Turbo Trainer vs. Rollers

I am a relative newbie but I am getting rollers. I dont like the idea of turbo trainers, they cant be good for your frame or wheels and they dont register mileage. I dont have the rollers yet but they look more natural and I read somewhere that they improve your bike control as well as fitness.

macnab wrote: »

I am a relative newbie but I am getting rollers. I dont like the idea of turbo trainers, they cant be good for your frame or wheels and they dont register mileage. I dont have the rollers yet but they look more natural and I read somewhere that they improve your bike control as well as fitness.

Eh, no. The forces exerted on the rear triangle due to the turbo clamping are less than the bike would be subjected to on the road. I'm sure there are cases where people have damaged frames on turbo trainers and people have taken this to mean that turbos are bad for frames. It's just like the misconception about carbon bikes being "fragile" and "delicate". Plenty of people have used carbon frames for years without any issue. If you are doing any of the following on a turbo then it might lead to problems:

- Clamp it incorrectly
- Not using a turbo specific skewer for the rear wheel and clamp
- Losing control during a maximal sprinting effort
- Riding a bike that is not suited to your weight/power

EDIT: This is from the internets and not me, but it sounds sensible and while I can't find any bike manufacturer recommendation on turbos, top coaches give them the ok.

The choice between rollers and turbo should not come down to worry about damaging your frame, because it's not something you need to worry about unless you are really careless.

I had rollers, didn't like them:

- Require a lot of concentration, which is hard to keep during more intensive sessions.
- Probably more likely to damage your bike or components than on a turbo (see attached)

Ideally you want to be like this, in which case rollers are a good idea and pretty cool. They are certainly closer to riding on the road than a turbo, but for just racking up hours and switching off, turbo wins for me. Rollers are not really hard to "get". They will improve your stability and balance on the bike which should hopefully translate into more efficient power transfer on the road:



In reality, you may end up like this, especially if you get distracted or fatigue:

Cork24 wrote: »

Dont like the whole thing Rollers have, I like to get up at 6am every morning start Cycling till about 8 go for a shower and off to work for 9,

dont want to end up in the bed room wall with the Rollers. are the turbo abit of a noise problem, was looking at the Tacx

how much of a resistance are we talking about with them?
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=15805

They are both noisy enough, but it's more of a constant drone like a vacuum cleaner or a hairdryer, I'm sure people can sleep through them.

The resistance on a Satori is more than enough, the pros use them warming up so I wouldn't be too worried that it might not have enough for you. One of the guys (Levitronix maybe?) said the other day that the max setting was "real small ring stuff".

You can reduce the noise with a mat and a turbo specific tyre, but I have found turbos and rollers are both noisy enough to earn complaints from my family if I use them after bedtime.

I had one fall off rollers when I was distracted ("you look like you're going to fall off".....crash....."I told you so") and it was a little sore because you have further to fall (rollers sit a few inches above the ground).

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

The resistance on a Satori is more than enough, the pros use them warming up so I wouldn't be too worried that it might not have enough for you. One of the guys (Levitronix maybe?) said the other day that the max setting was "real small ring stuff".

I had a Satori until I upgraded last week. I agree that it provides more than enough resistance for anyone but I don't know if I'd call it "real small ring stuff". I'm just a very average bike rider but even with a 50x19 gear selected I could turn the Satori over at 60rpm on its max resistance setting.

Cork24 wrote: »

dont want to end up in the bed room wall with the Rollers

The easiest thing to do is do it between the door frame, this way if you feel a 'wobble' coming on just steady yourself on the door frame.