Road Cycling - The Eternal Question

I'm sure you heard a lot of this hoobidy jooby before, but I'm buying a winter trainer and I have no idea what to get. When I say that, I mean between a trainer and a roller. I already have a possible trainer lined up, but I don't know too much about rollers. I would probably be looking between the Minoura and the Cycle-Ops. THe cycle-ops is more expensive and has PVC cylinders (don't know how much I like that idea) but it's supposed to be pretty good quality anyway. And then if I go with the minoura, I would need to decide between the resistance or not. I am looking for training with a decent level of resistance, but I would like to be able to get the straight line skills worked out too. If anyone has any opinion on weather to go trainer or roller, or has any experience with a mag-resistance ROLLER, please let me know.

Thanks

I'm in the same prediciment as you - which trainer to buy. Have you looked at the 1up trainer? In reading the reviews on roadbikereview.com that is the one I think I have decided to go with. It costs a little more but after reading about the resistence (most are saying it is as close to the road as any trainer) and noise level emitted it looks like a great value. (IMHO) ;-)

After seeing my brother-inlaw go thru 2 trainers (1 wind and 1 mag) both lasted what I beleive a very short time (wind = < 1yr, the mag is 2 yrs but needs to be replaced (NOISY!)). Then reading about the fluid style that can and do eventually leak I was drawn to the 1 up trainer.

The other trainer I was looking at is moving to a climate that would allow me to ride year around - that's the best trainer! ;-))

Trainers? Comes down to price you want to spend and if you want a controler on your bars to control resistance.

Pretty much all of them out there are the same. May want to look for a brand name like Minoura and stay away from house brands. Brand names tend to have offices in the USA with service and small replacement parts. Some others once something breaks good luck trying to get parts.

Rollers? Stray away from resistance. Just buy your plain ol' PVC rollers. Best out there aer the Tacx. Been around for years and are very inexpensive.

This has been discussed in a couple of threads recently. Do a search for 'trainers' and you should find them. In at least two of the threads you'll find my discussion of a frame-builder's opinion of why they may be band for your bike. I won't repeat it here, but, save to say you should mount and dismount carefully and don't sway the bike side-to-side.

Cheers,
Jamie

I ride rollers, have an older Minoura set, Aluminium
drums and no resistance unit.
I've also ridden PVC rollers, and from what I can tell
there is little or no difference between them.
Kreitler seems to be of the mind that Alu will not
warp but PVC will (never seen it tho).
Aluminium will dent if mistreated.
FWIW I think the Alu is a little quieter thats
about the only thing I can come up with.

Marty

Kreitler Rollers with the Killer Headwind Fan!

Best thing you can get and it will do more for you than any trainer will.

Do a search for previous threads on this topic to see why rollers are so much better.

Anything you can do on a trainer you can do on rollers plus more!

By the way, I just saw this thread: http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20236

Yup, poor guy cracked his frame on a trainer. He was doing a lot of time on the trainer, but it proves the potential is real.

Cheers,
Jamie

Thank you all for posting,
I think I've decided to go for the trainer. I still would really like a roller, but I'm getting offered such a good deal on the trainer, I couldn't say no. The trainer that I would want is gonna be pretty expensive, and I heard that tacx rollers have bearing trouble after a while (does anyone know if this is true?) Anyway, I really do need the resistance training more than anything else (Rode a 1400mile bike tour this summer in a paceline, so my straight line skills are not TOO bad.) And all this talk about the trainer damaging the frame is not SO true. Given, they're not great for the frame but not that horrible if used properly. With the example that jmlee posted, the trainer had nothing to do with that. First off, the bike was an Oryx. No offense to you oryx owners out there, but oryx is made by Procycle, who sells notoriously crappy department store bicycles. Oryx is just their better name that they sell in the bike shops. It is better than most of the stuff they make but still... It could just be specific bike problem though. Anyway, the other point is the bike cracked at the downtube or seat tube (he doesn't seem to know which one). Their shouldn't be anything that the trainer does to overstress these points unless the guy was thrashing,. If the trainer does dammage a bike, it would either be at the dropouts, the chainstay or the seat stays. I will keep this in mind and be really carfull on the trainer.

Anyway, thanks again.