Riding a bike on rollers

Off-topic
1

I gave into temptation and bought some rollers. Not for the remains of my hair, but for my bike.

I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of years, and sometimes the only way to stop thinking about something is to do it. Sometimes it works out (as it did with my first good quality unicycle, and my concertina) and sometimes it’s an expensive way of getting the monkey off your back (as it was with the fixed wheel bike, the single row melodeon, the guitar, the ultimate wheel, the wife…")

So I bought some rollers. That’s not the same as a trainer.

On rollers, your bike sits on top, with nothing to hold it in place except gravity, and nothing to stop it falling off the side except concentration.

The back wheel rests between two rollers, and the front one rests on top of a single roller, which is turned by a band connected to one of the rear rollers. You ride the bike, and the back wheel turns the two back rollers, and the front roller turns the front wheel of the bike, and you can sit there for hours, pedalling until you lose concentration, wobble, grab the brakes and fall into the furniture.

Years ago (about 20 years ago :astonished: ) we used to have occasional roller evenings at the cycle club house. On a set of rollers, with nerve and skill, you can record silly speeds - 40mph or more - because there is no wind resistance. In the old days, cycle clubs used to have roller races in the winter, recording the “distance” covered in a set time.

It’s certainly more challenging than sitting on a static excercise bike (which requires no skill or concentration) and on a wet grey cold winter’s night, you can get half an hour’s exercise whilst listening to music - and without either having to drive to and from a nice place to ride, or riding through the mean streets of Carlton, dodging boy racers.

On the downside, with no cooling breeze, it’s pretty sweaty!

I haven’t tried it on the unicycle yet, but I guess it would be impossible for more than a few seconds. Also, it’ s along way to fall. We’ll see, maybe.

Anyone else ridden rollers? Any tips?

2

I seem to recall some photos from a charity road race where there was a set of rollers near to the start/finish line for cyclists to warm up on.
I may be wrong, but I think there were picture of a unicyclist trying it out.
It suspect it may have been Roger.

3

It’s a searchable topic…

Haven’t heard mention of it in a few years. Never tried it myself, but it doesn’t seem like something that would be sustainable unless you introduced some sort of friction into the system. Pushing against the friction might allow you to control your pitch (to front or rear).

The other scary aspect of rollers might be turning too far to either side. If you do, you might fall down between the rollers…

4

I have Amercian Classic rollers. They have very small spindles which increase the resistance considerably. Riding them is kind of like riding uphill the whole time. I still couldn’t imaging riding them on my uni, but they would certainly be better than the Kreitlers. Maybe after I have more years with a uni between my legs I’ll give it a go, but for now I’m too new to all of this.

5

I searched for “Mikefule’s new rollers” with no success.

Indeed, since your comment, I searched for “rollers” and found no recent thread with the word in the title, and no posts with the expressions “training rollers” or “riding on rollers”.

I was in a pub the other day and, just being friendly, I mentioned that it looked like rain later. I was told in no uncertain terms that the regulars had discussed the weather several weeks before, and I was warned to check the conversation log before trying any more conversational gambits like that. I don’t drink there any more.

6

Did they by any chance look like this?..

old-man.jpg

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Not with a buttonhole on the right lapel, no. Otherwise, a distinct similarity.

8

I’ve ridden bikes on rollers a few times Mike. I find the hardest part is getting going without swerving off the side (and with the bike on the rollers and the saddle at normal height you can’t touch the floor…). Once up to speed the worst thing is the lack of cooling, as you mentioned. OK as a novelty but I’ve never actually coveted a set myself - I prefer a real road even if it’s grim weather. Mind you I could be converted at this time of year (had the first ice of the season this morning - a few arse-clenching moments on the way to work…). What’s needed is some sort of teleport machine that measures the effort put in through the rollers then zaps you to your destination when you’ve done the equivalent ride.

Rob

(I haven’t searched for bike-driven teleport machines, so apologies if it’s already been discussed)

9

You know Mike - sometimes even I can’t tell whether you are being serious or ironic. And I have the benefit of knowing the real human and not just the virtual forum one.

Apologies this is off topic but I do love the idea of the pub “conversation log” though. Worthy of a thread all of it’s own. Imagine if people actually had to talk about new things in pubs, what a fascinating prospect;)

10

No one’s ever called it a benefit before. Thank you.

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I told you I didn’t remember any such threads in recent years… And part of the difficulty in searching stuff by topic is why I tend to harass people when they don’t use meaningful thread titles.

That has got to be the best comeback to the old “Use the Search” that’s ever been posted here. :slight_smile:

12

Rollers make for a good high cadence work out

I do some of my training on rollers. You just need two sturdy object to hold onto so you do not fall forward or back.

With a Coker at first be careful not to rock out of the rolls. Work slowly up tp speed until you learn smooth power transfer to the pedals. Other wise you
may start to bounce a bit.

First set up a 20 inch box fan in front of you. Have a towel handy to wipe the sweat. To increase the resistane lower the tire pressure.

At a few time trials I warmed up on my Coker with rollers between two cars. You can really spin on pavement after a unicycle warm up on rollers. Give it a try.

Yes I have many an hour on rollers with both a 36 Coker and a 43 Semcycle.

13

I bought Beloved this accordion for her bday last year and I’ve been messing with it myself a bit, playing some of the pipe tunes on the accordion.
They sounds pretty nice.
Problem is, I can’t get the left hand buttons worked out for the life of me.
Is there an “accordion for dummies” kind of guide you know of that might help me?

And remember, I’m not a musician, I’m a bagpiper.

accordion.jpg

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Something like this?

(I “used the search”) :smiley:

15

This is the least predictable thread creep of all time!

Pretty much each vertical row is a different kind of thing. So one row will be all the root notes, one row all the thirds, one row all the fifths, one row all the major chords, one row all the minor chords, and so on. Different instruments have more or fewer rows.

Then working from low to high you will find a clear pattern. I think it might go up in fifths. That would certainly make sense.

There is almost certainly a piano accordian forum. I base that on knowing that there is certainly a concertina form and a melodeon forum!

Here’s what Mr. Google suggests: http://www.reyesaccordions.com/Paco4512/accordion_forum_FAQ.html

16

For anyone–like me–unfamiliar with bike toys, here is a link to a short and fun video of what rollers look like in action. This was filmed by one of this year’s competitors in the 100 Miles of Nowhere. I believe she won her division as well.

On a related note, on September 20th of this year, I won the “Suburban Unicycle Division” of the 100 Miles of Nowhere with a time of 11 hours 59 minutes. I was not on rollers.

17

That would be me. :smiley:

The left hand buttons are arranged in rows by fifths. It’s an arrangement that makes sense in a musicians mind. It’s a convenient layout because oom-pah music and march music tends to change chords by fifths. That means that for the most part you are playing buttons that are close to each other. So it all really does make sense.

You are definitely going to be learning your circle of fifths though. And your thirds.

First bit is to learn the basic alternating bass pattern. See the “Merrily We Roll Along” in John Foss’ link. Next is the spiced up alternating bass pattern. See the “Oh When The Saints (alternating basses)” song in John Foss’ link.

Once you’ve got the basic bass patterns down you are ready to go. Most polkas and marches use the same basic pattern and chord progressions.

What gets more difficult is learning to play a scale with the left hand and then learning to add in some melody style bass accompaniment. At that point the arrangement of the buttons stops making as much sense. Your fingers will be moving all over in weird patterns.

Have fun. Learning to play “When The Saints Go Marching In” is great fun on the accordion.

18

Whoohoo! Fame at last.

The “stradella” layout, that the La Divina has, is indeed a ‘circle of fifths’ thing.
The problem I had was trying to make sense of the 120 button layouts (such as the one John linked to) in terms of the 48 button layout on the La Divina.
I do think I managed to get it figured. It would seem it has the same 6row layout that you described, but only goes from an E-flat to the E, the 120 has a larger range.

There is.
And they appear to be an entertainingly anoraky bunch of people.
I spent some of yesterday afternoon on some of them and people get very excited about finding an old accordion somewhere, pulling out the bass-section and transplanting it into their existing accordion.
Pimp my accordion indeed.

I was pretty much going to spend some google time on this issue yesterday anyway, when I saw your post I just couldn’t resist asking.

(Sorry John. Seriously tho, thanx for the link. I found several yesterday afternoon but not one that told me which fingers should play on which row. That is handy.)

Other John, interesting you should mention The Saints.
I play it on the pipes and we have a trumpeter who plays with us when we do the Remembrance Day Parades and stuff like that. He’s got quite a musical background and we’ve been messing around with Saints, resulting in a fabulous Dixieland-Highland version. I’m hoping Beloved will pick it up on the accordion soon so she can join us.

19

The Saints is a fun tune to dress up in various different ways.

I would amuse myself by transposing it to different keys. A neat benefit of the bass button pattern is that you can transpose to a different key just by starting on a different row. The fingerings don’t change. Just start using a different row of buttons and you’re playing in a new key. The challenge is in getting the right hand on the piano keys to figure out what the sharps and flats are in that new key.

20

Getting the thread back on track.

What kind of bike are you riding on the rollers? Do you still have the fixie?

I’ve been considering an indoor trainer to use with my fixie / single speed. It would be nice to keep my legs in somewhat cycling shape over the Winter. I’ve been considering rollers but I’m not sure if the resistance for most of them would be suitable for the gear I have on the fixie. I’d also have to ride down in the basement garage of the condo. The floor slopes to a center drain. So it would be difficult to get the rollers level. And rollers need to be level. So I’ll probably end up with a trainer that locks in the rear wheel. Not as much fun as rollers.