Rollers are over-rated
 

I got a set of rollers about 6 weeks ago, and have been using them on and off. I also use a CycleOps Fluid2 trainer, but live in Socal so riding outdoors is the norm unless it's dark out. Haven't had any problems with the rollers - can get a good sweat on them, and rarely fell over, even on my first time on them. Have gone up to 90 mins on them.

I'm not sold on them. They're not bad, but I far prefer my trainer. I can go much, much harder and focus on power, which seems to be the most critical thing for riding/racing.

I heard a ton about the "technique" benefits from the rollers, and I'll agree that you need a lot more technique to hold a line on the rollers compared to road. But, it's not THAT hard, and as well, I seriously question if it's that important to have a roller-riding degree of balance anyway. To me, the degree of line-holding is irrelevant to real-world riding. Far more important in fast pacelines are fast reaction times and experience. The rapid swerves you need to pull out when someone in front of you goes down (has happened to me) have nothing to do with roller skills. I feel a bit like roller skills are like knowing to do wheelies - more difficult to real world riding, but largely irrelevant in terms of actual racing and road performance.

Someone convince me to keep riding these things.

Who would possibly care what you do?

If I lived in SoCal I would have neither rollers nor a trainer. I would just ride outside.

Compared to riding outside, both these devices are a form of torture.

That being said, I still prefer riding the rollers over the trainer, it's the lesser of the two evils. Both have their place, and I grant that if your goal is to do a set of intervals the trainer is better.

But since you live in SoCal just go outside and ride....you can sell the rollers and trainer and use the proceeds to buy a good set of lights.

It's not just about line holding, it's about smoothness in general. Maybe not important in a club ride paceline but it is for racing. It's also the kind of thing that may benefit others more than you.

See discussion starting here
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...1#post10464491

use them. I don't use indoor trainers but I am a big fan of applying a variety of training methods. you will gain something from it. even if that something isn't apparent right now. but someday, at sometime, you will be racing and something will happen or you will do something, and something will click and you will recognize where it came from.

for me swimming in a pool even though I have access to outdoor water lets me concentrate on form much more than when I'm outside dealing with environmental issues. but you know that already due to your experience with your trainer. if I had access to some other kind of pool I would use it. I also do weight training and use various movements for the same muscle groups.

anyway - you bought it - tear it up

Your opinion might change if you spend 120+ hours a winter riding indoors, they make surviving winter training much better

That 556 dude is soooo smooth.

Usually those that don't find a benefit from a form building thing either mash their way through the benefits (I have a friend that has a bad pedal stroke and rides rollers with that unsmooth pedal stroke. I dunno how, he just does) or they don't need them (Powercranks).

But having said that, I find it beneficial to ride rollers on a semi-regular basis.

As OP pointed out, not for power. It's for smoothness. You want power, trainer or outside. Smoothness, rollers, in the drops, fast and smooth.

cdr

Which would you take though - smoothness or power? I can always ride smoothly (esp on the rollers) if I'm not going at a pace that's very hard for me. Crank it up to VO2 or above levels though, and it gets substantially more difficult.

To me at least, it seems that the smoothness is more a function of riding within your O2 limits and less a function of technique. I don't think all the technique in the world would allow me to ride smoothly if I'm going all-out on the rollers.

Trouble is, for me, the key benefit of the roller/trainer is to be able to go hard. No traffic, no stops, and good reliable computer data. Backing off the top speed just so I can go smoothly seems to detract from this training stimulus.

First off, my perspective: I use my rollers during the winter to log base miles. This year I was doing 2 hour sessions at high zone two, two or three days a week between November through January. This helped my form a huge amount. I lost about 10 pounds of off-season weight and my endurance has been hugely raised while keeping my threshold power from decaying. By this time of the year, since mid-February and the start of racing, I've transitioned away from endurance rides on the rollers to doing threshold work on the trainer.

Now, about rollers in general. Paceline riding has very little to do (you hope) with reaction time, and very much to do with control. Rollers teach you how to control your bike. That way, when some little snot of a kid (sorry Hammer dude if you are reading, just using you as an example, no bad blood :)) comes up under your elbow in the last 2km before the sprint and hooks your arm going past, you stay balanced and don't overreact. It enables you to confidently handle your bike within inches of others without relying on your reaction time. While it won't help you with the emergency swerve per se, it might help you ride a skinny line past a crash without causing one of your own.

Ultimately it's up to your preference. Anything that's hard to do (like generating power while keeping balanced on a line) is going to teach your body and refine your fine motor control better than doing the easy thing where you can squeeze your eyes shut and not worry about what your wheels are doing. But that said, I don't use the rollers for threshold work, though I know riders who are better than me that do.

Rollers have changed my handling of my bike more dramatically than any other training tool. I've had them for just around 2 months, but saw huge improvements outside, after just 60 minutes on the rollers the day before. As far as a training tool used for resistance, they're good for Zone 2/3 efforts. Actually, ideal for zones 2 and 3 because of the stability requirements, smoothness of the upper body and smoothness of the pedal stroke you need in order to maintain a solid Z 2/3 workout.

Also, I work on riding with no hands as that helps my ability to do so outside. Why is this beneficial? Ever need to put on a jacket, fix your junk, or do other things that require both hands, yet you don't want to stop riding? I ride out of the saddle on the rollers. This has really helped my out-of-the-saddle skills tremendously.

I've only put around 20 hours on the rollers to date and words cannot express how much more stable I feel on my bike, or how much more smooth I have become. It's not a placebo-effect.

I have a Cycleopd Fluid 2 as well, but it's reserved for higher resistance workouts. Also, it's more consistent in its power curve, so when I want certain targets, I'll use that.

Sounds to me like you just do the same type of riding every time.

Learn to ride the rollers at VO2 or above. If you can't do it, and think you're good on rollers then you're doing it wrong. I can smoothly ride my rollers at 150 rpm, dialing it up to 400W. Work on it, get better at it and see your riding improve.

The benefit is not just to go hard, it's to focus on targeted workouts when the condition outdoors is not suitible for your training goals.

I have both...I use the trainer more because in the MN winter that's my primary for of cardio exercise (aside from table tennis :)) so on the trainer I'm usually trying to burn as many calories as possible. I use the rollers to provide another mentally different way of working indoors. Neither is better, both have their place. And, as another poster mentioned, if I lived in SoCal I'd have neither. Eff all you people who live in year 'round warmth :)

so this is purely anecdotal, but it's my observation thus far. I think i'm having a much easier time handling bike after riding on the rollers, mainly in the form of no hands riding. My c-dale used to swerve like a car driven by a drunkard when i go no hands, but no more. personally, i feel more confident in my handling skills, and as i was told, if i can remain confident and not tense up while riding, then taking a high speed turn gets easier.

Also, not to be glib, there are resistance units for rollers, and even on low resistance, the workout can get difficult in a hurry. Looking at my minoura unit, if all the roller drums have a groove for pulleys, then it's not so hard to attach a resistance unit to your roller.

I think you are wrong

Rollers teach your body to react automaticlly, making small adjustments that need to happen before you would ever be able to think about them. Roller drills for me are high cadence spin drill (over 100 rpm up to 160 rpm). Do I ever aactually ride like that ? No . They are drills to develop real world skills. Pro's say that the best training for racing is racing.
They still drill however.

There's technique and strength. Technique, at a certain level, determines your ultimate potential. So does genetics and training, but it's a multiple variable thing.

If you ride rollers and get good technique, great technique, you max out one variable. Then you can focus on other things.

If you have bad form, you could be handicapping yourself. It's relative to ability - no one will accuse Delgado or Tyler Hamilton of having smooth form - but if you're chopping at the pedals, you can probably do better.

So rollers (with no resistance) don't affect power. It's a good tool for form. Use it for form.

cdr

Go stick a resistance unit on it. I max mine out and I can hold 400w in the small ring.

For me thus far (granted, limited roller experience of 6 weeks of intermittent use), roller riding has not helped one bit on downhill fast mountain curves. I've felt much more comfortable on the rollers since I started for sure, from feeling really, really unstable (but still able to ride at a good clip), to riding confidently even at a good intensity, but for me, it translates zilch to fast mountain curves. Unless you really had egregious bike handling to begin with, the only way to ride those curves really fast is to practice riding them, faster and faster. The choice of line, degree of lean, and degree of braking needed on those sharp fast downhills is does not seem to be acquired by roller riding (which seems to improve pedal smoothness and balancing while pedaling.)

In terms of resistance, I don't deny that you can get crazy high resistances and all-out efforts on the rollers. Of course you can. But I don't think you're quite going all out vs a trainer, when you can put in that extra few % even when your form is deteriorating to mush, the world is blacking out, and everything screams QUIT! I'd have fallen off the rollers well before that point, and I would not even consider pushing that hard on the road as well due to safety concerns (ok on a totally closed course I would.) But on the trainer, where all is safe and secured, I can push into that zone.

Apples and oranges. The trainer does not help with downhill mtn turns either.

Form is more valuable of an asset than a lot of people think.

I agree. But nobody views the trainer as helping one bit on downhills. Whereas MANY people view roller skills as helping a lot with downhill riding, which I disagree with. (Ok, if you're a wobbly rider even on flats, it'll help you, but that's an egregious case.)

Who said anything about going downhill fast? There's more to "handling" than just swerving out of crashes and taking downhill turns fast. It's about fine control of your bike.

Agree completely with the OP. Rollers are fun (comparatively) but are about as relevant to bike handling as unicycles.

You want us to convince you to keep riding rollers ? What's to convince ? ...... either you like riding them or you don't. No explanations necessary.

Thousands of riders have proven your assumption wrong. Keep in mind being smooth does involve physiologic adaptations. They are to your neuro-muscular system. When power is applied by a muscle is just as important as how much is applied. This is critical to efficiency, with "smoothness" being an effect rather than a cause. My experience has been that this is also our slowest adaptation to being a true cyclist.

Don't believe me? Put a pedal at the bottom or top and push on it as hard as you can.