I won a set of Poly-Mite Rollers from Kreitler in September. I won Bobby "the bullet" Phillips's annual Turkey Day bike race in the 3/4 field. The prize was the rollers and a bag full of goodies, plus a turkey. Very awesome prize for sure. I have ridden perfo rollers and I don't know if they were warped or came that way to begin with, but my wheel was bouncing a lot, kinda irratating. On the Krietlers, the wheels are totally smooth. The smaller 2.25 inch diameter drums on the Poly-Mytes or Dyno-Mytes offer plenty of resistance. They were designed for US Cycling Team members, so they are definitely not for wimps.

While I agree with ChimblySweep that rollers are a useful training tool, they are by no means the end-all-be-all. They help your balance and spin, sure. They can be a great way to do measured intervals. They are convenient and much more fun to ride than a trainer. They have the cool factor.

But you can get a trainer that measures power, and it is more stable for high intensity efforts. I can tell you from experience, winning races comes from having high-intensity fitness. You can certainly lay the groundwork for that with rollers. But no training program would be complete by simply riding the rollers all winter, and then expecting to destroy everyone in the spring. You would likely lack the strength needed to climb well, sprint, and bridge gaps, much less break away.

do you have any suggestions on a trainer that will work well with a track bike?

Unfortuntely not.

At the track, many people bring their track bike and road bike. And, a trainer, which they hook up to their road bike. They warm up on that, using the gears to vary the intensity.

For you Shants, I would say, if you don't have a road bike, then get a set of rollers, whatever you can afford. People who don't bring their road bike to the track, usually use rollers to warm up. You'd be surprised how much you can vary the intensity in just one gear.

I love the spinning bikes at the gym. BIG steel flywheel fixed to the drive train so like a fixie the momentum pushes your spin. set the resistance anywhere in the spectrum. keep cranking it until you can barely move the pedals and try to maintain a smooth pedal rotation while you climb a monster hill, or back it off, and work on speed. My climbing and spinning both improved over the winter last year with spinning 2 or 3 times a week, and short commuting rides. Combined with rollers to work on balance and smoothness, and the winter could be a very productive time training-wise.

that's what i'm thinking. thanks for your help, folks.

oh, if anyone has a set of rollers that they want to part with on the cheap, let me know.

If you insist on getting a trainer, look at the Kurt Kinetic. Very tough. I ******** hate using it, absolute torture, but it's a good device.

Look around, there are probably some trainers that allow you to vary the resistance so they would work with one gear. As far as the clamping mechanism goes, if you have standard track bolts, rather than allen keyed bolts on your wheels, you would probably be fine. If you have to switch to a special skewer, obvious you can't do that with a track axle. But most of the trainers give you a special skewer becuase the design of QR skewers has changed in the last few years. Instead of a big round knob on both sides, with a lever that shoots of the side of one of the knobs, they have a small nut on one side and just this rectangular lever on the other. So, since track nuts are like the old way, that will probably work alright.

I have a travel trac mag trainer that works alright. if your axles go too far past the nuts, no joy.

I have a teammate who thinks very highly of this piece. He is known to be a very technical person, so I trust it is excellent.

shants.. i know juvi found some rollers on ebay for $10 and they were pretty nice.

when dave shlong was looking at pistas, the shop he went to first was setting them up on a trainer for him to try. it had a housing that basically went on either side of the bolt - no quick release swap-out. i'll find out what shop it was and maybe you could get ahold of them and ask.

Tacx rollers are really reliable and they usually have a cheaper model with PVC drums. I got a used set off craiglist with a squirrel cage resistance thing. If you get a used set I would recommend replacing the belt especially if its been sitting for a while. It's cheap and you can get one at your LBS. You don't want your belt to break right after you learn to stand up and are doing a interval (it hurt!)

A note about resistance, the smaller the drums, the more the resistance, it also makes it harder to balance. I think kreitler was making some for olympic teams that had really tiny diameters.

I got rollers for cheap you just need to HOLLA

trainers are for ***** ass ****ers, rollers HOT HOT HOT

I just got a cheapo Ascent trainer from performance. Their QR skewer didnt play well with my 120'ish width, so i had to put a nut on the skewer so the end wouldnt be crushed and bent. Hums and does it's thing, I set it to the "3" resistance mode and spun my 46x15, literally dripping sweat after 30 minutes, changing intensity.

Now tell me if Im crazy... I just got a set of rollers... I have a track and road bike. I was thinking about hopping on with my track bike... but no brakes, and the necessary momentum of the rear wheel/cranks going at 130rpm would make falling off no fun at all... versus a freewheel on the roadie.

Thoughts?

ps - i just picked up the rollers last night (kreitlers - craigslist score), and i havent had the chance to use them. What was humerous was carrying them all over manhattan strapped to my mess bag... good times...

i think the key here is DON'T FALL OFF! start out in a doorway. focus. spin smoothly. don't stand.

you won't go any where you'll just come to an abrupt stop; your wheel would have to be obsurdly heavy in order for the rotational force to propel you forward...just won't happen don't worry about.

rithem is correct. It's really quite uneventful. You simply stop.

my kurt kinetic fluid trainer works fine with 120 spacing and track nuts. they're rather pricey though.

ditto...i did a 'virtual hour' on mine the other day at 51x15 and managed just under 39km...i limped away crying.

As someone posted above, you sweat like a pig when on rollers (trainer, too) so it's also useful to have a fan pointed towards your body...just a nice breeze as if you were outside. Crank the stereo or tv, and you'll be all set.