Originally Posted by 12XU
I wish to be less wasteful whenever I can and feeding the bargain machine of low priced, disposable goods really irks me. I have known of people buying PVC rollers and ovalizing them, but I've only owned Kreitlers, so no..they're as good as new.
Also, it hadn't occurred to me that you guys were going to be riding fixed gears only on your rollers. If you're looking for a tool to give you variable resistance, rollers are not the place. I suggest you get a stationary trainer with a resistance remote, that way you can compensate for having only one ratio. Personally, I use my road bike on the rollers because you can think of the rollers as being a fixed resistance changed more by shifting gears than increasing cadence.
mine are all aluminum drums.
i agree about the gears. if i only had the fixed gear, i don't think i would have gone with rollers. if you do, i have also heard you can very your resistance be putting a towel underneath one of the rear drums (in addition to deflating your tires as discussed above).