These are your concepts and words, not mine.


-Tim-

Well I've got 9 years of racing as a cat 1 (and still race), but that doesn't really mean anything..

So it sounds like you made it up. You would have the same stroke if you spent all that time on the road or on a trainer. 13 years of higher-level training has a way of making you "efficient" at the thing you're doing. Nothing about staring at your front wheel while riding on rollers is magical in that process.

But an efficient stroke from rollers? What exactly is that? You don't vertically bounce around? Would you if you've never been on rollers? No.

Maybe if you'd spent all those hours doing some harder repeats instead of working on that "smooth pedal stroke" you'd have gotten to a cat 1... :D I jest, I jest.

True enough. Just makes no sense how riding on rollers somehow made you pedal faster up 2-3% grades, but apparently no where else.

At the end of the day, people do what they want because they want with no justification needed.

It's when the odd justifications start, however, that things stop really making sense.

You agree that riding rollers lets you "have a faster ride with less work?'

That statement makes ZERO sense. You ride faster by increasing power (so more work), or decreasing resistant forces. So already that statement is nonsensical.

So maybe you started producing more power at lower heart rates or something similar only because you rode on the rollers? Did you measure that? No, of course not, because hardly anyone had a power meter in the 80s and 90s.

So we're left with you thinking you rode faster because you want to think you rode faster because you spent the whole winter slogging it out on rollers. Not exactly empirical evidence, here, and when you get right down to it sounds like we're back to making stuff up.

I guess that would account for the pros wasting time training on rollers.

That's a fantastic nonsequitor.

What on earth does that have to do with the ridiculous claim that riding on rollers makes you ride faster with less effort?

A power meter only measures output at the wheel or wherever, so '80s or today it doesn't measure biomechanical efficiency.

If the left leg is working against the right leg (to grossly oversimplify) it will take more work to go a given speed vs if all the parts work efficiently.

Like an engine with the timing belt off a degree or two.

I'm sure you've seen beginning cyclists thrashing in an attempt to go fast. Would you counsel them to stomp harder, or to develop a more efficient pedal stroke?

FWIW I have been tested on one of those Trek/Bontrager computerized machines that measure pedaling efficiency. At the time, I was in my late 60's. I was told that a "good recreational rider" can pedal at 60% efficiency. Then the fitter said, "You're doing 85% with no imbalance in legs. How are you doing that?" I said, "I've never had a trainer but I've used rollers for over 30 years." He replied, "Of course."

Not too familiar with powermeters? Only one powermeter measures at the wheel. The vast majority measure at the crankarms or pedals which can give you individual leg metrics if that's something someone wanted to bother with.

As for "more work", you can conceivably measure if your body is working harder in a specific situation by correlating heart rate and power.

What you can't measure, however, is whether or not you're going "faster with less work", which is the initial assertion. That's a technical performance issue.

And none of it has anything to do with riding or not riding on rollers.

For beginning cyclists, I'd counsel them to get a handle on their upper bodies and be cognizant of that movement. Pedaling, at the end of the day, is a pretty simplified and basic thing to do.

Okay. And what does that mean, exactly? That you're producing power for 85% of the pedal stroke? Per leg?

The numbers don't even make sense.

If you don't know what the numbers mean, how can it not make sense to you? If you're really interested in an answer, call Trek.

So you dont know what it means either. Which is pretty much the point. It's completely meaningless.

I know exactly what it means. You should find out if you're really interested. I won't bother explaining it to you since you seem more interested in arguing than discovering. I'm done now.

Apparently you don't. You pedal at 85% efficiency because you ride on rollers? And riding on rollers also magically decreases your aerodynamic drag or rolling resistance to allow you to ride faster with less work, right?

That's basically where your posts are at now. Neither of them make a lick of sense.

Wow... amazes me how someone can come here asking for advice and it turns into a guy with a holier than thou attitude who has to let everyone know that he's a Cat 1 and how good he is at riding a bike ****ting in everyone's Wheaties. Online forums are awesome.
[MENTION=487649]cawallis188[/MENTION] you have like 15 people on here telling you you'll see some benefits from rollers, you got one guy that's telling you otherwise. Personally, from experience I'm in the first camp.

I want to thank everyone for their opinions and suggestions. I do appreciate you taking the time to help.

Regarding the below...

One goal I hope to achieve from rollers, which I probably will end up buying, is to learn to ride no-handed, be able to take a drink, etc. If it is, in fact, harder to do on rollers...and I can learn it in the safety of my home without fear of injury...I’ll be that much better at it on the road. It might be a mental thing (fear of crashing), and if I can break that block, it’ll be a confidence booster.

It amazes me how people don't seem to understand what online forums are for. Hint: discussion.

It's not a holier-than-thou attitude, it's a "not believing every little thing that people throw out there" attitude. It's about questioning and thinking critically about subject matter.

Have you noticed there's not a single answer to the question of how rollers actually help you ride faster? Instead it's just people saying "it makes my pedal stroke smoother" with absolutely no reasoning behind that statement or what it means to real-world riding.

Like I said further up, people do what they want because they want to and don't have to justify anything. But when people start trying to justify it with assertions that don't make sense, what's the point of just saying "okay, sure"?

Again, discussion forum. And look, now you've got your two cents in, as pointless as it was.

I'm interested to know if you have used rollers for any length of time or even just tried them.

Not trying to challenge or have an argument. I value clarity over agreement and would just like to understand.


-Tim-

Yep. I've had rollers for the last 5 years. I used them exclusively for indoor riding until I got a smart trainer last fall. Still use them from time to time when I'm doing a lot more outdoor riding and want to go inside to outside without setting stuff up on the trainer.

Have also owned a pair of powercranks. Now there's some gimmicky **** in the same vein as this "smoothness" stuff.

Thanks. I appreciate the reply.