces, hardly able to climb the cellar stairs. Plenty of resistance doing 120rpm in 53/13. Fit old wide tyres and let them down a bit for more.

You can’t simulate riding up a big hill on them, that is the difference.

Great for techinique, great for core stability, great for endurance rides indoors (and marginally less boring).

A good way to test your fitness if you do not have a power meter is to do a 10m tt on them. See if you think they are not hard work then!

I have the cycle-ops (same as sportcrafters) and you can get a resistance unit for them.

Less wear on the tyre than a turbo, and no faffing when setting up.

Great to take to races for warming up (road bikes, not sure how an mtb would behave!).

Mostly showing off:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuqU8aZTjVo[/video]

😀

See if you think they are not hard work then!

Ah no, I didn’t say they aren’t hard work, of course they are which is why I bought them. What I’m saying is that the resistance doesn’t go that high, which means you (or at least I) can’t simulate low cadence up a big hill.

You’ve got to be joking right? No one in their rightmind would buy rollers to simulate low gear big hill sessions!

We’ve rollers and a Wattbike in the office, though the Wattbike has some very clever features and is great for training it also bores me to teas so tend to jump on the rollers 9 times out of 10.

As above, great for cadence and distance but harder for power. I tend to do a good long warm up/spin then do as many ‘around the clock’ sessions I can handle followed by another long spin/warm down.

You’ve got to be joking right? No one in their rightmind would buy rollers to simulate low gear big hill sessions!

That’s exactly what I’m saying… You can’t do all your workouts on rollers because of the lower resistance.. in response to someone up there who wondered why we were talking about resistance.

I reckon I can go over threshold on them though so something like 5 min intervals would work.

Got both rollers and a turbo. If I could only keep one it’d be the turbo. Can do a lot more with it in terms of resistance work. Also prefer it for distance work precisely because you can switch off and not fall off!

I have the cycle-ops (same as sportcrafters) and you can get a resistance unit for them.

I’ve got the resistance drum and TBH it’s quite hard work! Can’t remember the power numbers now but z2 work had me in quite a small gear which made it harder to balance. I pretty much always use the non-resistance drum. Mostly use the rollers for shorter z1/z2 recovery rides.

Turbo is much more versatile IMO. Rollers are okay, but mostly for warming up / down on.

I have the cycle-ops (same as sportcrafters) and you can get a resistance unit for them.

Btw, if anyone wants one of these drums then let me know, I’ve got one going spare 🙂

For a moment, I thought:

60 PSI in (road) tyres enables simulation of hills on rollers. Very unpleasant.

I’d rather go and find some hills!

I just use mine for warming up at the track, but I love gravity slave’s workout idea!

Different tyres make an enormous difference to the amount of resistance. On training wheels with chunky 28 gatorskins on them at 80psi they give a pretty solid amount of resistance. With race wheels at 180 there’s virtually none at all. A good trick for adding some resistance during warm ups is to wedge a folded up towel under the back roller – you need to experiment with thickness to get the resistance right.

And hope that whatever you’ve wedged under the roller doesn’t snag on anything……….. going from 250W to 5000W of resistance in 4/10ths of a second is messy.

My Kreitler mid size rollers provide the same resistance as level 3-4 on my Tacx Sartori. This is enough for endurance and tempo training and will allow sweet-spot sessions. Not for sprint intervals, but I prefer those on the road.

I prefer rollers to turbo if I had to keep one.

What do you lot like to do with them?

Teach my gf to ride them by holding the saddle as she gets going. Once the gets going steadily, without telling her, let go of the saddle. Then tell her she’s riding unsupported. Then as she wobbles from a moment of uncertainty get a static electric shock to the groin from her touring rack.

I’d rather go and find some hills!

Generally me too, one doesn’t use indoor trainers out of choice, one does it when one only has 45 mins to get in a quality workout.

This gives me other options that may fit in with work when WFH.

mrblobby – Member

Btw, if anyone wants one of these drums then let me know, I’ve got one going spare

How much do you want for it?

Umm 30 quid maybe and whatever postage will be (it is fairly heavy.) It’s the original Resistance Drum that came with the Planet X rollers (same as the sports crafters one.)

Right.. bought the damn things, better go use them.. today is the ideal day.

maxtorque – Member
Mostly showing off:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuqU8aZTjVo

POSTED 15 HOURS AGO #

With cleats?

Bah.. well:

1) It’s still grim, just a bit less so than a turbo

2) More resistance than I remember – freewheeling slows down pretty quickly, and consequently there’s no dead spot in the pedal stroke which seems to make it feel much harder. Probably good for my pedalling stroke mind.

3) 100rpm or so in 52×11 is enough to reach threshold heart rate after 4 mins or so, which is enough, just

4) There is now a noticeable flat on my rear tyre so I suppose I do need a trainer tyre after all

5) Nasty clicking coming from the bearings in the rollers.. needs investigation

6) I really want my power meter back on

One of the original bearings in my galaxias packed in after a few weeks, so i bought a complete set of decent 2RS ones (SKF i think) they’ve been on there 2 years with not a squeak. Only cost a couple of quid each. And took 10 minutes to swap over.

Could be bearings, but more likely to be how they are seated somehow, I suspect.

The front one went away when I slackened off the bolts, not so on the middle one.