Bicycles - Bicycles: Bicycle Price Comparison

At Team Bicycles HQ winter inevitably means that any consistent cycling requires the option of not going out.

Using a turbo trainer or rollers means that we can ride whenever we want but if you don’t have either which one should you start with?

We use both and they both have very significant, but different, benefits.

So there’s you first answer – buy a turbo and some rollers…. If that’s not an option then there are several ways to come at the problem.

Let’s first list the pro’s and con’s of each:

Turbo Trainer Pro’s :   

Resistance – the turbo offers your legs the opportunity of more effort as standard. This means you can work them harder, some come spring you will be faster.

Stability – for hard sprints and riding out of the saddle the turbo is best for all but the most skilled bike handlers. For most of us this even extends to taking a drink when compared with rollers.

Virtual Reality Turbo Trainer – If you like your tech and you have the budget you can ride a myriad of famous or epic courses watching the road roll under you wheels and feeling the resistance increase as you climb through the mountains.

Turbo Trainer Con’s :   

Resistance – unless you disengage the unit you will always being working against your turbo. This might sound obvious but it means that there isn’t really such a thing as an easy turbo ride

Boredom – Life sapping dullness is the trademark of indoor trainers but the turbo is uber-dull. Yes you can throw one of the excellent Turbo Training DVDs but at the end of the day you’re working your legs, not riding your bike… though not entirely fair on the virtual reality turbos.

Roller Pro’s :

You ride your bike – it sounds simple and it is. You take your bike, put it on the rollers and ride it. No wheel changes, special tyres or skewers. Best of all it’s exactly like riding your bike.

Anyone can do it – I wanted to get this in here to slay the myth that it takes some sort of gift to ride rollers. If you can ride your bike you can ride rollers… your chimp will work quite hard to convince you otherwise for the first few minutes and then it’ll get bored and you be a roller god.

Cadence is king – No resistance means fast legs and that means bike speed, less joint pressure and better pedalling technique.

Portability – Rollers are lighter than turbo trainers and (as above) they’re easy to jump on and off of, so they make a great way of warming up at a busy event. Warm legs are faster and break less.

Roller Con’s :

Hard efforts – you can get resistance units for rollers but the fact is that when you hit your twentieth flat-out interval you won’t be concentrating on staying upright and you will probably crash and die… or bruise yourself a bit.

Numbness – Now this could just be me but I find that my position remains quite static on the rollers and, after 25 minutes or so, this results in numbness in the ‘saddle contact area’, which isn’t pleasant.

Now this might be enough to make your mind up but we also need to consider why you want to ride through the winter, and why you ride in the first place.

Even for the most die-hard indoor training fans riding the turbo or rollers is a pretty dull pursuit so unless you know why you’re doing it the kit is likely to become expensive furniture pretty quickly.

Personally I spent last winter almost exclusively on rollers – I had just started riding with the local club and I wanted to keep my legs spinning and maintain the fitness I had achieved. The rollers kept my interest and they felt like an activity in themselves. They did wonders for my cadence and bike handling confidence that both translated to the road.

This winter I’m following a 13 week intensive bike training plan that has been set for my son by his team coach and the rollers have become something we do very occasionally on a recovery day when our legs are a bit stiff.  They will see more action pre-race through the season than they have all winter.

The turbo has become a training tool that allows us to do hard efforts out of the saddle, lung-burning intervals, single leg pedalling and consistent threshold tests…. no karma, no zen – pure science and effort.

So there you are, hopefully a reasonably objective personal view of your choice.

Of course if you’re still not sure you could contact us, we’d be delighted to help.