Rollers Vs Winter Bike

A light bike doesn't replace good fitness.

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Tapeworm
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by Tapeworm

I have a Kickr and LeMond. I do indoor trainer sessions year round, the quality of particular intervals are sometimes hard to replicate on the road, no interruptions, no excuses.

I like the mental aspect of the trainer too, if you're not nervous before hand... is the session hard enough?

Also, been particularly good when it's -5 out and the shed is a balmy 4 degree Celsius.
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mentok
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by mentok

mattr wrote:And tbh, I'd discount rollers. They are good for pedaling form and speed work. Not amazingly good for much else. Turbos are better. So are winter bikes.


I respectfully disagree. my crappy tacx antares are good for 2x20 @ 350-400W, 4x3 @ 440-480W and even 30s on/30s off at 500+. it just takes a set of training wheels with crappy tyres and relatively low pressures.

mattr
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by mattr

Oh, you can certainly got the power numbers, but loose concentration for a couple of seconds and you are on the deck. Doesn't matter how squint eyed you get on a turbo.

Not to mention running soft/crappy tyres is hardly repeatable, or good for the tyres.

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shoopdawoop
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by shoopdawoop

Mattr I understand your point although I would argue that you lose your focus or go squint eyed in a pack, then you and a couple other guys are on the deck. Rollers are good because they require some focus and stabilization, you might not be able to go quite as hard but a more controlled interval is rarely a bad thing. As an aside I believe many people, including myself, chase personal bests or go too hard in training believe more watts, hr, or speed to be emphatically better; while going easier, not to failure, will elicit the same or better results without totally knackering the body and mind. There was abit about this in Faster by Hutch that really stuck with me about how during all his intervals he said he wanted to entirely in control and contained for the period for everything but the highest of power outputs.

The rollers are also much less boring in my opinion and help with position. I've heard the term stabilization muscles used and I can definitely feel it on the rollers, having to keep myself centered and balanced; where on the trainer I often find myself slumping or sitting tall. I also know that cadence and proper spin do not contribute to total power but as a continued n=1 study it is much easier to hold power at high cadence on rollers compared to the trainer. Even the nicest trainers do seem to have a slight deadspot toward the bottom of the stroke. I have a wahoo kickr and 4.5" Kreitler Rollers with a headwind fan and do most everything other than a few TT bike workouts and step tests on the rollers.

Getting back to the original topic I live in Ohio where it is generally around -3 to -10 degree C durring the winter months with alot of ice. The last two winters I have really tried to get out and ride everyday or at least 4-5 days a week but it is very difficult; it wears you down mentally and physically. Just putting on all the gear, constantly cleaning and repairing the bike and heating back up when you get home gets hard after awhile. I will be moving to a schedule of more indoor intervals this year with long outdoor rides on the weekends. You've got to get outside sometimes to remember why you suffer on the trainer but doing it day in day out in the bad conditions somewhat sours the experience.

For motivation inside I like to watch old race film set to music for intervals and TV shows for the slower stuff. Cyclocross is especially good to watch even if you dont race it; there is alot more going on at all times during the races and you are less likely to get bored out of your gourd. A good source for old races is cyclingtorrents.nl , you have to have an account and contribute to get the good HD stuff but its worth it IMO. Sufferfest videos are also pretty good though they are more of defined workouts so if you have planned intervals or want to do something specific they arent the best.

dgran
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by dgran

I think there are really three options here:

1) Rollers generally simulate riding. It feels more natural but most people aren't able to achieve really hard workouts with them. That is no problem if your winter regimen is to stem the slide of fitness loss or keep from gaining weight.
2) Trainers are for training. If you want to get more fit and have the discipline people have increased fitness on half the time with trainers.
3) Bundle up and ride outdoors. Depending on how bad your winters get this may be an option, but daylight is often more the issue than cold or road conditions.

I'm personally fond of #2 through the week and #3 on weekends as weather permits over the winter. I've spent a winter on rollers but I came into spring a bit soft. With the trainer I come into the spring in great shape, which is how I like it.

MikeyT
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by MikeyT

Another +1 for rollers. Far more enjoyable (personal preference, I know) than a session on the turbo.

I guess it comes down to what works for you. I go all out and don't fall on the floor even in the dark.

Chader09
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by Chader09

I have a Kinetic Road Machine and Nashbar rollers. I modified the rollers to into a free-motion design and added side wheels at the front roller to keep me from riding off the sides. I also added the magnetic resistance unit from CycleOps and rigged it to a 9-speed shifter so I can vary resistance while riding.

I use my trainer at the gym in windsprints classes over the winter. It is pure pain, but more manageable since it is guided and I share the pain with 10-15 other riders.

I use the rollers anytime I ride indoors at home. The combination of the free-motion and adjustable resistance make this the most enjoyable indoor training I can imagine. I don't have a power meter, but at max roller resistance and high gear, it requires me to stand and really push to maintain a decent cadence. It is a very close simulation real riding and hill work and is almost fun because it does such a good job of replicating real, outside riding.

I do my intervals from training DVDs and push hard enough to almost have troubles recovering even with these mods. I do have it positioned right next to a wall with a bench on my other side. I use them sometimes to regain balance when I really hit it hard. I also made the rollers easily removable so I can set them on the floor without the free-motion base when I want to work on my spin.

I highly recommend the DIY free-motion if you have rollers and want to make them more enjoyable to ride.

11.4
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by 11.4

It's August and we're already having a February thread? Mods, where are you when we need you?

To the OP, there are really several different perspectives going on here, and you have to decide what your own perspective is.

Perspective 1: I want to sweat and hurt all winter to come out better and stronger than I was the summer before. It isn't supposed to be fun. It's supposed to improve me.

Perspective 2: I have to tolerate it. It's a long winter and I need some downtime anyway. Fahrtlek is a term very out of style right now, but it's basically LSD (long slow distance) and winter is a good time for that. Miles on the road -- another equivalent term.

Perspective 3: I know I'll lose conditioning, but I improve on the road (or on the track) and I'll do my serious training there. I'm just limiting the loss and want variety and so on to enjoy myself and not get fat.

Those who really love trainers, especially Kickrs, tend to be in the first camp. Google up the YouTubes of Chris Hoy on a trainer and that's what you want to be. He does an interval, then has a climber's crash pad next to him so he can literally fall off the bike in a fetal position and cry. He believes that every bit of training has to be 100% of what you are capable of, or you don't improve. It's hard to go outside and work that hard in cold weather -- whether it's icy patches on the road, or the cold, or the dark, or whatever, roadwork just doesn't give you that improvement. And in that "hard training makes for easy winning" philosophy, you work harder in the winter and win better in the summer.

Those who love rollers are a mixed bunch. (For full disclosure, by the way, I ride a Kickr (ride it hard) and also ride Trutrainer rollers quite a bit.) In an hour on the rollers one can get seriously dehydrated -- a fan blow some of the sweat off you but doesn't change how fast you sweat. I find you can burn quite a bunch of calories on rollers, as long as you are doing enough effort (I'm not talking about conversational pace here). But I find that roller workouts have a couple benefits. First, your legs tend to lose suppleness after a long season of racing. Rollers help recover some of that. Your legs have to learn how to get out of their own way, how not just to contract and push, but how to relax. Training at 140 rpm in an 81 inch gear on rollers doesn't suddenly make you fast at 120 rpm in a 92, but it does add one of the components that makes other kinds of training more effective. Plus, it's winter, and it's variety, and it does build smoothness and agility, and it does burn a fair number of calories. A great combined winter workout is cross plus rollers -- both workouts limber you up a bit and also teach rapid accelerations. Rollers do have their place, and I would use them if I just wanted some aerobic fitness and wanted to keep weight off. My goals are a bit different, though.

Bike work? Well, if it's -5 C outside, I know that no matter how much I bundle up, I won't be able to do the power workouts I probably should be doing. The rides are for social benefit and to get some alternate aerobic training in. I can't even say that cold weather is that good for riding a low-geared fixie -- I simply don't warm up enough to be talking about suppleness. By the time I wear enough layers to get the legs warm, that sure ain't supple.

The point here is that I'm working to build power for the track and for fast accelerations in crits and on the road -- I'll ride support for a team leader on the road and hope for the same support in turn on the track. I do lots of weight work -- heavy weight work -- through the winter, and after 4-6 weeks of that I'll transition to some really hard Kickr workouts for about the same period. I don't get completely bored by those durations, they are enough to get some measurable improvement, and then I just do some sustenance workouts in one mode while I'm concentrating on the other. I don't do both together because if I'm doing one of them hard enough, I won't be able to do the other one well enough. Color me stupid, but I'd rather work harder in the winter and get to work less in the summer -- then I stay more rested for when it counts. But is this the most pleasant way to train and race, and is it what my team mates all do so I'm always part of the big training ride family? Sadly, no.

You don't need a Kickr or TruTrainer rollers to train well. Frankly, any decent trainer does well. There's no gap at the bottom of the pedal stroke on trainers -- that's where you're weak and where the low resistance on rollers enables you to pedal through and feel it better. There's no particular physiological benefit to one trainer over the other as long as it's reliable and smooth (which actually cuts out many of them). I do think that for what Kreitlers cost, the basic TruTrainer (without the resistance flywheel) is a much better pair of rollers, but when folded it does leave the roller drums exposed, so it makes it harder to throw it in the back of the truck on the way to the track. Thus, I have both Kreitlers and TruTrainers, and the Kreitlers get the abuse away from home before a race. I can ride rollers reasonably well and think the eMotions are a waste of money and hardware. If you want to roll along and watch TV, maybe they are for you. I find they just trip my wheel and knock me over anyway, but mostly I just don't need the hardware assist -- I'm on there to do a job and I'm focused on it. As for the Kickr, I've tried it with all the different training programs but when it comes down to simple hard ugly intervals, I either use a basic interval timing program, or I just do it myself with the Kickr software on an iPad. If I'm concentrating enough on the workout, I'm not even aware of what music or TV show might be playing in the room. That's how a hard workout should be.

To the OP, you said you had a trainer and didn't seem to like it, and were considering roadwork versus rollers. I'd actually suggest that you combine them. And try adding some weight work as well. Even if you get a sandbag training bag (google "sandbag workouts" for plenty of products, and one of the better made ones is from Goruck) you can still do some good workouts with it, though I much prefer and recommend using free weights. All these things will help you. You can't do them all together and do them well, so focus on one or two, then rotate. It keeps you from getting as bored (or burned out) if you set yourself a 2-week goal, say, to get as much improvement as you can get from a trainer or from rollers, then move on and come back to that method in a month or two. You sound as though you do get bored when training in the winter, and you need achievable goals for the winter -- not too much roadwork because you never warm up again, not too much trainer work because it's hateful, not too much roller work, not too much weight work, and so on. If you have to do ten killing trainer workouts in two weeks and then not look at it for four weeks because you are rotating to rollers plus weights for two weeks, then to roadwork for two weeks, you're going to be a lot happier. It may not be absolutely the best training protocol for Hoy or Cancellara, but it may be the best for you. That's what counts.

HillRPete
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by HillRPete

Great info 11.4, cheers. Really liking your approach to periodisation too.

Can I just ask, how often a week would you do those workouts where you entirely exhaust yourself? Realising that depends on lots of things, but just a ballpark sort of recommendation. Twice? Three times in a week where not much else is going on for bad weather or lack of time?

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by fromtrektocolnago

I use a winter bike. It keeps me in good enough shape that by Spring , I'm close to the form of my peak rides back in the autumn, but on really cold days in NY it's a challenge to complete 30 miles at anything resembling a strong good pace. The idea of a trainer is just too boring for me, I need to get out, move and scenery and pass by the occasional cyclist freezing their arse off like me(When is a hunchback happy? When he sees another hunchback!)
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dgran
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by dgran

11.4 wrote:Perspective 1: I want to sweat and hurt all winter to come out better and stronger than I was the summer before. It isn't supposed to be fun. It's supposed to improve me.


Excellent summary and it helps me see my blind spot to being solidly in perspective #1. I'll just add that another blind spot a lot of people bring to this discussion is a preconceived notion about off season, periodized training and the proper role of winter riding. Some people have their main A races in mid-Spring and they do endurance/fun riding in July/August at a time when most people target their peak. I've heard so many people proclaim, like it is gospel truth, that the winter should be some sort of relaxed phase. I get a lot of finger wagging about my self immolation workouts over the winter, but I win races in the Spring so there is that...

I'll also add that your relationship with winter training changes as you age. For most people over 35 gone are the years that you could let the bike collect dust over the winter, do a little hiking or jogging, and whip it back into shape in the early Spring. If I let the fitness roll back I'll spend the rest of the year reclaiming it. That is just the reality of an aging athlete -- it is easier to keep fitness than to regain it, so this puts a premium on the value of winter training.

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boysa
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by boysa

Great points. I'm late to this game, so in my estimation the guys I'm racing against often have a 20-30 year head start on me (Masters). That is a lot of base miles. For them, they see the winter as a "maintenance phase." For me, I see it as the only chance I get to make gains. I kill myself through the winter so I can be ready to race in the Spring. Once racing starts, it is practically impossible to continue the serious training. Then it's simply one hard session or training race during the week, some Z2, two races on Sat/Sun. Winter is especially important for FTP building.

Believe me, if I had my choice I'd be outside every day, and I've been able to accomplish this some of the locations I've lived. Where I'm at currently, however, it's impossible. Ice on the roads and negative temperatures are not good for the body!
"Deserve's got nothing to do with it." William Munny

11.4
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by 11.4

HillRPete wrote:Can I just ask, how often a week would you do those workouts where you entirely exhaust yourself? Realising that depends on lots of things, but just a ballpark sort of recommendation. Twice? Three times in a week where not much else is going on for bad weather or lack of time?


It is 100% personal. You can do 80% intervals where you repeat them rapidly and the point is to get better at recovering. That's what Tabata intervals are for, for example, or anything on that kind of scale -- ride at 80% for any period, recover, then repeat. You might ride a 20 km 80% effort every day for a week to build your ability to recover from that kind of effort, or do 10 minute efforts with a 5 minute recovery to build recovery from 10 minute efforts. Your body basically trains precisely what you work on so if you want faster recovery from longer efforts, train with longer efforts.

For the exhaustion intervals, you are building your overall capacity -- VO2, among other things -- and your ability to dig right down to the last bit of energy in your legs. For those, you want to be fully recovered, or you won't be able to do the interval again. Basically, bury yourself on an interval and record every bit of data you can get -- length, the amount you fade at the end, and so on. (By the way, these aren't, at this point, all out sprints that gut you after 60 seconds -- that's what I train for in the kilo and believe me, one a week is all I can handle. But here start at perhaps 70% and keep ratcheting it up until you don't have any lunch left to puke and you just want to faint. The length may differ for different people, but for road think about doing a 30-45 minute drill, long enough to be useful when you can do it again in a race and score a win.) When you finish, you want to roll onto the floor and sleep. If you get up and clean your bike or go pick up your kids, you haven't done it hard enough. You should have nothing left.) Give yourself several days to recover at first -- say, 5 days -- and try again. If you can't achieve the same numbers or beat them, go an extra couple days and try again. If you did achieve the same numbers and you buried yourself again, then try a day less, and keep reducing the time until you can't repeat the prior workout. You want to be completely rested for each interval, so don't go weightlifting or do a long easy ride the day before. Be fully rested so you go from the top of your capacity to the bottom.

Unless you are a professional stage racer, you'll need 3-5 days to recover, probably closer to 5 unless you are in superb shape.

There's one other thing. If you get bummed out and hate the drills, you won't do them well. So just because you can do one every four days doesn't mean you should. You want to be fresh and invigorated and excited about your drills. Remember that you may need to go out and drill fifty miles on a 20 degree day in a low gear. After dark. Keep your ambition and excitement for those awful workouts. You can do these 100% exhaustion intervals perhaps every 4 days and do four of them. Then back off before you get bummed and can't keep up the effort. Switch around. Better to do something completely different like running up a mountain trail, snowshoeing across a frozen lake, or seeing how fast you can hand-shovel the biggest winter blizzard in existence (again, until someone has to drag your unconscious body in out of the cold). Every morning, take your pulse and write it down. Then before you get yourself, ask yourself if you're excited and want to tear the arms off a polar bear today. You need to keep that kind of excitement about what you're doing.

11.4
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by 11.4

boysa wrote:Great points. I'm late to this game, so in my estimation the guys I'm racing against often have a 20-30 year head start on me (Masters). That is a lot of base miles. For them, they see the winter as a "maintenance phase." For me, I see it as the only chance I get to make gains. I kill myself through the winter so I can be ready to race in the Spring. Once racing starts, it is practically impossible to continue the serious training. Then it's simply one hard session or training race during the week, some Z2, two races on Sat/Sun. Winter is especially important for FTP building.

Believe me, if I had my choice I'd be outside every day, and I've been able to accomplish this some of the locations I've lived. Where I'm at currently, however, it's impossible. Ice on the roads and negative temperatures are not good for the body!


Hey, if they have been doing a lot of base miles and "maintained," you're going to get on top of them right away. The base miles stuff is really not effective training. When you finish your last race of the year, and they go off for pizza and beer and plan their easy rides, you plan out your schedule. Do it in blocks like I suggested above. Give yourself some breaks to head south if you can and do some killer rides. Go to San Diego or LA and ride Palomar, Diablo, and all the other monster climbs. Or go to a really tough gravel race where you really have to race 150 miles. It's more for your head than for training, but it keeps you going when you are working the weights and burning the bearings on the trainer. Get a book on plyometrics and do box jumps -- jumping from a standing start onto a plywood box -- start at 24 inches and progress to perhaps 42 inches or more. You'll have a sprint and a hill climb you never thought you'd see before the winter is over. Do more stuff indoors if you can't get psyched to go outside. Done right, it's every bit as good and probably even better than being on a bike. You do need to turn the pedals, but you can do that on rollers and on a trainer. I just posted a reply to another post here; see what I said there about staying excited and be prepared to punch it ever day, regardless of what you do. My only warning is not to go into the spring loaded for bear. You are still aiming to peak in the summer sometime. Don't get psyched by early season races, and don't let other riders do a head job on you. You have your own training schedule, only you know it, and stick by it. You'll do fine.

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boysa
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by boysa

With all due respect, I disagree with about 90% of what you wrote... from the definition of Tabata Intervals to VO2 interval length to necessary recovery time to flying to Southern California to train (are you serious?).

But I think now we're really getting off topic from the op.

I am doing fine, and I have a well-planned training regimen that takes me through the entire season. I appreciate your insight, but as I said I simply disagree.
"Deserve's got nothing to do with it." William Munny

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