Speed on Rollers - Newbie - Beginner

[jamesvillafc]

Need some advice ?

I purchased my road bike 2016 Boardman Team Carbon with no prior road bike experience in late May, i have clocked up 711 miles using Strava.
My target was 10 mile a day or 100 mile per week. My average speed over 25-40 miles would be around 16 mph, on short 5-10 mile rides i could average 18-19 mph on flat results from strava iphone app.

Due to the dark nights , i have purchased some elite parabolic rollers to train indoors and maintain at least 10 miles per day for fitness, after half an hour practice i was fine getting on and off rollers without support and fairly confident, i hooked up my wahoo speed and cadence sensor linked to my Iphone.

My first ride was 6.2 mile - avg speed 12.2 mph 82 cadence, i was dripping in sweat and couldnt believe my avg was so low. next night i thought i would try to train harder, however my results were 13.6 mph average and 96 cadence average, slightly improved but alot slower than my outdoor rides, is this normal ? maybe as a beginner i thought rollers would be alot quicker? i managed to achieve 15/16 min 5 mile on exercise bikes at the gym , cant understand how my speed has dropped on the rollers...

Any advice would be much appreciated?

[pwa]

I'd be surprised if the effort required to simulate 16mph on rollers were the same as the effort to actually do 16mph on a particular road. It is only simulated speed, not real. Just accept that it is a different type of exercise with different readouts. If you wanted to compare like with like you would be better off using a heart rate monitor and comparing your actual physical effort.

[whoof]

Rollers have very little resistance they are not like a turbo trainer where the drum has a fluid or magnetic resistance built in. Your should therefore be able to go really quickly. When I used to do roller racing
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-8F6EbPRsA)
there was a limit on your highest gear or 52/13. If not the person with the biggest gear would win, please see photo below of roller record speed attempt, it's about 140 mph!

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YJ4JuUFLJkg/maxresdefault.jpg

If you are struggling to do 13 mph it's set up wrong or something is wrong with it.

[jamesvillafc]

Thanks for the replies, i will double check the roller set up tonight, my bike is 50/34 and 12/28 set up as standard

Majority of the time i stay in the same gear on the rollers, the large chain ring at front and smallest sprocket on the back, with a 96 average cadence i would expect a faster avg speed. Something must not be quite right

[karlt]

Thanks for the replies, i will double check the roller set up tonight, my bike is 50/34 and 12/28 set up as standard

Majority of the time i stay in the same gear on the rollers, the large chain ring at front and smallest sprocket on the back, with a 96 average cadence i would expect a faster avg speed. Something must not be quite right

That would be about 30mph give or take. You're set up wrong somewhere.

[Brucey]

I agree your calibration is probably wrong somewhere.

But then again, as others have mentioned, when on the rollers the 'speed' is just a number, anyway. It does not in any way relate to the likely speed of your bike on a road.

cheers

[Mick F]

I disagree that there's little resistance on rollers. I reckon the effort is like going up a shallow hill.
You can vary the effort by changing gear of course.

By going slower in a lower gear, the effort is less.
Go faster in a high gear, and it's hard work. I like a gear ratio of 53/15 = 93 gear inches and I try to maintain 20mph or when I'm warmed up, 25mph. That's a cadence of 90rpm.

Yes, it's hot sweaty work, so I tend to do 15min sessions then rest to cool off.
Wearing very very little clothing works and so does riding the rollers outside.

I learnt to ride them by placing them in a doorway to give support and something to hold onto. Since then, I've made a platform that fits on the roller frame so I can stand up at normal height. Because the bike sits maybe 9" higher off the ground, it's problematical mounting and dismounting. Having the platform, my bike is a road-level and I can ride the rollers anywhere without needing any support ............ though it is easier if there's a chair back nearby to hold so I can clip in without wobbling off the rollers. Clipping out is simple and straightforward.

[Phil_Chadwick]

I disagree that there's little resistance on rollers. I reckon the effort is like going up a shallow hill.

That's my experience also.

I've got an 85" fixed bike on my rollers, and it's damn hard work compared to the same bike on a flat road.

[Mick F]

I've tried to calculate it, or at lest quantify it by finding hills that feel like roller riding.
Obviously, it depends on the speed you go up the hill, but I reckon riding on rollers in a high gear at circa 20mph is like climbing a constant 10% hill in a low/medium gear circa 10mph. Could also be like a 12% hill in a low gear at maybe 7mph.

Just put the rollers outside with my platform to show how it works.

The divide between the chipboard sheets (old MFI dressing table) holds the platform steady by locking onto the protruding frame hinges.
The two parts of the platform are held together by batons.

[Brucey]

the 'difficulty' on rollers varies with the rollers, the tyres, the pressure, the rider weight. No two roller sets (of a design that differs in any respect whatsoever) are likely to behave in the exact same way, and (in detail) no two bikes are, either.

cheers

[whoof]

the 'difficulty' on rollers varies with the rollers, the tyres, the pressure, the rider weight. No two roller sets (of a design that differs in any respect whatsoever) are likely to behave in the exact same way, and (in detail) no two bikes are, either.

cheers

There must be a huge variation. I've hit in excess of 50 mph on rollers on 'standard' road gears but couldn't pedal any quicker, I've a friend how can ride 25 miles on rollers in 45 minutes (32 mph)- his best flat time trial time is longer than 1 hour (24 mph) and the speed record for rollers is 208 mph which eclipses any motor-paced, faired or even downhill records. It was done on gearing with a development of 150 feet. If my calculation are correct this would need a 240 tooth chainring if you had an 11 sprocket with a 700C wheel (23 mm tyre).

[Phil_Chadwick]

the 'difficulty' on rollers varies with the rollers, the tyres, the pressure, the rider weight.
cheers

as will be the case on the road.

If you take the same bike on the road as rollers, with the same rider, that's as reasonable a comparison as you can probably get.

My rollers have a belt driving the front roller from the back, and that system is going to be fairly lossy.

[Mick F]

I'll bow to the experience of other folk, but I stand by what I said.
I can only tell you about what I see and feel on my Elite Parabolic rollers with Mercian with 700c 23mm tyres at 120/85psi. I can pull the top gear of 53/12 on them, but not for long. Getting above 30mph with me - on mine - with my bike - is impossible for any sustained riding. I can do it, but not for long.

I have tried riding the rollers with the Raleigh Chopper, but that was rather "odd" with the odd wheels, not to mention the thick chunky tyres I've tried the Moulton too, but that was terribly difficult with the small wheels and the suspension. I gave up PDQ.

Here's a trace from my Garmin 705 in Jan 2013 on Mercian.
Green is speed, and red is HR. You can see when I stopped to rest, and you can see that I reached nearly 32mph.
The faint trace is the altitude with GPS switched off.
Dunno what the speed zero blips were. Too long ago to remember what happened.
I no longer monitor speed and cadence or HR, so any riding on the rollers now is technology free except for the time of day via the living room clock.

[jamesvillafc]

This was my work out according to the wahoo cadence and bluetooth sensor, however my gear was set to large sprocket at front and smallest at back at 96 avg cadence, something not quite right , tonight i will ride on the road with my strava app tracker and cadence sensor to compare data / speed

[Mick F]

A quick check for speed versus cadence, is to use the arithmetical formula with gear inches and a 700c wheel.
You can cross-check your info to see if it's correct.

Speed = Gear X Cadence divided by 336

Gear = Speed X 336 divided by Cadence

Cadence = Speed X 336 divided by Gear