I have heard that make shifting your own free motion rollers out of normal cyclops isn't that difficult. something like having a frame to put your rollers on with some skateboard wheels and a couple bunjy's. Anyone do that?

this is the most simple borderline genius DIY free motion rollers solution i've seen on youtube:

please do, I'm waiting

I have nothing to compare them to, but I have the small diameter Performance rollers that are being discussed. I really didn't think they were that hard to get started on. After a little less than 5 minutes, I was able to ride them without any problems. The very first time I tried, it did feel like riding on ice, but then I quickly got the hang of not over steering and they were fine.

Got my rollers and immediatly built my "free motion" frame. LOVING THEM!!!!! so far I got about 2 hours on them so I'm still a rookie, but I feel I did pretty good on them for being so green! Just put this together

^^ nice. could you PM (or send me a link) to how you made yours (semi detailed instructions would be appreciated).

it looks like you did a variation on the "simple bungee cords on a door frame" method that looks to be just as good as the free motion ($$$$) rollers.

I'm still running my rollers "virgin" for now, but would like to try out a winter project involving DIY free motion rollers.

yeah no problem. They took me about 4 hours to make, but thats because I have 2 left hands and I measured everything 10x's cut half and then measured again then finished cut. lol now that I'm done with it I would bet anyone with a couple directions or idea of a blue print could finish it in about an hour or so. I changed my plans half way through which meant changing some things that I had already installed. I'll send you a PM in a bit.

Your video convinced me to buy some rollers! (I especially like the bumpers to keep your front wheel from going off the edge.) They're in the mail, as are the roller blade wheels... the only thing that possibly looks difficult is attaching the wheels to the frame. Did you need any special hardware for that, like spacers and axles, or did you just use bolts through the bearings? The other thing I'm wondering about is whether it would be possible to make the bungies go under the rollers to make it more compact. Thanks.

Here is my new DIY free motion system w/ Kreitler 3.0 rollers. I've only used it for about an hour so far but it works well. It uses a minimalist / lightweight track system with 1 inch PVC pipe cut in half with a bandsaw, and roller blade wheels. This is for hard floors only...if using on soft floors I would put a board under each track. When you put weight on it, the pipe stays in place on the floor. The blocks of wood attached to the pipe keep it from rotating and serve as attachment points for the surgical latex tubing. The tubing is terminated with sections of BIC pen and 100 lb fishing line, and (on the frame end) big fish hooks with the barbs sawed off. The brackets for the front wheel guide rollers are made from a block of ABS plastic (I tried wood at first but it split). I will probably replace the blocks of wood attached to the PVC with plastic also, to avoid splitting if stepped on. But, you get the idea.

I mounted the Kreitler Headwind Unit to my rollers. How would you adapt the free motion systems to include that unit?
https://www.mountainracingproducts.co...r/accessories/

Looks like you could drill through the arm of the headwind unit and just have a bolt for the bumper wheel, instead of the plastic block that I used (which is backed by a piece of sheet iron BTW). There might be just enough clearance for a lock nut underneath that headwind unit's arm to avoid interfering with the axle nut, but double check to make sure.

The bumper wheel on mine just overlaps the groove where the headwind unit's belt goes, but there is still about 30 degrees of clearance underneath the bumper wheel where the belt runs. On mine, the center of the bumper wheel is just over 1 inch above the top of the roller...high enough so that the wheel hits the middle of the braking surface on my rim. But you could raise the bumper wheel up a little higher if needed, as long as it hits your rim.

Also you'd need to put a wheel under the headwind unit, and could raise the headwind unit so that the arm is parallel to the ground (to make the bumper wheel bolt vertical).


BTW - A couple of things I learned on this project:

1) Drilling the frame holes is the hardest part of the project. The Kreitler frame is tough to drill through. I would not recommend even attempting it without a drill press, with the frame clamped securely, and a drop of oil to help lubricate the (HSS) bit.

2) To make sure the holes were the same height on both sides of the frame legs, I made a little cardboard jig w/ a screw through it to score the paint. It's more accurate than measuring 12 times. Also I was very careful positioning the drill.. Even so the holes weren't perfectly aligned, but were good enough.

Also, an update: I did replace the wooden blocks on my setup with ABS plastic ones (used a 1 1/4" bit to form the curvature to match the 1" PVC) and joined w/ PVC cement, which worked well.

Jayp...Your's turned out very nice! wish mine looked that clean.

so what I was thinking was that I don't really need the bumper wheels.
My concern with the headwind unit was how to put wheels under it.
I don't want to drill holes in the roller frame or the head wind unit frame - the legs are box structures and I don't think I could drill accurately.

I was thinking about getting skateboard trucks mounted on 2x4s that go under the frame, and building the door frame bungie assembly with bungies attached to the trucks. I could also put trucks on plywood and stick the headwind unit fan on that item. Just a concept in my head right now.

Luckily my first go was better than this......

Un-stickying until next trainer season.

its baaacccck! roller season baby! and this year I made my own "free motion" rollers. last year was mild here in NYC so I put this project off for almost a year.

Thanks to Bianchi10 for giving me the detailed plans. If you want them I can forward the plans he sent me through PM, or I guess you can also PM Bianchi10 and ask for them (I'm sure the plans are still in his sent box).

I pretty much followed his plans, with a little variation.

Things I figured out:

- the wheels are important. something with a bearing is needed to make things a lot easier. we both used rollerblade wheels. Rollerblade wheels are expensive new, but I found a pair of used rollerblades on my local craigslist for $20. I could've saved even more money because there were even cheaper listings - but these particular rollerblades had larger 78mm wheels. Had I realized that you could buy rollerblades with perfectly fine wheels for so cheap I would've done this project last year.

- find and use a vice and powerful drill. I have a small vice set up in my bike room, but only had my black and decker battery operated drill. it would work but I borrowed my neighbor's robust/powerful industrial plug-in drill (man that thing was nice!). Powerful drill + vice saved a ton of time since I could just drill directly because you'll be drilling through some thick metal.

just like bike rollers themselves - DIY free motion rollers are deceptively simple. it requires only 2 8ft 2X4s, rollerblade wheels, brackets nuts/bolts/washers, and bungee cords. All in all, including wheels, you can spend less than $50 on this project. Even cheaper if you already have some source for the wheels (old rollerblades lying around).


Old donor wheels from rollerblades bought from craigslist ($20).






I used headset reflector brackets taken from my spare parts bin as bumper brackets.



I was about to make a video of me hammering out of saddle no handed after only 30seconds of imaginary roller practice - but then I looked outside the window and realized that "screw this, its almost 60ºF and bright sunshine on December 3, here in NYC" saw the irony of wasting precious northeastern winter sunlight hours making free motion bike rollers and went outside for a proper ride.

that build looks familiar lol. Looks great mate! I like your bumpers better than mine. I sold mine about 4 months after I made mine. just got SO boring. the system really works well, but I just couldn't get past the boredom

Imagine if you shelled out $800+ for the real free motion rollers? I actually used my regular rollers a lot for the last two years. I treat them like a treadmill. I do a lot of running even during the winter/bad weather so if I'm really beat up after consecutive days of running I'll set up the rollers in my bike room with a laptop and a NBA game or TV show. I'm not going to lie.. I've fallen off the regular rollers while being a little too engrossed watching a NBA game. I figured the free roller modification gives me more leeway.

Good reading bump.

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but a couple of questions for Bianchi 10 and RunningDoc. You both use angle iron or metal tracks in areas where the wheels are. How do you decide the travel range and hence the required length of these tracks? Looks like a disaster if you somehow greatly exagerrated the rollers movement. I guess this relates to the required lengths of the bungee cords as well. Those reflector brackets; you find them strong enough to prevent bending when the front wheel happens to contact them?

I too would want to include my Kreitler Killer headwind fan. I am leaning towards a separate subframe that my Kreitler Rollers together with the connected Killer Headwind would all mount on. Of course this subframe carriage will have to be extra long to accommodate both and will more than six rollerblade wheels for support. With the wooden subframe carriage, I will just be dropping my Kreitler rollers with headwind into them as is.

I know this is an old thread, but if the audience is still hanging around, here is my implementation involving my Kreitler 4.5 rollers and Killer Headwind. I use a wooden chasis and use a wooden block to keep the Killer Headwind up in the air a couple of inches to clear the base and operate in concert with the rollers. Still, even though I have ridden fixed rollers for years, I cannot get myself to stand out of the saddle. I just don't know if I have the bungee tension quite right.

I bought both

Come again?