The rise of Zwift, trainer road, etc., seems to have driven huge growth of smart trainer adoption in the last several years. However, I don’t see many people talking about using smart rollers.
I own a stationary trainer for warming up at races, but I’ve always been a roller guy for indoor training and just prefer the natural feel of rollers compared to stationary trainers. I’ve been riding e-motion rollers for ~10 years, so this preference is probably helped by the fact that e-motion rollers have a good resistance unit and also have the floating frame to allows out of the saddle efforts, etc. (not your typical fixed rollers).
Before smart trainers, I could understand the masses picking ~$250 stationary dumb trainers compared to ~$900 dumb rollers. Now that smart trainers are $1000+, I’m really surprised you don’t see more people considering the e-motion smart rollers since they are about the same price.
After riding “dumb” rollers for the last 10 years, I finally bought the smart roller version last October and they work flawlessly. I ride and race Zwift several times a week and the smart resistance feels awesome. I guess the only challenge is that rollers take a bit of extra attention when going really slow (like climbing very steep grades out of saddle), but it feels very real-world. Also, you can’t stop pedaling, so I guess that’s a bit of a negative if you like to completely coast down hills. I just love the fact that I’m still handling my bike on rollers, I can rock it back and forth, no pain in the butt from sitting on stationary trainer, great road feel, etc. It just makes riding inside much more like riding outside compared to being locked into a fixed position.
Anyway, I don’t have any affiliation with the Inside Ride/e-motion roller people, but I just wanted to let people know that the smart rollers are a great option to consider and they are about the same price as many of the popular stationary smart trainers. I suspect many people just aren’t aware that the smart roller option is out there or maybe they are concerned about the learning curve of riding rollers (it’s not hard at all). It probably doesn’t help that you can’t demo the rollers locally before buying since they only sell online. I really encourage people to give smart rollers a look when considering a new smart trainer.
x2 on EVERYTHING Bluto said. I had used the e-Motion rollers for ~8 yrs and love them. I tried out my wife’s Computrainer several years back (before KICKR’s even existed) and just hated it after about a month of really trying to get it to work. Started getting saddle sores with the fixed trainer and went back to the rollers and never looked back.
A couple of years ago, I was considering an upgrade to something “smart”, so tried a KICKR with a rocker plate thinking it would be a happy medium, but nope. It wasn’t. So I bought a new set of E-Motion rollers with the smart resistance unit and it is really awesome on Zwift. It is very immersive and yes you have to concentrate a lot more, but I can be on them for hours with minimal “undercarriage” pain. Much more road like feel and helps you to develop better, steadier cycling skills (IMHO). Makes it hard to “zone out”, or blow my nose, or text while riding, but those are all minor things that I can still do, just have to be really careful.
Because it’s not a direct drive (like most smart trainers), I do get a tiny bit of slippage in the belt if I’m climbing a super steep hill, and I sometimes wish I could get a little bit more resistance when trying to do a Zwift race sprint finish. But I will NEVER even think about going back to a stationary trainer again.
How hard is it to ride a TT bike in aero position on these rollers? I can do my road bike no problemo on regular rollers but I haven’t been gutsy enough to try out the aero position.
How hard is it to ride a TT bike in aero position on these rollers? I can do my road bike no problemo on regular rollers but I haven’t been gutsy enough to try out the aero position.
It’s certainly hard the first couple of times (as is getting out of the saddle), but after a while it’s no different than riding outside on your aero bars… I do find when I’m racing in Zwift that I’m almost always on my bullhorns (other than periodic rests inside the blob). But for longer steady training rides, I can be on my aerobars (on my rollers) all day if I want to (but oddly can’t drink from my aero position on them).
Not exactly related to riding on the areobars, but more for handling on them… Here’s a goofy video I made many years ago when I tried to eat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s while riding on my older set of e-motion rollers:
Smart trainers are just so much easier. You don’t constantly have to think about keeping yourself upright and risking tipping over. I used rollers for years and have since converted to a KICKR.
The ease of use outweighs the road feel for me. Especially on those long 3+ hour rides
I have faux emotions (cyclops rollers with a DIY frame) and use them on trainer road. Love the feel, esp after adding the frame to allow me to stand up. One day I would love a set of smart emotions, but the piggy bank is not there yet.
Have not tried riding in the aerobars yet on rollers, but have done 4 hours on my road bike on the rollers. The only think I can do on rollers that I could do on a trainer was fit sessions, so I got a fork stand for 40 bucks and solved that one.
Turning in the pack on Zwift makes me move my bike. Enough so that I’ve rolled off my rollers twice in races and lost the pack.
A little disorienting. Now I just use the smart trainer and don’t worry about it.
That definitely happened to me a couple of times in the beginning. Then, I put a couple of vertical strips of blue tape on the floor between my rollers and my fan and on the couple of turns on Zwift that I know have the big “Ken Burns” roller coaster effects I just look down at the tape on the floor for a few seconds and it completely resets/stabilizes my brain.
I am a dedicated user of the Emotion Rollers. The feel is similar to the road, and the benefits of riding on rollers are well documented.
I Started as a Beta user of their Erg system, and the first attempt did not behave as well as desired. To their huge credit, they have kept with the system, and their new system has worked flawlessly. Instant connection with Sufferfest, Zwift, with operation in Erg mode.
It is very cool to have the grade go up in Zwift and have the rollers respond with increased resistance. And likewise, workouts in Sufferfest have taken on a new dimension !!!
I don’t ever see a need to go to a dedicated trainer again. My Computrainer, unfortunately has been moved to the closet, again.
Turning in the pack on Zwift makes me move my bike. Enough so that I’ve rolled off my rollers twice in races and lost the pack.
A little disorienting. Now I just use the smart trainer and don’t worry about it.
That’s definitely a thing. There are a few places I know to look away from the screen so I don’t have the reflex to turn.
Also, I’d agree that riding aero bars is not ideal. I can do it if it’s a steady easy ride, but I wouldn’t do any hard efforts because it’s a little sketchy for me.
I still love the overall experience compared to fixed trainers. I did a 80+ mile zwift group ride Saturday morning and couldn’t imaging trying to do that on a fixed trainer.