In the 23 years that I have used rollers, I have not observed that the resistance unit plays any role in keeping you upright. The key to staying up on rollers is to relax your shoulders and look forward. Looking down and tensing up causes you to waver back and forth. My biggest problem is that I get bored on them, even with music playing or a movie playing on the laptop. I am good for about 45 minutes and then I think about getting off of them, but at this point, I have broken a good sweat. So, I would say that rollers are really good for maintaining or developing cardiovascular base and learning to have a relaxed pedal rhythm.