I'm a newbie and training for a century in September and am going to be spending a good chunk of the summer at a camp where it will be hard for me to get away to hit the road so I was looking into getting a trainer.

I just saw a roller trainer for $30 and was wondering how hard they are to use.
Are they for more advanced riders? or is it something that most people could get the hang of?

OP, rollers aren't hard. find a wall upon which you can support yourself and just go for it. i was a bit clumsy when i first got it and would get a few cat 5 tattoos on my calf. that changes after you spend a quality 2-3 hours on it. better question is why you want this. if you actually want a work out, a trainer is better. rollers are great for group riding as it penalizes you for erratic movements and teaches you how to ride in a straight, predictable manner.

thanks and that's good to know at this point I will probably stick w/ a regular trainer but the rollers look like they could be pretty fun/ challenging maybe I'll give them a whirl later on once I'm more proficient.

feel free to get them. they can let you do all the workouts except the very hard ones (at least, that's the case for me). they'll definitely allow you to handle your bike better. the other thing is it's much harder to zone out on them

For $30 I'ld say get them. I use mine for the easier workouts and use a mag trainer for the harder ones when I can't get outside.

I've been looking for rollers myself but they're all so expensive. For $30 you should definitely get them, because most of them I've seen are 5 to 10 times that price.