Century on rollers?

That sounds like a long time staring at the wall.

If you're not already brain dead, you will be after that.

Dr.Hairybiker said:

Anyone ever done a century on rollers? I'm thinking of trying one. Thoughts?

I think it's an awesome idea! Go for it.

I have my bike & trainer setup right in front of a TV with a table nearby where I can set my water, remote, phone, yadda yadda. It's very convenient but I never thought about doing a century indoors. Thanks for the idea.

I would die of boredom before I would even hit 35 miles. How long can you ride on a trainer? I can't go for more than 60 minutes.

I've got a regular trainer and the most I've gone is two hours. But yeah, go for it. Now you got me thinking. I'd have to splice in the computer to the rear tire so I can keep track of the miles. I'll ask the girlfriend to be my SAG support. Her job will be to sit in the truck behind me and every now and then she bring me a drink or snack. And she'll change the cassette in the VCR. I wonder if she'd go for that. SMACK!! OUCH!! Sorry Honey. Nope, I guess I'm on my own.
Dr. H, Go for it.

Maybe I'm just weak, but I would definitely crack under such an undertaking. If you can actually do this, you are mentally tough! (or completely crazy, but I'll assume mentally tough.) If you try, please keep a log of what happened, and post it, as no matter what happens it should be entertaining to read. Best of luck.

Yeah, I don't know how well I would do keeping a log during a ride like this:

Mile 0: Ready to go. Everything set, plenty of supplies. Here I go....

Mile 36, Day Two: Walls seem to be closing in on me. The supply of Goo, snickers bars and diet coke is holding out.

Mile 74, Day Three: Wife came in to check on me. She's looking more and more like Phil Liggett. The only thing keeping me going is the 'Saved by the Bell' marathon on the TV.

Mile 98.5, Day Four: Flat, no spare...Damn.

I do about 2-3 hours a day on my trainer, generally I watch the Daily show followed by a movie. I'm not training for anything, just to try and smoke my buddies come spring. Longest I've done is about 4 hours, and at that point it just gets to my ass a bit - without the constant position shifting and occasional standing of riding outside, the thought of 5-6 hours is just a bit much.

Dr.Hairybiker said:

Anyone ever done a century on rollers? I'm thinking of trying one. Thoughts?

I just got a set of rollers, and 100 miles on it would kill me. How fast are you on your set? Is it a good pace to hold?

Iankatz said:

I just got a set of rollers, and 100 miles on it would kill me. How fast are you on your set? Is it a good pace to hold?

Well, I run Kreitler alloy rollers with a "headwind" fan, which adds resistance. I usually don't open the fan door more than halfway, I don't like a want such a wind that I freeze. I usually average 16-17 MPH on them for a ride of a couple of hours. I've done up to 50 miles (a couple of weeks ago).

Dr.Hairybiker said:

Well, I run Kreitler alloy rollers with a "headwind" fan, which adds resistance. I usually don't open the fan door more than halfway, I don't like a want such a wind that I freeze. I usually average 16-17 MPH on them for a ride of a couple of hours. I've done up to 50 miles (a couple of weeks ago).

I ride both rollers with no resistance (which are comfortable at about 22-25 mph) and a kinetics trainer. I do 90% of my riding on the trainer, as I can watch TV that way. I ride the rollers once in a while just to focus on my form, especially as spring approaches and I know I'm only a few weeks away from hitting the road.

Crazy. The only way I can handle time on my rollers is doing hellish intervals and the like, and even that way I have never been able to handle more than 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Regarding comments about speed on rollers:

Speed measured on rollers is almost completely irrelevant as you are not moving your weight through space and you are not encountering wind drag. Even in the case of using a resistance fan, you would only be reproducing half of the effect of drag experienced when riding outside; 1/2 being actual wind speed and 1/2 being "virtual" wind created by the riders movement through the air.

For example, I can comfortably spin at 32-35 Mph in a 53x14 on my rollers and I can sprint up to around 45 Mph in 53x12. Needless to say as I am not a Cat 1 or pro racer, I cannot do the same out on the roads.

I am not a physicist so I cannot suggest a formula for factoring in the differences between riding outside vs. on rollers although I would think there must be some way to factor in weight, resistance etc and come up with some kind of an assesment of "speed".

FWIW, though, heart rate zone training strikes me as a lot more relevant for indoor off-season training. I know that as long as my body learns to work less to do more I will inevitably be faster in the spring.

YMMV of course, just my thoughts.

As for the century, go for it! My max trainer/roller time is about 2 hours but I have a sufficient store of cycling DVDs laid by that I am thinking of attempting an indoor century myself...oy.

NW

I was thinking about this thread over the weekend and ended up doing right at 75 miles on my CycleOps Fluid2 trainer on Saturday using the Jets- Steelers game as a diversion. It wasn't too bad but I would much rather do a century outdoors than that any day. 😎

Agree completely that speed is an irrelevant measurement, but I think the point of this thread is finding pointless targets to make winter training more palpable.

Part of the reason I like my kinetics trainer so much is that its very much like riding the road, in terms of gearing. I'd say it's about like riding dead flat with no wind. I can quite comfortably tool along at what I'm guessing (no front wheel, but its little ring, middle cogs) is about 15-16MPH with my HR at 135 for hours and hours - a slow and sloppy pace. I can kick it into the big ring and stomp on my 14 and 15 and get my heart rate all the way up (175 for me).

On my rollers, its very hard for me to comfortably ride with my HR that low (135). To feel nice and stable I've got to be spinning more like 145-155 - which is fine, but I can't do that without a rest for 2-4 hours - great for an hour of intervals though.

Of course, I'm also just a lazy [censored].

[quote="grot"] <Snip>I think the point of this thread is finding pointless targets to make winter training more palpable.<Snip>

Duly noted, and a noble pursuit to be sure. Anything that keeps us off of the couch has to be good!

Cheers,

NW

🙂

Didn't some guy ride about 5900 kms on a trainer/rollers with only a few, short breaks? That's kind of crazy.