I hear they’re pretty hard to balance on. I don’t mind learning, but is it possible to learn to actually stand up and pump the bike on them? Could you do better if the front wheel were not on a roller? Does having the front wheel turn make it easier in general to balance?
I’ve never tried them, but I’d imagine it would be extremely difficult to balance if the front wheel weren’t moving. The spinning front wheel acts as a gyroscope to keep the bike from tipping over.
Staff Report: Why is it easier to balance on a moving bike than a non-moving one?
It took me about 15 - 30 minutes to learn how to learn, a few hours of practice to get really comfortable (to be able to fetch/stow my waterbottle, ride no handed, etc.). I never got confident enough to stand up and grind, although I suppose it is possible. That wasn’t the point for me. I used rollers as a tool to help me spin consistantly and track a constant line. A fork stand would have defeated that.
I learned inside with the rollers halfway through a door frame so I could catch myself when I started falling. It also helped getting started, since I could clip into my bindings and get some speed up before letting go. But once I had a bit of experience, I moved the rig outside to catch some ventilation. It’s also cool to catch people’s expressions when they realize you’re riding a bike and not going anywhere.
My rollers have a fan that connects to the front roller wheel by the same type of round rubber belt that connects the front and rear roller wheels. I never had much luck with it. When I started, It slowed me down just enough to make riding a bit unstable, my front wheel would slip away a bit, flip off the belt, and I’d continue riding without the fan. Eventually I just stopped even trying.
Ditto what Conklin wrote. The purpose of rollers is to hone your pedalling stroke for maximum efficiency. If you can maintain 90-110 rpms smoothly while in 52-15, you won’t need to get out of the saddle. It took me three or four days to get comfortable, both in mounting, dismounting and maintaining control.
The easiest way to get started is in a narrow hallway or doorway, and use a step stool. If your rollers are going on carpet, you’re better off placing them on a sheet of plywood so the rollers don’t rub on the nap of the carpet. I use my trainer for brainless miles and out-of-the-saddle interval training, and the rollers for spinning and smoothing out the stroke (which require paying attention).
Shoot. I was really hoping for some different feedback. I hoped that it was common to get out of the saddle on rollers, because I’d like to ride for exercise indoors, but have the bike experience, including different riding positions.
I have a knee that I don’t want to take running for quite a while, and riding a bike in suburbia means not only fighting the cars, but the stoplights, which greatly reduces the exercise efficiency.
BTW, the followup to that staff report says that they gyroscopic effect is NOT why moving bikes are easier to balance. Hmmm… So if your back wheel were spinning, and the front not, but the steering were not converting the motion into actual turning, what would happen?
You will get a workout on rollers. The only thing that you can’t do now is get out of the saddle and hammer. That would take some serious practice. The first time you get on the rollers you are going to be amazed at how out of sync your cadence is. Just switching hand positions will be a challenge. If you’re in that good of riding shape and need more of a challenge, get some rollers with a mag friction unit. Another thing, if you are like a lot of ex-runner’s now cyclists, you may want to get used to spinning high cadence low gear for a while before you start putting pressure on that knee hammering in high gear and/or out of the saddle. My .02.
Considering that apparently the gyroscopic effect is NOT the reason that people stay up, is there any informed speculation on what would happen if your front wheel just didn’t turn at all while on rollers?
Sounds like you’re contemplating a fork mount. Dont. Your fork was absolutely not designed for those stresses.
If you really need to get out of the saddle to hammer (and I do not see why you’re so hung up on this) then just get a trainer. Lock yourself into a trainer and you can do whatever you want, much more versitile than a set of rollers, but far less effective IMO.
If you think that you wont be able to get a sufficiently difficult workout while seated, I suggest you try to spin 53x12 at around 100rpm for any extended length of time and not fall off. The best thing about rollers is that they require you to have good form. You will learn to put the power down efficiently.
OK about the fork mount.
But that wasn’t what I was talking about. I’m talking about only the back wheel being on rollers and the front wheel just being stationary.
I’d like to be able to get up so that I can vary the motion and difficulty and muscle angles, etc.
I don’t want a trainer because of the standing up issue. You can stand up, but it negates the entire point of it. You can’t tilt the bike, which is why you bother standing. You’re able to use your arms to help power the wheel, as you pull against your pedaling motion.
Aah, I can see clearly now, Cardinal. You want, for all intents and purposes, a bike simulator. I wouldn’t even begin to know if they make one or what. Here’s the 411, you can either get rollers and learn how to get out of the saddle (you’d pro’lly be a bike god then), get rollers with a fork mount (widely available) or get a trainer. Another alternative is to get rollers and flip them around, so your front tire is unsupported (get a brick or something to level it out) and have at it (and let us know how it works). And of course the last alternative is to hit the road like the rest of us. 
When I used to ride rollers, I could get out of the saddle. It was a totally different experience, though; rather than throwing the bike side-to-side, the bike would have to stay straight up. Since there was no saddle supporting my weight, I’d get a lot more power on the downstroke than pulling up against the clips (power on the downstroke is of course the point of getting out of the saddle) and it’d feel really odd. The bike would lurch forward and back a little, and I was always worried that I’d ride it right off the rollers. (I had a fan attached to the rollers, so there was enough resistance that it was theoretically possible to ride off of them)
So, given the jerky nature of riding out of the saddle, rollers are exactly the wrong thing to use.
As far as what would happen if you rode rollers with the front wheel stopped: You’d fall over. The way you balance on a bike is that if you’re leaning a little to the left, you turn to the left and the front wheel moves itself back under your center of gravity. If the front wheel is stopped, you can’t make that sort of correction. You lean to the left, and you keep leaning to the left more and more until you’re on the ground. I know this both from a theoretical standpoint and from experience, because on my rollers it was possible for the belt between the back and front rollers to come off and have the front wheel stop. It invariably led to falling over.
This is why the SDMB is soooo worth the money. Thanks for the responses.
Again: Shoot. I thought I had the solution. I don’t mind having to learn to have good cadence and balance, but this destroys one of my little fantasies about this.
I’ll probably get rollers and just put away my idea of getting out of the saddle.
[Wipes away tear.]
OK, I have another question:
If the bike doesn’t know you’re moving (it’s all relative), why wouldn’t the front wheel just turn and let you pump the bike?
Guess: Because there’s no “centrifigual force”, and when you lean into the turn, you just fall.