PharmD

Anyone try this trainer? Is it worth it? Looking to make my winters a little more enjoyable.

surgeonstone

If you have to ride a trainer, this is the one to have. I will take 10 degrees and snow any day but this trainer is excellent. The motion makes it far more comfortable than a rigid trainer and one can actually put in one or two hours on it without Getting too squirrelly.

2ndGen

+1.

Excellent.

CornUponCob

I have one and it's worth it. You won't find a heavier flywheel anywhere except for on a stationary bike.

Although actually the 12 pound flywheel add-on plate makes quick accelerations for intervals tough.

It has a huge footprint and I think weighs 65 pounds flywheel included.

gsteinb

I'm not sure why anyone would buy this over rollers with a resistance unit. And at $500 you're getting in the range where one should consider the possible benefits of a training system like the e-motions.

FastRod

Or you could toughen up and ride =D, I don't really believe in those trainers. Best part of cycling is the scenery, wind, and the sounds of nature. Not to mention I love the feeling when your tyres just roll on all kinds of terrain, best feeling ever!

surgeonstone

The reason is simple enough, with rollers you are concentrating on not falling off. With a trainer you are able to just focus on pushing yourself hard. Having had a set of rollers for the first two decades of my cycling life was great, however I would take a good trainer over rollers any day. Much better workout. If you live in Australia great, cycle year round. Up here some just don't want to mess with snow and ice. I understand that and don't think saying HTFU is of much value. I will say though that cycling outdoors, on a cold winter's day, snow where it belongs on the side of the road has it's own special charms that should not be discounted too quickly.

gsteinb

That isn't at all correct with the emotions, and it's not really correct about regular rollers with a resistance unit. I rode minouras for years and I could dial up the watts just fine without that sense of being locked in.

surgeonstone

No emotions here, just observations, some wrong as I was reading your post on an iphone and saw rollers but skipped over resistance unit. No experience with that particular creature.

gsteinb

In my experience the rock and roll is a novelty item. Once you're used to the fact that you have side to side movement the challenge has ended and you have a unit that is unnecessarily larger and more expensive than its sibling.

surgeonstone

I have had one for 5 years now, as solid and good as the day I bought it. My first impression, which still is a strong one, is immediate ass relief. On a rigid trainer your butt is stuck in essentially one position and the misery starts quickly and remains. With the rock and roll, the motion seems much more lifelike and comfortable. The result for me... a near 100 % increase in saddle time when on trainers.
As far as novelty, I could give a crap...I just want something that is a better ride. Now having said all that, I still vastly prefer the great outdoors. Even in bad weather it has it's considerable charms.

gsteinb

You would give a crap that it's a novelty?

Not sure I follow.

As to more comfortable ride I totally agree. I had a computrainer for many years and eventually sold it because I don't like fixed wheel trainers.

jrobe

If money was factor, I would rather have the cheaper KK Road Machine and a nice collection of Spinervals and CTS training DVD's. Without the training DVD's, any trainer is an object of torture. The DVD's make the system fun, interesting and useful for training.

simonaway427

https://i256.photobucket.com/albums/h...at03-33-56.jpg

I have the Rock and Roll - love it. Its not a novelty. Like others have said, rollers are great for balance and smoothness - and you can get some wattage out of them. But you want to really get the most out of the interval training sessions, a trainer is the way to go.

It is larger and more expensive, but worth it. Money shouldn't be a factor - Sufferfest vids are 10 bucks a piece - hardly a deal breaker.

gsteinb

You can get more than 'some' wattage out of floating rollers. I'm in the middle of a three hour session.

hhnngg1

I'm very proficient with rollers, and there is no doubt that you can go harder on the trainer when doing max efforts.

If you're going the same intensity on the rollers as your trainer, you're not training hard enough. I don't kill myself on my trainer all the time, but the times when I do go uber-hard, I go until I'm about to keel over and black out - I can't even see straight. There's no way I could go that hard on the rollers, especially for the 10sec all-out 10sec rest for 5 minutes type intervals where you need powerful accelerations which would throw you off the front of rollers on them.

But for less all-max workouts, I agree that rollers are fine. I can definitely get 300+ watts off my standard rollers with big gears and fast rpm. It's the uber hard efforts and max accelerations that are problematic on rollers as you need to spend enough time focusing on staying upright rather than hammering. ANd no, it's not remotely similar to doing it on the road, because the rollers are technically more difficult to ride than the road, so you compromise your high end effort because you have to focus on staying on them.

gsteinb

ok

haha

taken a look at some youtube searches for emotion rollers.

simonaway427

What everyone is saying is that generally, someone can go harder on a trainer than on rollers.

gsteinb

And I'm talking about specific products that allow one to ride without being locked in and go equally as hard.

hhnngg1

Yes, the emotions are easier to do sprint intervals on because of the float.

However, the $700+ price tag makes them not really priced in the same class as what people typically think as rollers, which are $100-$150. It's annoying when people genearlize about rollers about how they can do all these standing sprints as easily as they can on a trainer, when they're talking specifically about Emotions. It's a nearly completely different ride when you have that lack of risk of jumping off the front, which is a BIG deal on the rollers and significantly limiting for high-burst accelerations and especially standing hard accels. (Going off the side is not as big of a problem.)

webist

My Rock and Roll trainer should be delivered tomorrow. Timely thread.

gsteinb

I specifically put them in a different class above.

2ndGen

I tried rollers once. Didn't like them.
Rode standard trainers. Good for one thing. Peddling.
The R&R is good for peddling and for out of the seat sprinting.
I was concerned whether it would take my weight (220lbs).
It was as stable as a mountain. It didn't flinch.
And I tried to topple it. I love that feeling of stability.

KK knew what they were doing in making it as wide-stanced as they did.
Really, for a stationary trainer, there shouldn't be any complaints of it's footprint.
It's "stationary". For the benefits it produces, it's a tiny price to pay IMO.
If someone lacks 12" in either direction of their trainer floor space,
then they should just get the KK Road Machine.

The R&R is my first trainer that I've owned. I never got why people complained about trainers being boring until I read them comparing their trainers to R&R trainers. I've never had the displeasure of being stuck in one position for hours. Thankfully.

Yeah, we don't get that pretty Australian weather here year round. Sometimes, up in the Northeast, we can't even get our cars out of the driveway (much less our bikes). Real HTFUig is hitting a trainer when you'd rather be hitting the road.

And, while there is nothing better than riding outside, there is absolutely nothing worse than not being "able" to ride outside and not having the option to ride inside (especially when you are watching races on the tube and you get all jacked up to hit the road and there are 12" of snow on the ground).

Anyhoo...my 2 pennies.

hhnngg1

I don't have a KK Rock and Roll, but interestingly, I suspect that it's actually the technique antithesis of rollers.

On rollers, you have to hold a DEAD straight line. Even if you get out of the saddle, you have to hold a dead straight line, with minimal lateral wobble, or you'll go veering off the side.

Seems like the Rock and Roll actually let you get some lateral motion - as said, this usually leads to going off the side if you do this on a roller.

Again, I don't have a Rock n Roll so I'm just speculating here, but I do know that on my rollers, you're pretty much stock-upright like a tree, or moving around very daintily and still holding the bike essentially stock upright. Almost no extraneous lateral motion allowed (which seems a major point for technique training on rollers.)

2ndGen

I thought where the bike attaches at the skewer to the R&R, it would somehow restrict movement. But, it doesn't. I'd say I've angled my bike as far as 60 to 50 degrees.
And, when I get numb, I'll lightly lean to the left or right (like when I ride the road).