Old man on rollers:
Smoother helps a lot on seated climbs. Those biased studies of pros hammering were all done on flat TTs. Yep, rollers won't help you hammer, I know a great shock, but there it is. Want to see how smooth you are? Sit down on your trainer, get in a very low gear, and pedal at 115-120 rpm for 20'. Nothing to it, right? Actually, I could do that in my 60s, but now I'm down to 105-110 for long periods. Smooth is all about only putting force on the pedals that's tangential to the pedal circle, i.e. no wasted effort, no bouncing.
These are ancient Bike Nashbar rollers with ABS drums. The drums used to be ribbed, but I've long since polished all that off. The hand lamp at the rear is a heat lamp to preheat the fluid resistance unit. It gets cold out on our shop in winter. The resistance unit isn't very strong, only gets up to maybe 500w, but plenty for me.
The post on my right is there, well, because I'm old and want things a bit easier. Various interval workouts are tacked to it. I want to stop, I just lean to my right and stop. I also get dressed in the morning while standing, pants, socks, and shoes. Every little bit helps. Falling is not good.
Oh - the door behind me is for our resident hobbits.