Holy cow, what a lesson! Relentless in ways I didn't imagine (see thread on A stern, demanding trainer). It's not just about "pedaling in circles," it's about holding a cadence and not slacking off, too. Everyone knows you can't coast on a fixed gear bike, but on rollers, you don't even want to let yourself slow down. When there's no lever to bail you out if you let your cadence drop, you gotta keep working if you want to stay upright; you can't weave or do the paperboy to recover on rollers. :eek:

Sweet. You are going to love it.

Just put some sofa cushions on the floor the first few times you try and have patience.

Please let us know how you like the swing/E-Motion system.


-Tim-

@kbarch, what gearing do you run and are you using resistance rollers?

I agree with the idea of running a fixed gear on rollers and do so frequently but I have a very different experience than what is described above.

As mentioned in the other thread, my bike is currently running 48-16 (79 inches) on Sportcrafter rollers with the "High Inertia" non-resistance drum. Tires are typically 120 PSI or higher. I can let the cadence drop well below 50 and spinning back up to over 110 is not nearly the struggle described above. Everything spins up very freely.

Last night I did 1.5 hours - 28.2 miles @ 18.8 MPH. I hit over 25 MPH at one point and had the cadence as low as 35 RPM during cool down. Something must be very different between the equipment you and I are using and my guess is that you have a much higher gear ratio than I.


-Tim-

I agree rollers help with smooth pedaling, but why do we want that?

Efficiency, I think. I've often been told that I have a smooth pedaling style, but I have to say, as much as I appreciate the compliments given in terms of style points, much of the time it's not a smooth style that I'm after, really. People notice most in the way I take hills, and what's going on in my mind then is not about form at all, it's about keeping the watts flowing as steadily as possible. I often develop this irrational fear that if I don't push myself up the hill, if I let up even for an instant, I'll never get up it; that split-second one might allow oneself after a mashing stroke can seem like enough to send me rolling back the wrong way if I don't keep the watts flowing steadily somehow. Sure, I've learned to stand and stomp my way up, but even then I try to make the power delivery as smooth and constant as possible. I also find that keeping power delivery even is essential to holding the fastest wheels. Once I get to huffing and puffing, it's over.

As much as the legs may look like pistons on an engine, they feel more like electric motors to me, and that's how I think of them when I crank up the watts. I don't want them popping up and down, making a bunch of noise, I want them to hum.

Oddly enough cycling is a pedaling sport.
The old school emphasis on using the winter season to develop a smooth balanced pedaling style riding FG on rollers was a technique tune-up for the seat-time of FG winter base miles followed by the big loads of power work in the hills and speed work building into the racing season. What we "wanted" was supple pedaling technique and calm confident bike handling to build a season on without injury or burnout, and have some fun doing it.

Roller racing to push that fun to the limits:


-Bandera

There is debate on how power should be applied over the arc of the circle. A TT might use a stomping stroke, a hill a pulse and something long and easy - a spin.
Both Froome and Wiggins went non-round chain-rings for many applications. Wiggins did do round for the hour record.

I lean that power over the longest arc (smooth) is not the best way to do that.
A coach untrained my kid for a TT to stomp. Power went up about 20W.

Yup. We are more than mechanical machines. Each spot on the stroke uses different muscles. Are we better developing the smaller ones or the already larger ones? Can we bring others in to give other muscles rest? Given the .7 sec time for a pedal rotation would best power (most average force) come from .2 sec on, .5 sec "rest" or .4 sec on and .3 sec "rest". At high RPMs - helped by rollers, the force difference based on pedal location is much less than at lower rpm. The fact that track has one gear makes it hard to tell what a gear change would do vs spinning.

I think it is cool that some power meters measure this now. I'm not sure it has been determined what is the best. I have the opinion that it varies bast on what is being done, the rider, the training etc.

Different strokes as they say, and experienced riders will use the skills developed from track, road, TT and 'cross to suit the challenge of the moment with the appropriate spin, grunt or out of saddle effort.

Not mastering the fundamentals of pedaling and bike control is a self-inflicted handicap for anyone intending to race.
Competing in a wide variety of disciplines will expose the rider to specialist techniques, but the basics are what the advanced is best built on.

As always, suit yourself.

-Bandera

Done both and prefer cylindrical for reasons above rider did not care for them. practice, PRACTICE and MORE PRACTICE

That is the opposite of what I use forums or coaches for. I want to know what works best for a particular thing. I'd like to hear the views and discuss reasons. I spent a lot of time in the early 80s working on rollers and spin. I am, always have been very smooth. I don't know that that method of pedaling is the best.

But is there any data on circles being > stomping? Not history, cycling is full of tradition that's verifiable bull**** from a scientific perspective.

In my experience there is no alchemical philosopher's stone to turn all elements to gold in cycling.
What "works best" for a big strong sprinter in a road race is almost certainly not what "works best" for a light fit climber. Individualized programs with a firm grounding in the basics of pedaling technique and bike handling and wide exposure to as many disciplines of the sport as possible can't go very wrong in developing an effective cyclist. Riding FG on rollers in the winter is a good way to start the seasonal program to those of us who came up racing "old school".


-Bandera

"Circles"? I never said anything about circles. :foo:
To repeat what I did say:

Go through the USAC coaching certification program to get as much information as is available if really interested.
In my day Dr. Burke in the USCF was very forthcoming on presenting us w/ the latest scientific information on a variety of subjects pertaining to cycling and presented a path forward in a data based structured training programs that improved results over the previous generation.

That and pinning on a number, lining up and getting your own results/data to test with for BS of course. ;)

-Bandera

Rollers will develope a smooth pedal stroke because that is what works best on rollers. So if the goal is to be the best roller rider, that is clear.
We may be saying the same thing - it depends on the specialty. "Old School" was road, rollers and maybe track. There is a lot more stuff, now with a lot more focus on the nuance on each. Some things, have the "best" pedaling style be anything but smooth. Ideally the rider will learn how to make that pedaling selection automatic and not thought about.

I think it is "old school" thinking that says the smooth stoke is the always the best stroke - it depends.

Glad to never been exposed to that "thinking" back-when.
Both emphasis on the basics and wide exposure to various disciplines were our "old school". Experience on the track, in staying up w/ the leaders on climbs, getting clear in a 'cross race, sprinting full-out in a crit and getting on top of a gear in a TT taught that one "size" of pedaling technique did not fit all race situations.
That being said the basics of a smooth, supple powerful pedaling technique with both spin and grunt on demand were the foundation from which to build any specialized technique in the discipline that one chose to emphasize, but terrain and conditions dictated what worked/when then and no doubt now.


-Bandera

The OP is wanting something cycling related to do as it is getting dark early. The OP already spends gym time (or I may have suggested that).
While performance matters, I had not seen that racing did. My thinking was the OP did not need to spend time working on skills. I don't know enough to know if that is true. I do see value is just spinning out the legs. Particularly if the same muscles have been stressed in a gym workout. So I thought no-brainer (parabolic) rollers would serve that purpose well. The OP has shared about where he lives, and the types of rides he does. He has a definition of road that is broader than mine, but I have not read track, spin, race. If the idea for rollers is to train for a specific thing, my first question would be - What are you training for?

Until we know that, I don't know why one pedal stroke should be preferred. Specifically, smoother, or the things that rollers could be helpful to develop. The little I know from the OPs posts over the months, I would not say smooth pedal stroke is better that what he has now. It may be, but I can't see a reason to recommend spending time working on it.

I can see how a more stomp-like stroke would be better than trying to drag the pedals all the way around, but I think one would want to avoid attempting a staccato type stomping action. But maybe that would work in unexpected ways, too. Would one want to try to sort of bounce the foot off the bottom of the stroke? When topping out on a hard sprint (no longer accelerating) it kind of feels like that's what the legs want to do.

Early last year we got the bike setup, the pedaling and the training optimized for one event (USAC rules make it too long to explain). After that - we changed things back. We used this guy: https://www.facebook.com/CyberCycleCoach/ and optimize speed for that event - and only that event.
The focus was a staccato stomp with specific power-on/power-off points near the bottom of the stroke (that took practice) and it maximized power. For that rider, on that course, on that particular bike setup there was a stomping style that gave more power (in that speed optimized position) at the expense of higher HR and fatigue than any other way we could find.

After the event, that night, the seat was moved back and lower, bars lower and pedaling became much more normal.

So when riding rollers produces a smoother pedal stroke (I agree it does), I think it is reasonable to ask if that is what is desired. It is not always.

I read in a book a racer saying that he would complement a dangerous looking competitor

on his smooth pedal stroke during warm-up.

then during the race, the competitor would think more about being smooth than winning the sprint.

I think you are correct. When I was done, slid them under the bed. But getting on and off the bike was pretty easy and convenient.

I had some bike shoes without cleats so I just slid into the toe clip.

If I went back to rollers I'd probably slap a set of platform pedals on the bike and ride in my running shoes.

I'm guessing that had something to do with a necessity for higher cadence due to a need to pass roll-out. Which reminds me of something someone said a few weeks ago in another thread about what happens on fast descents on a fixed gear - the way he described it was more like kicking. I can definitely see that; if I want to move my feet as fast as possible, that's the way they want to go: more back and forth than up and down, and definitely not around and around.

Really, who ever said a smooth, round pedal stroke is always best? The point of practicing on rollers isn't to always have it, but because a smooth style is useful,
and being a matter of form it requires practice. There's no real form to practice when it comes to stomping, just strength, and the knowledge of when to stomp or kick that one has to develop, and until the advent of "smart" trainers, I don't imagine that adapting to varying and unplanned challenges was something one could readily practice indoors.

Rollers user weighing in..

I have been riding rollers for several years, mainly in the "off season". Mine are cylindrical, plastic, about 4-5" in diameter.

I ride them on my single-speed. The bike is geared 46x16, about 75 gear inches. My typical cadence is 100rpm plus or minus. I've been letting some of the air out of the tires to increase resistance. It works.

I usually do no more that 45 minutes at a time. I can go longer, I just tend to get bored. I still set up between a post and a wall, just in case...

I've nothing useful to add to this thread but wanted to say how much I appreciate the way you post.

It isn't easy to take a position counter to currently accepted ideas. You have done so in this thread, and in others, always lucidly but more importantly, with patience and respect for the people with whom you are conversing.

I appreciate that very much. It is a great example of how we should treat each other. Thank you.


-Tim-