Four reasons to train on rollers versus fixed wheel indoor setups

I’ve no idea if riding rollers for 30 mins several times a week will make me stronger. All signs however point to yes. In any case, I’m not sure I care. The puddles of sweat underneath suggest effort and benefit. I’ll take it.

I initially labeled them complicated when they came from Elite (stupid Internet) - which is probably why they sat unboxed for months. That, and I’ve not been motivated to do structured training for years. But now I get it. Rollers - these in particular - feel like more of a traditional training tool than many modern Smart Trainers; an analogue rebuke to omnivorous cycling tech.

Would I recommend them for a 3-hour Zwift? No. But I don’t want to Zwift. Ever. Elite’s Quick Motion rollers are the stopgap to foregoing high intensity efforts that I’ve been after. Here’s why I’d recommend them over fixed wheel setups.

Christ, they’re efficient. 15 x 30. Ramps. Big Blocks. My Strava reads like I’ve morphed from roller-curious to roller-obsessed, their awesomeness growing with each sync. It’s the first bit of structured training I’ve done in years (check out these recommended 30-minute sessions). They’re proving addictive. I might even be enjoying myself. I’m routinely downstairs in a grim but well-lit storage locker spinning 4 times a week. It is 2017 again. I care about having good legs come Spring, even if it means some turbo time.

Yes, you can do the same workouts on any trainer – rollers or otherwise. Rollers amount to more than simply turning the pedals however; they build stability, too, something I desperately lack. I’d argue I’m getting more of the training I need, and in small structured blocks that neatly fit into a busy-ish schedule. As my interest wanes in doing winter ride levels of laundry, I’m am defaulting to them more often.

If you lack stability and core strength, read on. I know I lack core strength. Despite this, I’ve not changed my training much other than recently adding 10 minutes of daily foam roller time to my routine. This is insane, given how, in two weekly 30-minute core sessions, I could compensate and be stronger, draw more power from a strong midsection and enjoy more general suppless. Slothfulness, however, generally wins.

Lightweight and compact, rollers are a natural companion for 30-minute efforts, warming up and cooling down.

Rollers have stepped in as a good solution. You can’t simply tune out on the QM’s, but are forced to engage core, arm and shoulder muscles if the desire is to stay upright, which it should be. The result is a muscular engagement you wouldn’t get otherwise - a tangible benefit that’s immediately transferable to more strength and better posture on the road.

They are compact and transferable. Euro flats don’t come with big basements. And heavy turbo trainers aren’t easy to transport, which is why many spatially challenged, highly mobile athletes opt for rollers. The Quick Motion rollers fold up to roughly the size of two large stacked shoeboxes. They also tuck well under bed frames. Pull them out, hop on your bike and start riding. Their simplicity makes them an easy relationship to have in your life, no matter where it is you want to use them.

They float. And floating is awesome. There’s about 5 cm of linear float on the QM rollers. So when pedalling at higher intensity or standing up, the give mimics some of the dynamism of actual riding (IRL). Initially this feels unstable, so much that you think you’re going to come off because the base moves slightly backwards and forwards. But once you get comfortable with the play, it gets easy (with a wall at arm’s length). With time, each movement is a game at which I’m getting skilled and strong.

Elite’s Quick Motion rollers retail for around $300. More at https://www.elite-it.com/en/products/home-trainers/rollers/quick-motion.

Will it ever be cool to wear team kit?

It’s January, which means we’re riding again after a couple well-earned weeks off the bike. For you, wherever you’re reading this, hopefully you’ve had the same. Spring racing feels not so far away all the sudden. Time to get serious. We’ve been filling the hours with back episodes of Life in the Peloton, on Elite’s Quick Motion rollers and plotting Spring editorial on HNH. Go time.

A number of pithy press releases have also come across the desk in Jan. Among them, news from apparel juggernaut, Rapha, about the company’s EF-sponsored team kit, updated for 2020 and now available on their site.

They are flashy. They are loud. They are a little bit 90’s. The question remains: will you break the “rules” and wear it? “My theory is that it is a result of kits being used as a tool to satisfy multiple sponsors and stake holders within the team, it ends up leaving a lot of kits looking like corporate manuals repurposed as kit – designs that don’t take the average fans’ taste into account,” says Angelo Trofa, who designed the EF and Canyon//SRAM kits for Rapha on why historically team kits aren’t worn.

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Flashback time: it’s 2010 and I am standing in the French alps. Armstrong is riding his last Tour. I am wearing a long sleeve FDJ jersey bought in Bourg-d'Oisans. I am cheering. Happy, even. I do not know better. It feels awesome.

Who wears pro team kit? Only posers and real pros, right? Cycling Tips nailed the sentiment that’s become cycling gospel in a 2019 post; while largely (somewhat?) true - who honestly wears Sky blue? - it is also slightly ridiculous.

"Our intentions with the EF Pro Cycling kit for 2020 was an evolution of the 2019 design, injecting a new angle whilst telling the same story,” explained Angelo Trofa, product designer. “We wanted to create something which went in hand with the aim of the team: To disrupt the pro peloton. Design references were pulled from late ‘80s and early ‘90s surf and skate apparel.”

Team kit isn’t worn because it isn’t earned. It’s really that simple. And from a fan POV, with sponsors, team names and riders changing all the time, team kit becomes a moment in time just as fast. (That Skil Shimano jersey might be vintage; looked at another way, just an open invitation for unwanted aspersions.)

HNH staffers aren’t pros, but we sure AF aspire to dress like them. Shaved legs, socks up high and an emulation of style that is such a massive part of cycling’s heritage. That’s the rub with the EF/Rapha kit: it’s still Rapha. Still awesome. Same everything. Yet that hesitancy remains.

If there’s one brand that will break the pro team kit “rule,” this is the one. While I don’t expect the road around me to be littered with bright pink, mullets and moustaches anytime soon, I do expect many will dawn the EF kit precisely because it’s as unique as several of the personalities they have riding for them.

Will you Karoo? Hammerhead makes a strong case for device migration

(PHOTO CREDIT: ABOVE) The Karoo is South Africa’s ‘soul space.’ A part of the country that attracts eccentrics, hippies, crafters and outsiders. (Thank you, Guardian travel ). Searchers of empty space and deserted gravel roads. And it’s from this dry, arid part of the continent that cycling’s most user-friendly head-unit borrows its name. So will it be your next bike device?

For Garmin and other cycling computers, Karoo’s migration from startup to competitor has been hard to miss. It’s used in more than 100 countries and has built a user community in unofficial support groups, with their blog content and through in-app Strava marketing. Never have I rode with such a chatter-inducing piece of tech. Fans include ex-pro George Hincapie; a Velonews profile of Bobby Julich’s Pinarello Grevil has the stealthy black square perched and ride-ready.

If you’ve eyed its features, you’re not alone. It is simple and intuitive to use (though I still struggle with a couple key features) and always improving (recent upgrades included support for e-drivetrains Di2, Sram, Campy EPS and Garmin’s Varia). Weighed against the feature-sets deemed essential by most (by HNH, anyway) - weight, nav and battery life - it is the market leader in many respects. Let’s look at it against those features and the device many will liken it to, the Garmin 1030.

The weighting is the hardest part - Somewhere in a New York City boardroom, a group of Hammerhead product managers and designers are scrutinizing Karoo’s hardware. It is noticeably large. As one curious onlooker remarked during a recent club ride, it’s downright beefy.

To be exact, the Karoo weighs 54 percent more than the Garmin 1030. In future iterations, it’s easy to imagine buttons cut (5 in the Karoo versus 3 in the 1030) and more reliance placed on the device’s phone-like touch screen. Once clicked in, rest assured, the weight is unnoticeable. Steering clear of a device for weight-weenie rage-inducing 68 grams is ridiculous.

The Hammerhead device is definitely beefy: 192 grams compared to 124 grams for the Garmin 1030.

Another item to note: though the company’s site says “the Karoo is compatible with any quarter-turn compatible Garmin mount,” it wasn’t with mine. If fit, but it was crazy tight. I was concerned about cracking the backplate so I only used the Hammerhead-issued mount.**

Navigation - Where Hammerhead has made the most compelling case for user adoption is with its navigation capabilities. Uploading or creating routes on the 1030 is painful by comparison; you have to download GPX or equivalent files, then navigate Garmin’s complicated file system to populate, sometimes requiring multiple attempts. The in-ride experience is also lesser then; following the triangle along the route isn’t hard, but it isn’t obvious or good, either. Garmin will surely remedy this; mapping is very static and out of step with other touch screen experiences.

Using the Karoo is markedly different. I often pull people’s routes from Strava when planning for trips or exploring nearby roads. Karoo has nailed this user-experience:

• Log-in to your Karoo profile online.

• Download the GPX file from Strava.

• Drag and drop the file onto your Karoo profile page, route builder section on your laptop.

• It auto-populates on your device.

Dead-simple. Route planning anywhere in the world will never be the same. The turn-by-turn instructions are easy to spot on the large colour screen and you can still view in-ride vitals (power, HR, etc…). One routing function I’ve not yet mastered is creating in-ride directions, though I now know this involves a long hold while stopped, dropping a pin in the desired location and routing directions auto-populate - something I’ll have to try again next time I need alternate routing options home.

The juice is loose - One of the options I’ve come to love most on the Garmin 1030 is the “auto-off,” which effectively leaves you with a blank screen while riding but still capturing data. This prolongs battery life to more than the stated 15 hours. The stated battery life of the Karoo is also 15 hours; you can play with the brightness and manually put the device to sleep, but the same auto-off function isn’t available. That said, the device keeps plenty of charge. One percent lasted for 10 kilometers on a recent ride where I came in on fumes. The battery life held fine (deep sigh of cold-sweat inducing relief).

Charge times from zero are also quicker with Karoo; getting to 100% took about 2.5 hours versus a 70% charge for the 1030 over the same time period. I’d have to say the devices are pretty even here; if you’re really after long battery life, the Garmin might even have the edge with the above mentioned auto-off capability. I rarely spend more than 4 hours consistently in the saddle however, so for my purposes, either device offers more than enough.

Migrating from the Garmin Ecosystem - Why isn’t the navigation better on other computers? Why are route uploads sometimes difficult? Because Hammerhead as modelled Karoo’s UI like a phone - now familiar and ubiquitous ecosystems for all - you can’t help but ask yourself these and other questions when starting to toy around and ride with it.

Yes it takes a little use to get familiar with the hardware, but any pain points are short lived. DC Rainmaker goes deep on device’s functionality more than I care to and here is a side-by-side comparison of both device’s functionality - but again, against features I think average athletes care about most, Karoo makes a compelling case.

I love the Garmin 1030 and most of the company’s power and GPS devices; they do have user challenges, however, which Hammerhead has addressed. I suspect, given their size differences, one makes a good acquisition target for the other, swallowing up a better UX into slightly better hardware. But that’s pure speculation. For now, Karoo will continue to evolve, as it has since its initial release, and the users who’ve grown to prefer it’s Android-powered OS, will continue to extol its virtues relative to the devices that have long-dominated cycling.

The competition is good. In the Karoo, it has given birth to a very slick, very capable, very user-friendly alternative many should strongly consider.

**I’ve since chatted about this with Hammerhead. They maintain that the “standard quarter-turn mount interface works with aftermarket brackets.”

Ben Perry continues his ride into difficult 2019 transfer market

The brutality of cycling never stops. Off-season. On-season. It’s all the same. A tireless grind. Either you’re riding full gas around road furniture in hopes of making a top-ten, or you’re chasing a contract in hopes you’ll be able to do it all again next year. What a beautiful, awful, amazing and terrible hamster-wheel.

Sure, it all looks glamorous from ten thousand feet. Riding your bike for money. Travelling around the world. Training hard day-in, day-out. However with changes to team sizes, license swaps and teams folding regularly, it’s a precarious line of employment. Some would even say unsustainable. Ask Ben Perry - the 25-year-old with/formerly of Israel Cycling Academy (or whatever the team’s going with in 2020). He’ll tell you.

Perry is a talented, hard-working Canadian rider who had a very decent 2019. He pulled second in the GC at the Tour of Korea, second on a stage of the Volta a Portugal and a couple other solid results. Not big name races, no. But he rode for a pro-conti team. They don’t get a dance card to every prom. Regardless, he showed talent - enough to warrant another lap around the sun.

Alas, he might not get one. Despite verbal assurances that he showed enough promise to continue - Perry is out of contract and looking for work. We chatted as he was on the hunt for a new opportunity. He was introspective and sincere about his experience and plans for 2020. A young rider who is definitely not ready to hang it up, but understands the meat grinder that is cycling might be making that decision for him.

Tell me about 2019 with Israel Cycling Academy - what were the highs and lows?

2019 was a mixed-bag of a year for me. I got sick a bit, crashed. Then I came back to Canada, did a big training block and from about April onward - contributed a lot. I had some good results in Europe, a great ride at Tour of Estonia, a great Tour of Korea, was second overall, and then raced in Belgium and showed some good form. It’s hard to see the tangible, good ride, bad ride, in all that. But from Tour of Estonia onward I had good results and a good period supporting the team.

In 2020 ICA is moving to the World Tour but your contract isn't being renewed. Where does that leave you for next year?

There’s no spot for me at the new WorldTour team, but that’s kind of the way the cycling world works. It’s normal. This guy knows that guy who knows that guy, and at the end of the day, they have to cut a bunch of riders. I was told to be positive, but with the team’s plans solidifying, next year doesn’t leave me with a lot of options, especially with the number of pro-continental teams going down from 24 to 17. Being a Canadian rider doesn’t help much either, cause a lot of sponsors aren’t interested in riders from markets where they don’t do business. It’s tough.

Presumably looking for a team, what's that process like (so late in the season)?

I’ve been really lucky with people pointing me in different directions to talk to people, so I’ve got a few things going but nothing signed or anything. I’ll definitely be able to race my bike somewhere, it’ll just depend at what level and where. It’s stressful. You see it this year that there are riders in the prime of their careers retiring or dropping down levels just to keep going.

How would you describe the 2019 transfer market?

It’s been really crazy. It seems like there’s a collection of teams that are hiring exclusively from certain places. One Italian team is taking only Italian talent, for example. Another taking only Norwegian and Danish riders. It’s been bad for a lot of guys I’m talking with. Hopefully that changes in 2020.

I had three years with ICA and I’m really happy I improved every year. The thing with that is, everyone is getting better every year. Masters riders, kids racing and professionals. None of them are ready to give it up. Right now it’s not looking like I’ll have a chance to ride on any professional level teams; I’m speaking to quite a few continental teams, but right now, nothing.

What's your fallback if worst case, nothing pans out?

I’ll be working hard on finishing my degree by winter 2021; but regardless of what happens I’ll always be riding my bike.

Dan Martin and Nils Politt are set to lead the new-look WorldTour team in 2020 - with the team's talent, how do you think they'll fare next year?

This team going to the WorldTour next year is a pretty big step. The team is getting a lot of support from Katusha and a lot the experience that goes with it. You never know the trajectory of riders, so we’ll have to see how they come out Down Under and onward from there.

Made by hands in Slovakia: sophistication and simplicity dot Isadore's new Autumn kit collection

The Velits brothers never wanted the spotlight in their racing careers. The same is true in their careers as kit makers. Both are self-described introverts who identify with the simpler side of cycling. Their ability to make attention-grabbing kit stems more from experience than a desire to get noticed. The results are only getting better.

“When we built Isadore, it was to create simple stuff we’d wear if we didn’t need to wear team kit,” says Peter Velits (pictured above), an Isadore Apparel co-founder. (His brother and co-founder, Martin, handles product design while Peter manages the company’s business-end.) “We’re both introverts. Our designs have always reflected that.”

If you haven’t seen it yet at your LBS, Isadore’s AW releases are lit-up by yellows and reds to celebrate the season. Their Medio Jacket - considered a signature piece by the company - has been completely rebuilt using better fabrics and more reflective panels. “We are particularly proud on this one,” Peter says about their new kit.

Using their time as professionals for inspiration - Martin raced with HTC Highroad and Quick-Step, and Peter with Quick Step and BMC - most of what’s new has been refined, specifically the cuts. That element - fit - is a clear example of two guys hitting their stride in the apparel game.

I’ve ridden in Isadore for the last couple of seasons - first taking note of it while sitting in a pub in Cambridge, copy of Rouleur in-hand, sipping a pint post-ride. (Christ, I miss the Panton.) Their ads tapped into a vision of cycling I enjoy most, rooted in scenery and travel. From that point onward, their kit has consistently delivered something very unique. Much of it feels like Rapha c.2007 (in that many are merino-based designs), when that company was smaller, and their attention to detail that much greater.

The Long Sleeve Shield Jersey (left, above) - new for Autumn - is a near-perfect three-season jersey. At 72 kgs and 6’1, the medium is cut slim with slightly tapered sleeves (next-to-skin fit when worn with a short sleeve base layer) and wind-paneling on the chest and neck (good enough to withstand a little light rain and plenty of wind).

There are details aplenty here to gawk at: large circles on the lower left back - a very cool design element; the high-contrast beige and navy colour; the elbow pads. This is a jersey reeking of class, subtlety and sophistication, its weight capable of riding through temperatures as low as 7 degrees comfortably - with all the accessories, perhaps colder. I really dig the 70’s vibe and can’t help sing a little Steely Dan when wearing it.

For colder winter rides, there’s the TherMerino Jersey (in black, dried tabacco and cabernet). Temperatures haven’t dictated wearing this jersey yet (in my part of the world), but at quick glance, the warm fleece lining + merino construction and cut are great (left slightly roomier to accommodate a warm, winter base underneath).

My favourite from the company’s AW designs is perhaps its simplest: their grey and black winter face mask/neck warmer with hood. Talk about outstanding, user-driven design. The entire neck is covered in wind-blocking fabric, as is the hood. I have a massive head and it still fits comfortably and looks good underneath my helmet. Made from merino, it’s the cold-weather accessory you’ve been wanting for years but never been able to find.

All in, excellent fall and winter jerseys for a couple of introverts. My sense is, that while the quality of this year’s collection from the company is already very high, the best of the Velits brothers, from a design sense, is yet still to come.

Watch this space…