As much as I like my insideride rollers, I never got used to the bouncing around of the “free motion” (or whatever they call it) feature. I had regular rollers for years and can ride out of the saddle on them (albeit slowly). Anyway, this morning I finished some intervals on the CT and hopped back on the rollers and the back and forth motion was bugging me more than ever, so I just took a dumbell and placed it in front of the “inner frame” so that it would not move (basically removing the free motion feature) and suddenly I was able to ride much more steady and infact I could push harder.
I’m actually thinking of removing the inside frame and just using it in “fixed mode” with the rear wheel “anchor bars”. The quality of these rollers is awesome. Anyone done that? I realize that it defeats the purpose of the free motion, but frankly I don’t need it and find it somewhat annoying.
If you’re looking for traditional rollers of the highest possible quality, you’re looking for a TruTrainer. Sweet mother of crap, those things are HOT!
Greg, as anything on ST, give me hard documented evidence that this is true. You’re not getting away making this claim just like Frank can’t get away with his claims. What if I can show you that I can put out way higher power with my rollers fixed than bouncing?
so it looks like you’re saying that i (and assume everybody) cannot ever make and post any personal observations and/or personal experiences here without actually *first *doing a published, peer-reviewed, double-blind, major university-sponsored research study with at least 1000 paid male and female subjects.
wow, life’s getting pretty uptight here on the net.
and i hate to be the one to break it to you, but if that’s your threshold, uh, you better stop reading at least 99.9% of the posts on this forum …
Actually Greg, I am giving you a hard time. When I get my SRM battery replaced, I’ll report back with my personal findings on “which conditions can I generate more power: Free motion or Fixed”. I just noticed this morning that when riding “fixed” my speed at a given setting was higher and easier to sustain. Like you, I am just going on personal findings…so yeah, we’re on the same page on that front. I’ve been riding these rollers on and off since 2007 Dec so coming up on 2 years now, and I have never gotten used to the “bounce” Of course, I had been riding regular rollers for 8 years before that.
Greg, as anything on ST, give me hard documented evidence that this is true. You’re not getting away making this claim just like Frank can’t get away with his claims. What if I can show you that I can put out way higher power with my rollers fixed than bouncing?
OK–if you keep them from rocking, then you can’t do out of the saddle sprints, and it is more difficult to do VO2 max intervals with an initial power spike, simulating the power profile of the attack followed by pursuit combo to initiate a breakaway.
I dare you to try to hit max wattage with your “modified” version.
In terms of evidence, well you can simulate more types of road workouts indoors, and pretty much every effective training program utilizes multiple type of workouts and intervals. Therefore the tool which allows one to perform all of the workouts he wants to perform will likey allow him to get better.
If you can’t sprint on the emotion rollers as they are designed, then please never ride in a pack, and don’t open your sprint next to me, because you are likely doing it wrong.
In the winter I sprint on skis. In the summer I sprint on a bike (outdoors), so no sprinting going on while on rollers.
For the rollers, I’m talking more about interavals in the aerobars 1-6 minutes in the aerobars, not really sprint. I probably won’t go much above the 250-300W range for these, so its not like I will fly off the rollers. I guess a couple of blocks of wood just placed between the outer and inner frame would lock things down without changing things that much
Seriously though if you ride aero at say 120% of your FTP, which version of the rollers (fixed or free motion) feels more natural?
In the winter I sprint on skis. In the summer I sprint on a bike (outdoors), so no sprinting going on while on rollers.
For the rollers, I’m talking more about interavals in the aerobars 1-6 minutes in the aerobars, not really sprint. I probably won’t go much above the 250-300W range for these, so its not like I will fly off the rollers. I guess a couple of blocks of wood just placed between the outer and inner frame would lock things down without changing things that much
Seriously though if you ride aero at say 120% of your FTP, which version of the rollers (fixed or free motion) feels more natural?
Have you made sure the front roller lines up directly with the hub of your front wheel? If not, then you will get bouncing, which is quite annoying. If it is lined up properly, then they should be ZERO bouncing for an iso-power iso-speed effort. Do you bounce around on iso-power/iso-speed efforts? I’ve never tried fixing them in place, because they don’t move around on me for iso-speed efforts.
