Roller diam. and resistance

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Soul-tez
I'm about to make my own rollers and I'm wondering how the diameter of the drums relate to the resistance. The borrowed Minoura Mag rollers that I'm using now use 4" drums that seem to have very little resistance with the Mag unit belt removed. The Kreitler rollers in the Performance catalog have 3" rollers without a Mag unit. Does this really work?

I'm considering watching The Godfather while spinning on this thing. I think it is 3 hours long. Any other suggestions?

Wow, you're really going to machine your own rollers, huh? Cool. Can you really do this cheaper than it costs to just buy a set?

i have ridden Tacx rollers with smaller diameter roller and minouras with larger dianmeter, and from my observations the larger roller is noticably easier to pedal.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Soul-tez
I'm about to make my own rollers and I'm wondering how the diameter of the drums relate to the resistance. The borrowed Minoura Mag rollers that I'm using now use 4" drums that seem to have very little resistance with the Mag unit belt removed. The Kreitler rollers in the Performance catalog have 3" rollers without a Mag unit. Does this really work?

I'm considering watching The Godfather while spinning on this thing. I think it is 3 hours long. Any other suggestions?

From Kreitler web site:

Smaller drums generate load from tire flexing, or scrubbing. The smaller the drum, the more tire flex, and therefore a greater resistance. The Kreitler Dyno-Myte has a 2.1/4" diameter and the Dyno-Lyte has a 3" diameter will provide a hefty workload without the need for a fan.

In my limited experiene something around 3 inches in diameter seems to be about right.