Originally Posted by 50PlusCycling

So far this year I've been putting in a lot of miles, but the rainy season is fast approaching. I don't mind so much riding in the heat or in the cold, but riding in the rain is less fun. So I started looking for options for riding indoors like trainers, rollers, exercise bikes, and the various combinations of these. As I was looking around, I found a set of Minoura Live Roll 720 rollers still new in the box for 10,000 yen, or about $70.

Back in the day I preferred rollers over other training devices because they offered the most realistic ride. In addition to that, they greatly improve your balance on the bike, and they also reveal dead spots in your pedal stroke. When I got my first set of rollers in the late 90's, I fell off a few times the first hour I began using them. It was like learning to ride a bike again. But after an hour of riding on rollers, I took a ride to a friend's house, and the improvement in my balance wasn't subtle, it was uncanny.

So today I got the new rollers set up, and spent an hour breaking them in. It took a few attempts to get myself going, but once going, I started to regain my balance. I then got back into the hang of it, and enjoyed a good workout. I was surprised that time passed more quickly than I remembered, probably because I'm older, but I enjoyed the ride, and am happy to have something to fall back on when the weather turns sour.