Training with rollers - Tacx Galaxia

[ChrisF]

ouch .... that sucks.

[EddieV]

Just an update on my roller resistance project

 

I changed the magnets on my projects to neodymium, and riveted them in, as opposed to gluing which didn’t work as well.

 

I added some thicker rim-tape to the wheel too to dissipate the heat generated by the induction.

 

Since above changes I’ve had no trouble at all. Had gone well over 90 minutes without failure. I still sometimes (10%) swivel the vintage “racermate” into place to do some hard grinding, but the resistance from the magnets is more than sufficient for tempo training. Love the setup as the bike moves naturally underneath me ……

 

The vintage racermate is perfect for rollers as it’s attached to the seatpost, and can be swiveled down into place, or "off" while riding.

 

The PowerTap hub together with Zwift is great to monitor power.

 

Lastly the brake block adjuster is quite useful as it helped in getting the distance and resistance setup between the rim and magnets.

 

The noise levels are very low with this setup too when the wind-trainer is "off" the wheel.

 

 

 

 

 

[NickGM]

Just adding in my experiences here...

 

I bought the Tacx antares while they were on sale at Takealot (briefly R2.7K, but just checked now and price is back up to R3.8K). They arrived just in time for the big cold front in the cape so I'm getting a good idea of what some of my winter training sessions will be like. For the first few minutes of trying to ride them I thought the purchase had been a terrible idea; I couldn't let go of my white knuckle death grip on the window frame next to where I'd set up. Fast forward 10 minutes and I'm happily pedaling away, clicking through the gears and probably getting over-confident (might end badly, will keep you posted).

 

As others have mentioned, two things really help when getting started:

1. Look further forward, well beyond your front wheel. Don't look at the front roller
2. Use bigger gears. The higher revs of the rollers help make balancing a lot easier.

Some other things I've noticed:

1. Sweat: my word. I'm not a sweaty dude but I guess I underestimate how much evaporative cooling happens when you're moving through air outdoors as opposed to being stationary inside. It wasn't pretty.
2. Resistance/Recovery. They don't provide a huge amount of resistance but this makes it really nice for recovery, and was/is possibly one of the main reasons for people using rollers I guess. I'd done a hard outdoor ride a day earlier, not crazy hard, but the sort of ride where the next day your quads have a dull ache if you have to go up a flight of stairs. Maybe other people don't get that, I'm not sure. Anyway, after a 20 minute session on the rollers my legs felt warm and loose and still feel that way today. So I'm ready to go again. That said, I got my heart rate up to about 140 during the rollers session and kept it there, so it was a decent workout as well.
3. You can't really "zone out" the way you might be able to a stationary trainer. Maybe that will change with time when balancing on them becomes second nature but if you're looking to pedal mindlessly, they might not be for you. 

Also I've heard good things about it improving your pedal stroke and balance. 

 

Anyway, just writing this if other people are thinking of going the rollers route. I'm sure zwifting (etc) is a lot of fun but I just wasn't prepared to spend the money on that. Happy with rollers.