Kreitler small diameter rollers too hard ??

JoeOxfordCT said:

Hi All,

This is my first post. I live in Oxford, Connecticut and I am contemplating purchasing Kreitler Poly-Myte rollers with the 2.25 inch roller diameter for winter training. It says that the small diameter of the roller itself provides a "tongue draggin" load all by itself. I currently have an old set of Travel Track rollers with a diameter somewhere between 3 and 3.5 inches. I ride them all the time in the top 3 or 4 gears of my Mtn. bike with slicks with no problem. I should mention though that I am also in the process crossing over to the "dark side" of cycling with the purchase of a 2005 Felt F65 road bike (feltracing.com2005 f65.htmlOpen ↗). It's almost all Ultegra except for the crank which I'm having my LBS switch out for an FSA Energy compact.
Will there be much difference riding my road setup on the rollers over my Mtn. bike ? Do the small rollers really make that much difference ? I'd like to leave myself the option of purchasing the headwind fan at a later time if I still need more resistance. I currently just set up a normal house fan for cooling.
Also any comments on the FSA crank or Felt bike would be welcome too !! 🙂

I own a set of 2.25" Kreitler rollers and having owned a set of "standard" rollers in the past, I'm much happier with these. I'm a Cat 2 roadie who does NOT put out a lot of power and I can't do anything more than steady state tempo/threshold work on my rollers, there just isn't enough resistance. However, I don't ride my rollers with the intent of working at high intensities. If I want to do that, I use the Computrainer (I would use a standard wind/fluid trainer, but I don't own one!). Rollers don't mimic real world riding very well, so I use them strickly for recovery or endurance maintenance on bad weather days and to work on the weak spots in my pedal stroke. If I had the headwind fan, I would probably use my rollers for higher intensity workouts. On the other end of things, I do my easiest recovery days in the 39x17-15; which gets the wheels turning plenty fast for me to have no trouble balancing (although, in the 17 it can get a little tricky if I don't keep the cadence up).
I would recommend getting the road bike first, trying it on the rollers you have and then you'll know for sure.

Smartt/RST said:

I own a set of 2.25" Kreitler rollers and having owned a set of "standard" rollers in the past, I'm much happier with these. I'm a Cat 2 roadie who does NOT put out a lot of power and I can't do anything more than steady state tempo/threshold work on my rollers, there just isn't enough resistance. However, I don't ride my rollers with the intent of working at high intensities. If I want to do that, I use the Computrainer (I would use a standard wind/fluid trainer, but I don't own one!). Rollers don't mimic real world riding very well, so I use them strickly for recovery or endurance maintenance on bad weather days and to work on the weak spots in my pedal stroke. If I had the headwind fan, I would probably use my rollers for higher intensity workouts. On the other end of things, I do my easiest recovery days in the 39x17-15; which gets the wheels turning plenty fast for me to have no trouble balancing (although, in the 17 it can get a little tricky if I don't keep the cadence up).
I would recommend getting the road bike first, trying it on the rollers you have and then you'll know for sure.

Thanks for your response Mike,

I now have a couple of follow questions....
Have you tried and/or heard any feedback on using the Kreitler rollers with either the flywheel and/or fan ?
From what I've read the flywheel(s) (you can use either 1 or 2 on one roller unit) allow for a more realistic road feel.....supposedly you can even coast with them ?? Is there a training benefit to this ?? 😕 The fan I can see providing more resistance along with the cooling benefit...
I appreciate your feedback.....I think I can order the 2.25 unit without worry now ! :p

JoeOxfordCT said:

Thanks for your response Mike,

I now have a couple of follow questions....
Have you tried and/or heard any feedback on using the Kreitler rollers with either the flywheel and/or fan ?
From what I've read the flywheel(s) (you can use either 1 or 2 on one roller unit) allow for a more realistic road feel.....supposedly you can even coast with them ?? Is there a training benefit to this ?? 😕 The fan I can see providing more resistance along with the cooling benefit...
I appreciate your feedback.....I think I can order the 2.25 unit without worry now ! :p

[font=Times New Roman]I have the Kreitler Challenger rollers with the head wind fan. I wanted to get some resistance to my rollers since I don’t have (or want) a trainer. I’m sure that trainers provide more resistance, but the headwind unit gives me more than enough resistance when I ride my rollers. [/font]

JoeOxfordCT said:

Thanks for your response Mike,

I now have a couple of follow questions....
Have you tried and/or heard any feedback on using the Kreitler rollers with either the flywheel and/or fan ?
From what I've read the flywheel(s) (you can use either 1 or 2 on one roller unit) allow for a more realistic road feel.....supposedly you can even coast with them ?? Is there a training benefit to this ?? 😕 The fan I can see providing more resistance along with the cooling benefit...
I appreciate your feedback.....I think I can order the 2.25 unit without worry now ! :p

I don't know anyone personally who has both the flywheel and the headwind fan. There are benefits to both accessories, but whether you *need* them or not is a matter of choice.
The flywheel provides for a more realistic road feel by providing the kind of inertia you experience while riding outside; which, yes, means you can coast. In the real world, the forward moving kinetic energy you experience provides the energy to allow you to coast. When stationary on rollers or a trainer, your only kinetic energy is rotational so your wheels slow down much quicker. Althought this will make your rollers feel more like riding on the road, this does not appear to be a major issue in terms of a training benefit: ncbi.nlm.nih.govquery.fcgiOpen ↗
The fan will not only increase the resistance (which some people need simply because they are strong enough), it will change the power band curve in a way that makes it more like real world riding as well. IOW, in the real world, power demands increase exponentially, but on standard rollers, power demands increase linearly; the fan changes that.

Smartt/RST said:

I don't know anyone personally who has both the flywheel and the headwind fan. There are benefits to both accessories, but whether you *need* them or not is a matter of choice.
The flywheel provides for a more realistic road feel by providing the kind of inertia you experience while riding outside; which, yes, means you can coast. In the real world, the forward moving kinetic energy you experience provides the energy to allow you to coast. When stationary on rollers or a trainer, your only kinetic energy is rotational so your wheels slow down much quicker. Althought this will make your rollers feel more like riding on the road, this does not appear to be a major issue in terms of a training benefit: ncbi.nlm.nih.govquery.fcgiOpen ↗
The fan will not only increase the resistance (which some people need simply because they are strong enough), it will change the power band curve in a way that makes it more like real world riding as well. IOW, in the real world, power demands increase exponentially, but on standard rollers, power demands increase linearly; the fan changes that.

Thanks again Mike,

Well then it seems to me that the flywheel and the fan would almost work against each other then with the flywheel's inertia being counter-acted by the resistance of the fan unit.....I had harbored some thoughts about purchasing one of each unit (flywheel, fan), however it would seem that the fan alone should do the trick....

I guess since I have an open forum here I should also note/ask that I have chosen rollers as my primary indoor trainer because of 2 reasons.

Reason 1: Rollers force me to work the entire time I'm on them, (stop pedalling -> fall down :eek: ....I can be lazy sometimes on a regular trainer and find my self spinning without much thought or effort. Also my computer works on rollers too ! :p
Reason 2: This may be a myth but I always worried about putting my bike into the "clutchs" of an indoor trainer. I have watched other folks at my LBS stand and climb on their bikes on an indoor trainer and the flex in the rear triangle seemed rather frightening (to me anyways). Even though I sometimes fall off my rollers, I rarely make it all the way to the ground. I usually catch myself on my wife's treadmill which I do rollers next to.

However, I do miss standing and climbing......While I can ride my rollers with no hands I have found that I can briefly "climb" out of the saddle on my rollers the effect is nothing like that found on a gym spin bike or riding outdoors as the cadence needed is extremely high. Consequently I really make an effort in the winter months here in Connecticut to get a ride outside on the weekends to keep my legs used to the effort of out of the saddle climbing. Perhaps with a fan unit out of the saddle climbing on the rollers will feel a little better....

Your thoughts ?? 😕