Rollers or a turbo?

[King Boonen]

Scotland. Winter. Small child asleep in a flat. All of these things mean I will not be able to get out and ride as much as I have been doing and I'm worried about losing the gains I have made and continuing them.

So which is best? I like the idea of rollers but worry the resistance won't be high enough. Turbos seem a good idea in that sense but they are a faff and are noisy (small child asleep in a flat).


So what should I go for? Looking at around £250 max really.

 

[purcell]

Scotland. Winter. Small child asleep in a flat. All of these things mean I will not be able to get out and ride as much as I have been doing and I'm worried about losing the gains I have made and continuing them.

So which is best? I like the idea of rollers but worry the resistance won't be high enough. Turbos seem a good idea in that sense but they are a faff and are noisy (small child asleep in a flat).


So what should I go for? Looking at around £250 max really.

Unless you are in imminent danger of signing a pro contract, the resistance on a set of rollers will be more than sufficient to keep your fitness through the winter. If at any time you feel like you need more "resistance", then you let some air out of the tires.

This whole mantra about needing to be able to generate 9,000 watts of power in the dead of winter on a stationary device is ridiculous. Like the "stiffness" siren call in bike marketing.

 

[King Boonen]

Sounds good. Do I even need to bother with variable resistance?

 

[laurel1969]

Don't think you get variable resistance rollers. The big factor on indoor cycling is boredom. Tacx iMagic tries to turn it into a video game, but it is costly.

Rollers have a fun element all of their own Do you have a narrow corridor in your house and two spare mattresses?

P.s. I'd go rollers rather than trainer.

 

[sciguy]

Two thoughts-

1. While a turbo trainer is noisier, it's "white noise" and easy for most children tho sleep through. My wife will actually ask me to go ahead and do my indoor ride right away if she wants help getting to sleep for a nap.

2. Safety issues- There is a heck of a lot more potential to take a tumble from rollers id a young one starts to dart towards you unexpectedly. Not sure if your small child is walking yet but if so the ability to do a near instant stop can be handy.

I have hundreds of hours on both types and have always preferred time on a turbo once the novelty of doing tricks on rollers had worn off.

YMMV,

Hugh

 

[laurel1969]

Most babies sleep through anything.

 

[purcell]

Sounds good. Do I even need to bother with variable resistance?

No you don't.

You are better thought to go with rollers with aluminium drums and good bearings. I am not a fan of PVC drums like on many of the Tacx products as I think they tend to be noisier (lower quality bearings? Big plastic echo chamber?)

You are in the UK (still) so take a look at something like the Jet Black units that are sold through many of the UK dealers. They will serve just fine for many years.

 

[42x16ss]

Sounds good. Do I even need to bother with variable resistance?

That's what gears are for

 

[twothirds]

You can always wedge a towel under on of the rear rollers for more resistance. I prefer rollers myself. Although rollers can make quite a bit of noise once the belt starts resonating. Fluid trainers are the quietest you can get.

 

[King Boonen]

Thanks guys,

Laurel, there are some models with variable resistance, but it adds to the cost and it sounds like it's unnecessary, I have a narrow corridor and one spare matteress!

Sciguy, the child is nearly 3. She,ll be in bed when I use them or not there so safety issues shouldn't be too much of a problem. Boredom wise I'm the kind of person who can do a 2hour spin session on my own in the gym no problem so I'm not worried about that.

Purcell, thanks ill check them out, nicely under budget too!

42x 16ss, thanks, thinking about it I can't max out my 50-12 on the flat so I think I'm worrying too much and there will be plenty resistance.

Two thirds, good advice, that saves me 100 quid

Thanks guys, very helpful!

 

[Gianluca Randazzo]

This roller is really good because it is quiet, and very real, see if you like.http://www.tecnobici.com/shop/index.php?id_product=1450&controller=product

 

[King Boonen]

Thought I'd bring this back to detail my experiences.

I bought some rollers and had them for a couple of months. I really enjoyed riding on them but I was struggling to put down any appreciable amount of power and stay upright... I don't have the base many of you probably have, I'm a "for fun" "enduro" mountain biker primarily so that tends to mean as little effort spent getting up as possible and then hammering the downs, but that tends to take more out of the upper body.

So what I was finding was I could ride them but I wasn't really seeing the gains I was hoping for. In the end I swapped them for a turbo which will hopefully allow me to build a better base.

My current training method is to get it to a resistance level where I start to have to work, ride like that for 2 minutes, shift up 3 gears and maintain the same cadence for 1 minute, then shift back down. So far it seems to be helping.

I also got this for Christmas:

I'll try write a review of it, at the moment I'm getting over a horrible cold most of the UK seem to have had.


My ultimate goal is to get strong on climbs. Not race winning strong, but strong enough that if I take a holiday in the south of France I'm able to get out and do long rides without having to worry too much about the hills (The Cevennes is the target first off).

 

[CoachFergie]

I avoid wind trainers at all cost preferring ergs like Wahoo Kicker or LeMond. I did have a set of Elite rollers that did allow enough resistance to train on at reasonable watts. With 28mm training tyres even perform max aerobic power tests.

 

[42x16ss]

I avoid wind trainers at all cost preferring ergs like Wahoo Kicker or LeMond. I did have a set of Elite rollers that did allow enough resistance to train on at reasonable watts. With 28mm training tyres even perform max aerobic power tests.

I've never been a fan of regular wind trainers either, they just seem to be too hard on wheels, frame, tyres etc. I've always had basic, large drum rollers and they've done just about everything I've needed them to. For longer rides you should be on the road and for all out sprinting I use hills, the velodrome or a stationary bike.