Rollers

A colleague at work sent me the a YouTube clip featuring a young woman ("Siri) riding her rollers while making an omelette in her kitchen.

That's pretty good. I have rollers, but have never tried making my steel-cut oats while riding them. That'd probably be disasterous. Afterall, I once crashed into my living room's coffee table while watching The Italian Job. But he never asked if I've watched a high speed car chase, or made an omelette while riding them. He was just curious about the rollers.

Anyway, my colleague confided that he rarely used his because of a confidence issue.

I can remember having that feeling the first few times I rode my rollers. Mounting/dismounting, let alone riding on steel drums several inches above a concrete floor can be unnerving at first. It's not unlike learning how to ride a bicycle. But like riding a bike, confidence increases with repetition. Soon, you're not even thinking about how you're riding as much as you're enjoying the feeling of it.

This is why I like rollers. You're literally riding a bicycle, balancing and all. The action of the hips plays a big part of this, and in my opinion, is much more natural on a set of rollers than when on a bike that is anchored squarely into a stationary trainer.

I much prefer riding rollers over the trainer. I suppose I can get away with this because I do most of my winter riding outside. But when the weather is bad, or I'm in a time crunch, rollers are a great way to get a recovery spin in, or to work on cycling form/cadence.

If you're new to rollers, set them up in the middle of a door frame. That way, you can brace yourself until you've got your form dialed in properly and can ride with confidence.

When ready, consider giving one of my go to roller workouts a try.

Warmup
05:00 Warmup spin

Mainset
5 x 5 mins at high cadence with 3 mins of easy spinning in between each interval.

hint: spin up to where stroke becomes choppy, then back off about 5-15 RPMs &  hold that for the 5 min interval.

5 x 1 min at wobble cadence. Try to smooth out the stroke

Cooldown
10 mins easy spin

Happy Friday. Thanks for reading.