training ideas for cycle rollers

[greenmeansgo]

I recently got myself a set of training rollers, and I've enjoying using them when the weather is unappealing. I'm lacking any real structure so far, mainly just riding for a set length of time, occasionally seeing how long I can ride with no hands/ one foot etc, so I'm asking for ideas.

I'm after two things really

• fitness
• technique

For fitness I've got ideas like

• alternating a minute of flat out riding with a minute or two of recovery
• increasing speed by 1mph per minute until it's unsustainable (I did from 20 mph to 30 mph the other day and that was enough for now!)

For pedalling technique, I guess that just generally riding on rollers will make me smoother (a bit like riding fixed forces you to be smoother or you bounce at higher cadence), and the one-foot pedalling seems to improve technique a little but feels so unnatural it's hard to maintain for very long.

Anyone got any ideas to share?

[Kim]

I taught myself to pedal with one foot while recovering from a knee injury, and would say that it's made a substantial improvement to my technique (as well as being a generally useful skill to have when riding two-wheeled recumbents).  It quickly shows up where one leg is weaker than the other.  Well worth persevering with.

[greenmeansgo]

I gave it another go last night and noticed that my left leg can do it ok (not all that smooth, but I'm putting some power down all through the revolution) but I couldn't do it with my right leg. After the push down, I was struggling to keep up with the spinning of the wheel and got a horrible slack phase before the freehub engaged again somewhere around pedal at 12 o'clock. I have much to work on!

It's not a huge surprise really as I've had pain in that calf cycling for a while and I'm trying various things to relieve this. I guess easing off is one of those things that's resulted!

[cornelius]

Many thanks for the information/suggestions particularly on the monopedal techniques and fan wheel effects of gaffer tape.

As you say, not much info hereabouts on training with rollers. This is what I've been up to in the barn:
After several 30mins (by the tin clock) 'spinning' sessions to familiarise myself with rollers technique I splashed out on a cheapo bike computer. I started doing a daily routine of 10kms keeping above 20kph with the penultimate kilometre at 25kph. This felt comfortable after few days so I upped it to 15kms with the same speeds. When this gets comfy I'll up this again to 20kms and introduce further intervals at a higher speed (i.e. at 3km, 8km, 13km and 18km). Then it's up to 25kph average with 30kph intervals.

The weather here in Wester Ross is still character building so little/no road work for me yet but the rollers are providing 2 wheeled entertainment in the long dark evenings. Failed to get an entry for LEL so we're aiming at another long and winding road for 2013 - on 3 wheels naturally...