How many miles did you ride in January?

[Rob Jones]

Hi Shawn. Try the rollers at club night. They are top of the range but I reckon any aluminium ones are nice to ride on. Mine were cheap but a top brand and lifetime guarantee. I tryed plastic tapered ones beforehand and didn't like them at all. I find my tyres go all silver but doubt the rollers wear them any quicker than the road. I certainly wouldn't botherchanging tyres for rollers or turbo. What a waste of time! I never nnoticed much wear when I had a turbo either. You are not braking, probably not accelerating as much, there's no debris and the surface is smooth. Specific indoor training tyres is the biggest load of bollox ever in my opinion. For people with too much money and time.

You can't beat being out on the road though Shawn. No indoor training is any kind of compensation. I admire anyone can put up with more than an hour of any indoor training, it sucks. So that's probably why you didn't get on with your turbo. I'm not sure time passes any quicker on rollers!

[Chris Tasker]

I think CAN can beat being on the open road Rob. At this time of year there's far more physiological gain to be made on the turbo than fighting poor weather and poor roads.

There is a reason why the guys at the top of domestic TT-ing spend more than 75% of their training hours indoors! no junk miles. I'm not claiming it's exciting or improves road handling etc but there's a strong argument for doing pre-planned, structured sessions on the turbo.

Depends what a rider wants from their riding/training, each is a compromise, it's either boring and tedious (turbo) or not as efficient as it could possibly be (road).

[Rob Jones]

very true Chris. This morning is a perfect example. I totally agree indoor training is more efficient. Suppose I was just directly responding to Shawns post about not getting on with turbo and considering rollers. My point is they are not all that different, and that in my opinion the experience of riding on rollers is more akin to riding turbo than real riding on the road. This topic is in the coaching area however suggesting that Shawn is very interested in getting faster. Plus we know he has limited time. Plus we know the weather is dire this winter. Some form of in door training is probably a no brainer. personally given reasonable weather and light, I would rather spend each and every hour spent indoor training outdoor training.

[xrayspecs]

Definitely give the rollers a go. Can't beat the open road though.
I went for the sports crafters ones which were on offer ( a previous post), they are aluminium and seemed a bit more tricky than Chris Tasker's rollers to start with.
They take a little while to master so don't give up and remember if I can master them anyone can.

[GI]

305 on the road plus about 84 on turbo sessions...