Sunday, December 7, 2008

Rollers Update

Alright, now that I've had them for a few days I can give my first feelings on them.

So far so good. I've gotten used to them quite quickly. There is a very quick learning curve, once you get the confidence that you aren't going to fall they are quite simple.

In my first half hour on them I managed to get my water bottle, reach my back pocket to fiddle with my iPod and ride with one leg, then finally no hands. I've ridden for 30 minutes each day since getting them and have simply been working on these skills as along with simple balance.

One of the concerns I had in getting rollers was that I was told you can't do power workouts, you can only spin all the time. This turns out to be only partly true. Fair enough I can't do standing climbing exercises, however, if you drop your bike into the heaviest gear, you can definitely break out a heavy sweat. Some intervals I've been doing have been 5 minutes trying to keep the bike speed above 50kph, and I'll tell you, rollers can make your legs burn.

That being said, there will be a lot of good time trial action going on this winter where I can work on maintaining a constant effort for extended periods of time. I'll just have to work on explosive power at the gym.

17 Days till Christmas!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Those rollers look pretty sweet. I'm not a fan of the trainer, I'd rather be out in the rain to be honest with ya. I haven't watched the Giro but I'll see if I can get my hands on a copy. Youtube search 2008 Vuelta a Espana. I think it's stage 13, pretty sick stuff. When are you heading home for xmas?